The short form of my essay on Florida’s HB-1 anti-protest bill will be posted to the Otter Globe and Intelligencer on Sunday, May 2nd. This is the essay that I’ve repeatedly mentioned was driving me up a wall. Below is the first paragraph from that essay. I felt that it can stand alone as an editorial on that bill.

Florida HB-1: Combating public disorder is the infamous anti-protest bill that was was signed into law by Florida Governor Rick DeSantis on April 15th of 2021. For someone who has studied American law, HB-1 is a difficult bill to read. It’s difficult because it makes you question your own sanity. You start to question the conclusions that you’re drawing and thinking “I sound like the guy who goes around insisting the FBI is monitoring his e-mails”. You cannot believe that lawmakers in the United States of America could write a piece of legislation like this. This essay took a very long time to write because of those thoughts and feelings. In the end, I had to realize that I know what I read, and I know how an aggressive prosecutor steeped in Trumpist ideology would try to use that language. Florida HB-1, and similar bills being considered in Republican controlled state legislatures around the country are nothing less than an attempt to turn the United States of America into a Russian style police state, where Civil Rights protesters can be savagely beaten and even murdered by police for exercising their right to speech and assembly. No one who supports Florida HB-1 or any similar measure has any right to claim to support the United States Constitution. Anyone who supports this bill, is an Authoritarian thug, who has no respect for the American people, or the rule of law. Anyone else who has read that bill and had similar feelings, you are not alone.