Florida Poses Threats to Public Health and Free Speech

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Ron DeSantis would like to be President.  DeSantis, a professional politician of the Republican tribe who served three terms in the US House from Florida before winning a close election for governor in 2018, has been involved in some high level political stunts of late as he tries to keep his name in the news.

One of those stunts involves constant skirmishes with the disease experts at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) as they spar over who knows what is best for the health of Floridians - DeSantis and the Florida legislature, or a bunch of scientists and medical people.  DeSantis and the legislature are opposed to things like mandatory masking and social distancing, and the idea of businesses being able to even ask customers if they have been vaccinated against COVID runs completely counter to their notion of what America is all about.

Florida, in fact, passed a state law that forbids businesses inquiring about the vaccination status of customers, and the idea of carrying around papers to prove that you have had your COVID shots - what some GOP politicians sneeringly refer to as a "vaccine passport" - is an anathema to their sense of common decency.

The current political wind blowing from the GOP in Florida is that whether you have had your COVID shots or not is your own damned business - and nobody else's!

(This week Florida is experiencing 1,700 new COVID cases per day, and the deadly and quicker-spreading Delta Variant is just beginning to disperse across the state.)

While many Florida businesses probably share the governor's politically expedient view that businesses should be wide open and damn the consequences, others would no doubt like to behave in a more responsible manner, both for the health and safety of their customers as well as for their employees.  But Ron Desantis and his GOP Tallahassee toadies aren't having it.  Businesses will be open and all customers will be served - and NO ONE may ask about their health status.  Florida's new law, the one that outlaws vaccine passports - sets a fine of up to $5,000 for each time a business dares to ask a customer whether he or she has been vaccinated or not.

And now DeSantis, who must have had an off-day and needed to stir more headlines, is carrying that threat of $5,000 fines over to the cruise ship industry, a major employer and generator of taxes in Florida.  The CDC has just cleared the cruise lines to begin sailing again, and Florida is home to several, although they are usually "flagged" in foreign nations with cheaper taxes,  and most have ports-of-call in Florida.  The cruise ships, which represented one of the first industries that was closed by the pandemic, are anxious to resume sailing, but they realize how quickly the virus can spread on large, self-contained passenger ships, and they want to know that the people who come aboard their ships are virus-free.

Paperwork, please.

Like hell!  counters DeSantis.  He is threatening to impose the $5,000 fines every time a cruise ship company asks a passenger boarding in Florida about their vaccination status.  And DeSantis - and his publicists - mean business!

Norwegian Cruise Lines says it may quit stopping in Florida altogether, and Royal Caribbean is considering honoring the state law but requiring boarding passengers to test for COVID as they come aboard, a plan that is far from foolproof.

Many feel that the political posturing by the governor of Florida and his Republican legislature will inflict longterm harm on the cruise ship industry by lowering the public's confidence in the safety of sailing.

But the cruise ship brouhaha is just one of Florida's more recent political outrages. Last week the legislature passed, and DeSantis signed, a bill that requires students and teachers in Florida's public universities to take a survey designed to reveal their political leanings.  DeSantis describes it as an effort to insure that there is some measure of diversity of political thought in Florida's higher education, while some sources in the legislature said it is an effort to "root out socialism."  The effort, a direct affront to the whole First Amendment notion of free speech, will eventually get bounced by the courts, but meanwhile it is scheduled to begin being enforced Florida in July - and that is later this week!

No doubt some students and faculty members may take their quest for higher education beyond the borders of Florida!

Meanwhile Ron DeSantis still wants to be President of the United States - so it would be a safe bet that more whack-job headlines will be emanating from the state of Florida.   With that - and the crazy Trump family doing their things, collapsing condos, rising sea levels, and the hurricane season just getting started - Florida is likely to be a major part of the national conversation for months to come - and Ron DeSantis may wind up getting more publicity than even he can handle.

If things get too dicey for DeSantis this summer, he can aways get away from it all by taking a cruise - of course he might have to go out-of-state to board the ship - and produce a vaccine passport!