A Plague of Fools: Florida’s War on Sanity

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The state of Florida has proven yet again that it leads the nation in bombast, buffoonery, and backsliding into the intellectual Stone Age.

With the fervor of a medieval mad man and the IQ of a doorstop, republican Governor Ron DeSantis has now declared war not just on science, but on the very concept of civilization itself.

His latest offense? A plan to eradicate all childhood vaccine mandates.

That’s right: polio, measles, tetanus, chickenpox, and Hepatitis B -- those ancient plagues we once defeated—are now poised to make their triumphant return, courtesy of the Sunshine State’s messiah of morons.

Thanks to DeSantis, Florida schools will be required to welcome any child, even if that kid hasn’t been vaccinated against anything. If that child gets sick and spreads his plague to other kids and grownups, oh well.

And if anybody dies, well, that’s just how it goes.

It takes a special kind of political depravity to look at the history of modern medicine—arguably humankind’s biggest triumph—and decide it’s the enemy. But DeSantis, ever the opportunistic oracle to the anti-intellectual, has managed to turn disease into a civil rights issue.

In this Floridian fantasyland, viruses are freedom fighters, bacteria are patriots, and public health is tyranny in drag. One wonders what’s next: will hurricanes be hailed as expressions of meteorological liberty?

Ron DeSantis, of course, is not alone. Standing shoulder to shoulder in this right-wing medical jihad is Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, a man who seems to have acquired his credentials from a backroom seminar held in a gas station.

With the wild-eyed conviction of a snake oil salesman, Ladapo likened childhood vaccines to “slavery”—an analogy so grotesque, so profoundly ahistorical, that it would make even a Confederate re-enactor spit out his chewing tobacco in disbelief.

If vaccines are slavery, then soap must be fascism, seatbelts are shackles, and antibiotics? A war crime.

The sheer lunacy of the “vaccines are slavery” comparison should have sent Ladapo packing to a padded wing of the nearest insane asylum. Instead, in Florida, he gets a state platform, a podium—and republican applause.

Make no mistake: this is not governance. This is theater for the terminally gullible, a calculated pander to the cranks and crackpots who think Dr. Anthony Fauci is the Antichrist and believe “natural immunity” is a plan, not a punchline.

In place of evidence, we get vibes.

In place of policy, paranoia.

And steering this clown car is DeSantis himself, the Ivy League MAGA ventriloquist, eager to burn science at the stake if it wins him a few more votes from the right wing conspiracy crowd.

The consequences, of course, will be paid not by the governor, nor by the MAGA maniacs cheering this madness from the bleachers of Facebook and social media.

Eventually, the bill will come due in kindergarten classrooms and pediatric hospitals, where innocent children—too young to vote, too young to choose—will be left exposed to diseases their great grandparents barely survived.

It is child sacrifice by another name, performed not in the name of progress or necessity, but to appease a political cult addicted to grievance and allergic to reason.

Meanwhile, across the country, actual adults in California, Oregon, and Washington state are forming a coalition to protect public health and uphold evidence-based vaccine policy. While Florida burns its medical textbooks for fuel, other states are choosing to light the way forward.

One can only hope the virus respects state lines.

In the meantime, do not mistake this Florida nuttiness for a mere lapse in judgment. This is not a Florida man throwing a live alligator through a Wendy’s drive through, or a Florida woman storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6 in a scuba mask, or a Floridian who stole an ambulance to drive home from the hospital because he was tired of waiting.

All of those actual incidents were personal dumb-ass choices.

Florida’s government abandoning vaccines mandates for school children is intentional institutional sabotage. It is the gleeful dismantling of the very systems that made mass death a relic of the past.

It is idiocy elevated to doctrine, ignorance enshrined in law, and cowardice paraded as courage.

Once upon a time, the sunshine state was a symbol of vitality, vigor, and family vacations. Now, the state has opted for chaos and abandoning children to the whims of infection.

Instead of creating memories with your kids in the Everglades or on Disney theme park rides including Pirates of the Caribbean, just wait.

Suffering through Sepsis is coming.

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