Okay, Ronald McDonald DeSantis just did something so bass-ackwards and so fucking goofoid that it renders satire impossible.
Okay, so while conservatives are crying that liberals are "censoring" things (what things nobody's quite sure of since all the things are still there, but boy howdy they’re definitely doing it, because liberals, amirite?) and destroying freedom (without being able to provide any real examples of what they can and can't do anymore... well, at least none that liberals took away from 'em. If you can’t have a good time fucking in Texas anymore, hey, that ain’t on us, brah), conservative "heroes" are actively taking away rights, banning books, forbidding the teaching of certain parts of history, and now (surely to protect us from ourselves!) they're censoring parts of the spectrum!
And it's all part of what they're calling…
"Freedom Summer"!
Ah, dear George Orwell, (and hell, George Carlin, while we’re invoking Georges), if only you were still around to see this…
Gov. Ron DeSantis bravely saves Floridians from exposure to nonpatriotic bridges
Rex Huppke, USA TODAY
Thu, May 23, 2024 at 3:31 AM CDT·3 min read
851
Like most American patriots, I live in constant fear of seeing a bridge or causeway lit up in colors other than red, white and blue.
That’s why I’m standing atop a tall stack of Donald-Trump-endorsed Bibles and applauding heroic Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for banning all lights that aren’t red, white and blue from bridges across the state as part of his “Freedom Summer” initiative.
Nothing says freedom quite like telling people they can only use three government-approved colors! This is America, people. We can’t just light up our infrastructure in whatever colors we want.
….
As soon as this great news was announced, the libs got all bent out of shape just because the state-ordered ban on certain colors happens to coincidentally and by total accident overlap with Pride Month in June.
…..
Some also accused the governor of trying to co-opt the name “Freedom Summer.”
Noted liberal Bill Kristol posted on social media: “Anyone else find DeSantis’s appropriation of the phrase ‘Freedom Summer’ kind of grotesque? From the noble and courageous effort to allow blacks to register to vote in Mississippi in 1964 to the faux patriotic lighting of bridges in Florida 2024?”
I don’t where all that so-called historical information he’s referring to came from. But it’s certainly not anything Gov. DeSantis would allow to appear in Florida’s history textbooks.
I recognize this gambit. It's part of the ol' "you'll start to like us if we just keep cramming our crap down your throat enough!" plan that I know has worked really well for the Southern Baptists who've been obnoxiously trying it on me just about every day of my life.
Got nothin' against red, white, and blue. And I love the flag (the American one, not the French one — get your own colors, copychats!). In fact, I love it so much that I will NOT wear it as part of clothing, unlike these fine examples of fellow citizenry:
...because I see making clothes out of the flag as incredibly disrespectful. I still remember when people got outraged about Peter Fonda wearing one on his jacket in Easy Rider. Meanwhile, today there's hardly a Trumper alive who doesn't have at least one piece of a flag somewhere in their house with their skidmarks on it. As is their right, even though I disapprove. But, I get it: gotta have something to wear to those Trump rallies, which they love because where else are they gonna see other people like themselves? I mean, look at those folks. Where else do those two ever get to be typical? GG Allin is dead! A Trump rally is the only option they have left. I mean, god, finally a scuzzwad-friendly environment! After all those times being escorted out of Denny’s, a Trump rally must seem like Disneyworld.
Still, though, great colors, great flag, I like it. But part of what I like about the flag is it lets people pick other colors, too, if they want 'em. Red-white-blue aren't the only freedoms people have, so outlawing other colors is limiting. I mean, reasonable people can set a few boundaries (don’t stab people with a fork, don’t pee in the street, etc.), but overall, freedom doesn’t like limiting much when there’s no reason to limit. The Pride flag is freedom. Green is freedom to say "kiss me I'm Irish." Pink can mean freedom to try to get rid of breast cancer. Blue can mean support the police, if you'd like (not all freedom has to be just one of my gigs, y’know). Orange can mean "go Gators!" or “Go Vols!” There's a lot of other colors that can represent freedoms in... y'know, a free country. America’s big-crayon-box-with-a-sharpener-on-the-back territory. More colors, more options, more better.
But, ah, not to conservatives.
Every day it gets harder and harder to figure out what "freedoms" conservatives actually support (especially after reading up on their Project 2025 thing, which wants to kill off a whole bunch of rights -- go look into that horrorshow if you've missed it). Not sure what freedoms they're actually for. Okay, there's "absolutely anybody can have any gun they want, no matter how stupid it is for a citizen to have it." Because lord knows I need me a minigun to protect my 'mater patch from varmits and interlopers, even if shooting it for over ten seconds will probably cost ya your year's salary in ammo.
Admit it, it looks like a lotta fun, and the potential to wipe out St. Louis in a minute and a half is no reason to deny a fella fun, now is it? Seems reasonable. Also, I want an Apache helicopter because they looked cool in this movie I saw. I don’t know how to fly it, but I figure I’ll get the hang of it, how hard can it be?
So, there's that freedom. I'm a gun guy, but still think a limit on certain weapons and a much tighter control over who gets any of 'em would be a really smart idea. If you're a nut and hear voices and think aliens want you to kill redheads, then maaaaaybe we should limit you to peashooters, buddy. Also, does anybody really think that if the "we need guns to protect ourselves from an oppressive government" argument would actually work, Republicans wouldn't be the first ones trying to take your guns away? They’re already trying to take your vote away because they see that as a bigger threat to ‘em than yer Armalite. Pretty clear that they know "we'll take down the government" is bullshit. They're letting right-wingers keep their guns because having them pacifies ‘em and they know they’re not a serious threat to the real power structure... and they're more likely to use 'em to kill liberals, anyway, and they're all for that (although they can't come out and say so... yet. When they do, Marjorie Taylor Greene will be the first, she won rock-scissors-paper with Tucker Carlson, so she has dibs).
Here’s how “we’ll fight the government” movie scenes play out in real life:
militia dude - "Hey, I've got the newest HK 416 with laser scopes and drum mags and supressor and night vision and the full tricked-out package! It's a BEAST! Government, you better not fuck around with me, I’m Billy F. Badass, baby! Molon labe!"
Government - "*squelch* MQ-9 Reaper en route."
Enjoy the Hellfires, kids. They'll end all yer "Wolverinnnnnes!" fantasies real real quick.
But, anyway, that's definitely ONE freedom they want. Even if they seem to understand it less than anyone else.
Oh, and they DEFINITELY wanna be able to say the N-word! Why they want it so badly I don't know, but it really seems to mean a LOT to them, a thing that's really holding them back from living up to their full potential. And the f-word (not "fuck," that one is on every other tee-shirt they own — no, they want the other one, the gay one) and then the ones that are mean to Mexicans and Asians and, god, can't they please say the “r-tard" one, they LOVE saying THAT one! And since with the power of small (tee-hee, not really) government they'll put an end to "wokeness" and "political correctness" it'll mean nobody's able to think that they're a huge fucking asshole for saying all that stuff... because the government can do that, in the conservative mind. It's only the government's fault that people don't like them when they're acting like a major shitcannon. But really, here in the real world, "I get to say racist shit and nobody's allowed to dislike me or not want me around" is not a freedom it's possible for anyone to have. They're thinking of superpowers, and those aren't real.
Face the sad fact, Republicans -- you'll never get to be the dick you wanna be while not getting the consequences that dicks get. That's just human nature. Not even Donald Trump can help you. I know you think "mind control" is a thing (because wow does it work on YOU), but other people are always still going to be able to think what they want. And, however DeSantis tries to cut off all the sharp corners and make the world Nerf for you, people are still going to think you're an asshole when you're an asshole.
Even Matt Gaetz, mighty as y'all seem to think he is, is not going to be able to fix that for you.
By the way, Matt Gaetz is an asshole.
Let’s see… oh yeah, there's the "freedom to worship," which nobody's actually taking away from 'em (because that’d be impossible, since you can do it in your head), but which they, more and more, are seeking the power to force on everyone else and codify into law (while complaining about the "nanny state" because irony is deader’n the worm in RFK Jr's dead brain).
"Make everybody else be a Christian too" is not actually a freedom you have, guys. Nor should it be. Nor is "make anything that would upset a Christian be illegal," because... well, the Taliban tried that with their own version of let's-play-pretend and it kinda threw their civilization back a few hundred years and when’s the last time you saw a happy Jihadi? Never. So, nope. Not even a thing you should be wishin’ for. It will bring you sad.
Oh, and they want the freedom to keep anybody else out of the country. They're REALLY scared of that. That's not really pro-freedom, though, is it? "For me, not thee" is not really "freedom," it's privilege.
This pretty well sums all that up more than I'll try to:
And... that's about it, really, as far as conservative concern for freedom goes. Those things. Just about everything else they're willing to give up, and take away from you. Especially if you're a woman, or a gay person, or have more melanin than they're comfortable with, or speak a language they don't understand, like Spanish or Farsi or English-With-A-Decent-Vocabulary (oooo, they hate college!). Or are just generally odd. Why don’t you like Lee Greenwood and that Pillow fella?!? They’re so nice!
Oh, they seem to like gas stoves and diesel trucks a real whole big bunch, but nobody's actually trying to take those things away from them, they're just recommending that other things would be better. But they don’t understand that. Whooo, buddy, I bet they pitched a big ol' goes-to-eleven fit when them meanie liberals took away the yummy lead paint and red dye #3. "Who cares about cancer, I want my KoolAid to look purdy! And them Lawn Darts is fun, if it kills one of my kids, well, that's why we got eight more! Stupid liberals! Outlaw contraceptives and bring back Lawn Darts! Ain't nobody gon' tell me I cain't drink gasoline or shoot bottle rockets up my butt if I want to! And I will, damn ya, just out of spite!"
Bye, Cleetus. You weren’t fun while you lasted.
They also hate "regulations" because, hey, they like a little doo-doo mixed in with their chicken if it saves the guy running the processing plant a couple bucks, or a little chemical-that-can’t-be-pronounced in their water supply if it means the guy makin’ Dodge Ram 1500’s gets another island for his collection. So a few kids die, better than making that billionaire a slightly-less-of-a-billionaire. Damn Communists, not wanting to eat dung or cockroach legs, like they’re too good for it. Liberals act like they don’t even like tumors. I ain’t gotta be ON the team to take one for the team, do I?
I'm sure there's some other freedom conservatives treasure that I'm forgetting about. Oh, yeah, the rape one. They seem to wanna lessen the laws against raping, much as they rail against the "me too" thing. They seem to attack victims way more than perpetrators on that one, and even going so far as to say the victim has to have the rapist's baby if that comes up. So I’m pretty sure that’s on their list of freedoms they want. Meanwhile, my so-called liberal stance is "the best rape whistle is a shotgun." For which I'm called a "Commie."
Anyway, one freedom they for SURE don’t need is a full spectrum of color. Too much like “diversity.” If DeSantis finds a way to filter the sun so nothing but red white and blue shows anywhere, then hell yeah, buddy, sign ‘em up. Tell ya what, they’ll trade you contraception for it!
So, anyway, yeah… coming soon: FREEDOM™ SUMMER! *
* "Freedom" is to be defined by the provider, not the purchaser, may not be available in all areas, limited time only, void where prohibited, purchase required, must be 18 or older and white and male, product may be different than pictured in the advertisement, use at your own risk, all warranties invalid if "Freedom" not used in ways approved by local clergy.