I found this long comment posted on my Facebook wall a few days ago.
I told Jen First (Jen Ealy), that I would respond to her in due time.
And now I have. Her comments are in regular type. My responses are in bold type.
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Friends,
Ron DeSantis has officially launched his campaign for president of the United States. You’re going to hear him talk a lot about “freedom” during the primary season leading up to the 2024 election. Here are a few things to remember.
As a Navy lawyer, Ron DeSantis advocated for force-feeding Guantánamo prisoners through their noses, a practice the UN Commission on Human Rights has designated as torture.
He did not do that. He had nothing to do with any of those tactics.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3978015-desantis-fumes-over-former-guantanamo-detainees-torture-claims-totally-bs/
As a congressman, DeSantis repeatedly voted to gut Social Security and Medicare — programs that give Americans the freedom to live and retire with dignity — calling them “unsustainable.”
They are unsustainable. He has declared that people should get back what they paid in, and give younger people a choice to investment their own money somewhere else.
As governor, DeSantis has failed to free Floridians from the fear of gun violence. Gun crime went up 20% in his first year in office. DeSantis’ answer to rising gun violence? Signing permitless concealed carry into law, which has been shown to increase gun violence.
Your stats are wrong, way off. Constitutional carry jurisdictions have lower crime rates and less crime. Only urban areas run by Democrats have higher crime rates, and that is all due to the lax law enforcement policies.
DeSantis has waged an all out war on freedom of speech. His “Don’t Say Gay” and “Stop W.O.K.E” laws censoring teachers and school books have literally left some school library shelves empty.
Kids are a captive audience in schools, and they should not be subject to indoctrination. The First Amendment is not a freedom to groom or harm children.
DeSantis has attacked Floridians’ freedom to control their own bodies. He and his rubber-stamp legislature have banned abortion after 6 weeks — before many would even know they’re pregnant. DeSantis and the Florida GOP have also banned life-saving gender affirming care for minors, and even restricted it for adults.
“My body, my choice” is a hollow fraud when one considers real science and biology. When a woman is pregnant, there is ANOTHER body inside of her, and no one has the right to terminate the innocent life of another body.
DeSantis has so badly failed to protect the freedom of minorities to exist safely in the state that the NAACP has issued a travel advisory warning that Florida is “openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals.”
The NAACP is a hate group that is brain-dead on racial issues.
https://capitalresearch.org/article/naacp-harms-the-black-community-part-1/
They are still living in the Jim Crow past, because they would be out of business if they acknowledged that lives and livelihoods have improved for Americans of all backgrounds. Thomas Sowell talks about this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSJxyVJjAfk
For the record, they admit that this is all politics:
NAACP president explains why the group issued Florida travel advisory – POLITICO
Oh, and the NAACP leaders LIVE in Florida while saying it’s not a great state. Hypocrisy, much?
DeSantis signed a law that lets doctors and insurers deny nearly any health care service on “religious” or “moral” grounds, potentially letting providers turn away LGBTQ+ people, those with disabilities, and even single mothers.
It’s called the First Amendment, Freedom of Religion. LGBT behaviors are not an identity, but aberrations borne out of abuse, neglect, confusion, molestation, or shame. Florida Senator Ilena Garcia said it all: “LGBT is not forever.” Stop pushing anti-science lies, and stop abusing hurting people.
DeSantis has attacked the freedom of workers to organize, signing a law that weakens unions. The law will make it more difficult for unions to collect dues, impose costly financial audits that could unduly burden smaller unions, and will make it harder for unions to remain certified and to bargain for better pay and working conditions for the workers they represent.
People are free to join unions in the state of Florida. They cannot be forced to join a union as a condition of employment. Furthermore, those same unions must prove that they are serving their members by calling for recertification elections and they have to request dues from each member, rather than taking them out of the paychecks right away.
DeSantis has even attacked the freedom of the press. His team successfully lobbied to get a Pulitzer Prize nominated reporter fired for criticizing a press release about DeSantis’ efforts to end college diversity programs.
Not true, and the legislature’s bill to tax lobbying was killed.
DeSantis has used the power of the state to suppress free speech and effectively attempt to extort bribes from businesses. Don’t forget, his war on Disney is only happening because they criticized his “Don’t Say Gay law” and said they would stop donating campaign cash to Florida candidates. DeSantis tried to take over Disney’s municipal district, replacing its governing board with hand-picked cronies, including high-dollar campaign donors and a violently homophobic former pastor who said tap water could be turning people gay. Disney says DeSantis’ vendetta against them is putting $17 billion of planned investment in the state at risk. It’s already killed a project that was estimated to bring 2,000 jobs to Florida.
Disney went woke, and tried to use its political power to allow for the grooming and indoctrination of children. The state should work for the people, not for Big Business or other special interests. Disney is now playing by the same rules as every other business. Why is that a problem for you?
DeSantis did not kill Disney jobs. Disney killed Disney jobs by releasing one bad movie after another and engaging in a culture war with the public that the public will not tolerate. Disney has a long history of hiring sexual deviants and predators, with a growing number of employees getting arrested and convicted for child porn and predatory acts. That is not DeSantis’ fault. That is Disney’s fault.
DeSantis has also attacked America’s most basic freedom: the right to vote. In 2021, DeSantis signed a law that instituted a slew of changes to Florida elections — including making voter registration more difficult, modifying rules for observers in ways that could disrupt election administration, and restricting the ability to provide snacks and water to voters waiting in line.
Election integrity reforms ensure that every vote counts, and everyone who should be able to vote, gets to vote. If you take away safeguards for elections, it leads to rampant voter fraud.
No matter what you may hear, DeSantis is not an “alternative” to Trump. Both candidates are the product of a party that has become so addicted to seeking power at any price that it has abandoned the most basic principles of democracy and freedom.
Political parties and politics in general is about gaining power. I cannot believe you haven’t learned this lesson. Have you not seen what the Democratic Party has been doing for the last ten years?
Folks, this isn’t about Democrats versus Republicans anymore. Or Left versus Right. It’s about democracy versus authoritarianism, protecting freedoms versus taking them away. The 2024 election is fast approaching. Know the stakes.
The United States is a constitutional republic. You just failed fifth-grade civics. We need more constitutionalism, not more mob rule.
DeSantis is a Swamp Creature, RINO:
Trump is:
https://www.businessinsider.com/karl-rove-helping-trump-campaign-2020-5
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/17/trump-2020-karl-rove-324914
What are your thoughts?
DeSantis 2024