ONE OF THESE THINGS is not like the other, and if The Law is too stupid to navigate that difference, the worst or those things will win. That's the superlative because it is superlatively worse than it is presented.
Of course I agree with Ari Melber that the Tennessee drag show ban is wrong and should be overturned as an infringement on something, though I think calling what we choose to wear in public "speech" is, frankly, stupid. I say that even though I've seen a lot of drag shows that are extremely offensive and some that were innocuous fun and a few which were very clever. Like all kinds of show-biz, it's about 98% crap for 2% good.
I disagree with his contention that what it's about is a demonstration of power by Republican-fascists in a state their hold on power is probably as secure as it can get. It has nothing to do with the power to enforce the law, I think even the Republican-fascist majority on the Supreme Court will strike it down if it's ever enforced, maybe even the Tennessee Supreme Court would.
What it's about is appealing to Republican-fascist and other LGBTQ+ bigots, it's a piece of legal agitprop to encourage them to give money to bigots, both those running for office and those others who rope in, mainly, cabloid TV watching elders who probably shouldn't have a credit card and an internet hookup without competent guardianship. It is a stunt-law which has nothing to do with much else. It's like the idiots in the House who Kevin McCarthy put on important committees wasting time by trying to provoke Democrats into voting against saying the pledge of allegiance. Of course, in that case Democrats could reliably be counted on to vote for saying the meaningless thing. Meaningless because it's certainly never led to a Republican-fascist not giving their allegiance to Putin, billionaires, the fascist dictator of Hungary . . . even as they screw the United States.
I even more disagree with Melber's extremely stupid citation of allowing Nazis to organize, to campaign, etc. because "The First Amendment." I violently disagree with him because it's not a mere question of "OFFENSIVE SPEECH" as it really is whether or not people dress up in drag. If they want to see offensive dress and over the top makeup they couldn't do worse than look at what Kimberly Guilfoyle appeared in at CPAC last weekend. She looked like she was trying out to play the lead in The Divine Story (John Waters, take a hint, take it live to Nashville and you might make history).
Nazis openly, always, by self-definition intend to FRICKIN' KILL PEOPLE. White supremacists really do what the history of the United States proves they are entirely able to do, get power through elections, persuading enough people to do everything from discriminate against people to keeping them from voting to enslaving them to, yes, FUCKING KILL PEOPLE. And to control the laws and manipulate the politics to allow even lynch mobs to get away with that. There's all the difference in the world between Nazis and white supremacists and people who like to cross-dress, whether tastefully and subtly (I've seen a few who you'd never guess until they spoke) or in a parody of Bishop Raymond Burke or Kimberly Guilfoyle, a light-year over the top.
To pretend that we must allow Nazis to do here what we know they did in Europe within just barely living memory and what our native equivalent, white supremacists have done here throughout our history AND TODAY in order that harmless drag performers and cross dressers can do their thing with the cops leaving them to it (I am sure there are cops in Tennessee who enjoy drag shows, even as I'm not exactly a fan) is something so stupid that I think you need to have had training at an accredited American law school to think that it's impossible to discern and enforce the difference.
Ari Melber isn't naturally stupid enough to believe that Nazis and drag queens are equally innocuous. Or maybe you have to be a member of the ACLU or the United States Supreme Court to be that stupid. His own report using footage of the Charlottesville Nazi thugs proves he knows they're not.
Laws distinguishing and administering and enforcing far more subtle differences than people who might want to dress funny and OTHER PEOPLE WHO FREAKIN' WANT TO KILL PEOPLE, to allow one and not the other to try to get an audience. If it came to a matter of ownership of money or property, judges and "justices" can take the most minute care in adjudication in the matter. When it comes to Nazis or the Klan organizing to control the state and put their agenda into effect as opposed to someone who wants to dress funny, no, they claim they couldn't possibly be trusted to make that distinction. Drag queens might lead their audience to take a stroll on the wild side though I'd expect hardly any do, to try it out, Nazis and white supremacists want their audience to vote the like of the Republican-fascist majority in the Tennessee government into office to do far worse than making cross-dressing illegal. If you think that's not a real and present danger, what part of the white-supremacists and worse are running the party in most of the states and have control of the House and the Supreme Court now don't you get. If you want other examples, look at how Republican-fascists poisoned People in Flint Michigan, kept Black People from voting in a myriad of American States in the last election. If the Bill of Rights can't protect We The People from being poisoned by our state governments, its value is way overestimated.
To make believe that we have to always, forever, allow our own, grotesquely and murderously effective form of fascism, white supremacists, the foreign import of Nazism the chance to gain power and hurt people because a bunch of property-owning white-guys voted into office by property-owning white guys (in many states only Protestant ones) in the 1790s were too clueless to make those kinds of distinctions as they wrote the First Amendment is far more dangerous than any drag show where the worst that can happen is someone might sprain their ankle when their heel breaks. It's as dangerous as the lynch mobs incited by the free speech of white supremacists, as dangerous as those incited by online hate speech to kill People, as dangerous as those who were persuaded to vote for Trump by lies and appeals to their racism. Frankly, I think one thing can be trusted, it is that the propertied white men, the slave holders the financiers could be counted on to not protect the truth as much as the lies that their hold on power and wealth depended on.
The lawyers, the judges, the "justices" the media figures who don't want to have to go to the bother to fact-check what they put out even as they don't intend to ever support violence, themselves, but who pretend these differences are not real enough, THAT THE HISTORY OF VIOLENT SPEECH BECOMING MURDER, THAT THE HISTORY OF LIES DOESN'T TURN INTO THE WORST KINDS OF GOVERNMENT should be answerable for their epic misfeasance, their malfeasance, their non-feasance and, frankly, their knowing dishonesty on that count. I'm especially disgusted with those in allegedly liberal media who never, ever seem to learn from the very reporting they've been doing for years, reporting the results of the kind of "free speech" "free-press" that more than just permits dangerous speech and organizing to happen, it helps it gain political power.
As an LGBTQ+ person of the kind who is the target of the Republican-fascists, I really don't want the support of such figures because their wider agenda is what have led us to where the country is, today. I think that the eras of slavery, Jim Crow, lynch-law, native-American genocide, widespread discrimination and violence against people base on their ethnicity, even more widespread discrimination and violence and murder against LGBTQ+ People, the evergreen of hate-talk media and groups that the Republican-fascists are hoping to make money off of and ride into power prove overwhelmingly that not only can it happen here, IT CAN BE COUNTED ON TO HAPPEN HERE. I don't want people to have to live with that possibility because lawyers, judges, "justices" and journalists value the ability of white supremacists and Nazis to do what they're trying to do over our lives, our legitimate rights, our right to equality and a decent, peaceful life.
No comments:
Post a Comment