(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Ron DeSantis: A Warning From History [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-01-18 It is appalling that Ron DeSantis is governing a state. And worse, that people were foolish enough to vote that man in. Creating a campaign of hate and intolerance should NEVER, EVER, be part of a Democracy. And yet his campaign of discrimination has been copied by the governors of other states. My fear is that such elimination of intellectual diversity is just one more step in destroying Democracy in this country, changing a once open melding of cultures and ideas to a repressive police state, could be one step away from a totalitarian government. Don’t think that it’s happening in Florida? Look at how the board of directors are about to ban Sociology. Think it can’t happen in this country? DeSantis’s banning of certain books by transgender, gay, African American, and women authors is a direct violation of our rights to free speech and expression. What will be next? Book burnings? They are already happening also. In Tennessee in 2021 there was a public book burning headed by, not surprisingly, a conservative minister, Gary Locke. Supposedly now there have been 1000 books banned in eighty-six school districts in 26 states. President Trump was quoted after the failure of the second impeachment attempt on him as saying, literally, “I am King! I am King!” Does that sound like the words of a president or a wannabe dictator? “Those that forget the past will be condemned to repeat it” was a wise saying indeed. What if it could be happening in this country? The truth is we’re already beyond the ‘what if.’ It IS happening again and in a country that once used to value human rights is the supreme irony of all. And if there are politicians and people who refuse to believe that this country is on the verge of fascism and look the other way, someone else will have the last laugh. That ‘someone else’ in the 1930’s was Adolf Hitler. People made fun of the fledgling Nazi party, and particularly Hitler’s toothbrush mustache. By 1934, they weren’t laughing anymore when Hitler had himself declared Chancellor of Germany. A very wise man, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, warned society eighty years ago that even well-educated people could fall prey to what he described as a type of societal stupidity. Bonhoeffer stated that even intelligent people could look the other way or worse respond with apathy to growing threats to human rights and freedoms in a country’s government. What happens in a government when politicians are more concerned with the money they make and their status more than ethically and morally doing the responsible thing? Bonhoeffer openly spoke out against the Nazis...and paid the ultimate price with his torture and execution at their hands. People in this country, to me, are obviously not heeding the lessons and warnings from history and all too eager to embrace people supporting repressive measures in this country. If people are foolish and ignorant enough to deny the warnings of history what will happen in this country? Take a good guess. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/1/18/2218182/-Ron-DeSantis-A-Warning-From-History?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/