1984 was a novel written by English author, George Orwell, who penned the iconic dystopian social science fiction tale in 1944.
The novel has shocked societies worldwide with it's premise of a totalitarian future society that employees people to re-write history daily.
Orwell's chilling prophecy where the State controls all the narratives in society is beginning to materialize in 2021.
The Trumpified Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently signed a bill requiring public universities to survey both faculty and students on their political beliefs.
Full stop.
The state is forcing universities to give it the survey results, and if they're "not satisfactory (?)" they will lose their funding in the Republican-led legislature.
No other state has ever taken this bold and unprecedented assault on our schools of higher learning.
The bill lacks details on the survey's privacy protections, and questions arise over how the results will be used.
The bill's sponsor, state Sen. Ray Rodrigues, claims faculty will not be promoted or fired based on their responses.
I call bullshit on that assertion. You know why? It's not in the wording of the bill for one reason. The other is DeSantis is a liar of Trumpian proportions.
While signing the bill, DeSantis claimed universities promote left-wing ideologies and discriminate against conservative students as well.
Cry me a damn river!
When pressed by reporters, DeSantis did not offer any specific examples pf repression and discrimination faced by conservative students.
He resorted to a favorite Trumpian dodging maneuver by asserting he "knows lot of parents."
Where was WH Press Secretary Jen Psaki when you needed her? She has a way of handling right-wing reporters when they pull that stunt, "I heard it somewhere."
She then asks them to detail "where they heard their claim?" When they can't answer, she moves on to the next question.
One more thing the bill does is open up an opportunity for conspiracy clowns by preventing school officials from limiting campus speech that "may be uncomfortable, disagreeable, offensive, or outright lies."
It won't be long before Florida university students are going to be confronted by the KKK, other white supremacists, the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, QAnon acolytes, and hard core Trumpies spewing lies that will go unchallenged.
This is a Rubicon moment where public universities either go without state-funding, or they kowtow and sell out their students to the worst elements in our society.
Because the majority of funding comes from the State (there are federal and private funding options to a lesser degree) it looks like no contest.
The only alternative I see for students who don't want to play Big Brother's game is NOT TO GO to any universities in Florida.
Now, I'm waiting for DeSantis to introduce legislation that will make Florida a sovereign nation, and succeed from the union.
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