It is my great sorrow to report again that the Arkansas State Legislature is still in session. And, as I reported last week in my deathless prose style, it is the usual cauldron of stupid. Actually, I take that back. It is a transcendent cauldron of stupid.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one. I believe I may be repeating myself. But then again, I’m too lazy to fact-check myself.
I have an acquaintance who served in that august body years ago on the Senate side. He described the legislature to me once as a cross-section of Arkansas. “You have the professional types like lawyers. You have small town business folks. You have educators and farmers. And then you have your dumbasses.”
Likewise, I have a friend who once was a lobbyist. He told me that the key to understanding the Ledge is to think of it as a collection of mischievous children. He said you’ve got to give them enough to keep them busy. Otherwise, they will start thinking up stuff on their own and that’s when the trouble starts.
The last two grafs look awfully familiar to me the more I think about it. Oh well, I can live with plagiarizing myself.
Well, the dumbasses, now in ascendant glory the Ledge, have had time on their hands the last week or so. So, with no issues of substance to divert their attention they got distracted by the shiny objects of bigotry and spurious science.
Let me count the ways. They have banned trans kids from competing in women’s sports, a problem even the dumbasses concede is non-existent in this state. They took it upon themselves to override the Governor’s veto of a bill handed up to him banning the medical treatment of gender dysphoria in kids younger than 18, even with parental consent, and they passed what the overwhelmingly white and male membership considered to be an acceptable version of a “hate crimes” bill which is remarkable in that it pretty much applies to everybody instead of defined protected classes.
Unlike the solons on Woodlane who have winding off at the podium about “protection of children” and such I typically try not to talk about stuff that I don’t understand. And I don’t understand much about the trans world. So I won’t address those issues. And, I confess that I am somewhat conflicted about “hate crimes” legislation in general as it can have worrisome 1st Amendment implications. But I can say that whatever the dumbasses passed last week wasn’t a true “hate crimes” bill by any stretch of the imagination.
So let’s get to what I do understand.
I confess that I was surprised, and I’m surprised that I was surprised, when a bill was introduced that would require the teaching of-hello darkness my old friend-creation science in the public schools.
Some lessons are never learned. If memory serves, I had just gotten back to Little Rock around 1983 when the late Governor Frank White signed the first creation science bill into law. A bill that he famously admitted to having not read before signing. As night followeth the day, a lawsuit was filed and the law was predictably struck down as a violation of the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment. And the great state of Arkansas was on the hook for attorney’s fees and costs.
As will likely be the case again if this thing makes it up to the Governor and he signs it or his veto is overridden again.
Here’s why. I invite you to consider a Facebook post written by a childhood friend who is a physician. “Creation science is not science,” he wrote. “Teach it in church. Teach it in Sunday School. But don’t teach it in the classroom.” Not to put too fine a point on it, creation science is religion disguised as science. And forcing it on classrooms is, as alluded to above, is tantamount to the establishment of religion which the state cannot do.
So why does the Ledge persist in such madness such as the creation science bill and the anti-trans bills knowing full well the State is going to get sued sideways over them?
Easy. The individual legislators have no financial stake in the outcome. No real skin in the game. Any fees and costs will come from the taxpayers whose interests they are allegedly looking out for. It’s a lot easier to be principled when there’s no real financial downside to it.
So, meanwhile here we go again repeating history over here in East Alabama. Back to being a laughing stock again.
Oh well. We’re good at it.
