The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Mack Butler ®, said the bill is necessary to “purify the schools” of “some indoctrination going on,” ABC News reported.
“[LGBTQ+ discussions and flags are] a component of Marxism where we’re – you know – destroying the family and teaching some of these things. Let it happen somewhere else other than our schools.” Butler said.
I thought being scared and calling everything you didn’t like “communism” went out of style in the 1980s. Apparently not in Alabama.
Ok, surely this is a violation of the first amendment. This is clearly the government restricting speech. Wait, nope. It’s the government ensuring its employees don’t promote speech it doesn’t like. Fuck.
It feels like overturning Roe vs. Wade in 2022 was a signal flare to lawmakers about what they could legitimately expect to get away with as long as the current SCOTUS judges sit. Since then it seems every few weeks I’m reading about new laws or proposed laws that would push the nation into the past by removing personal freedoms, punishing speech, removing job protections, etc. This is another example - librarians aren’t an existential threat and books should only be banned for really, really good reasons and boys holding hands isn’t one.
The USA needs a way for the citizens to hold national and state Supreme Court Justices accountable or at least force a review of their decisions. Right now I’m told that the only mechanism is impeachment, which happened once in 1803.
I wouldn’t ask you to do my research for me, but do you have a starting point, like a search term, for some? I can only find articles like this one, “A Supreme Court Accountable to No One”, which details the difficulties reigning in SCOTUS judges.
Yeah, like I said in my other post about missing the point - I suspected but was hoping for something more legitimate since my knowledge is not nearly exhaustive. Once you start employing “alternatives” things can go downhill fast. Imagine the mess if the Jan 6th insurrection had actually been effective in some way for instance.
I know that, but if “might makes right” was suddenly a thing it would be a big mess. My point was we probably don’t want to be bringing assassination/violence into the discussion about checks and balances, even if it comes with a wink, because there are definitely folks who will consider it.
I guess. I understood what might have been said, but I was hoping it was something legitimate that I just didn’t know (which is a lot given I’m a) Canadian and b) not a lawyer/governmental expert). “Other mechanisms” tend to be messy, and once they’re on the table things can go to crap fast.
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