Once upon a time there was a book entitled, “The Mouse That Roared”. The book was adapted to a hilarious movie starring Peter Sellers. The premise is that a small country has its livelihood destroyed by an American company. The little country sees no other way out but to declare war on the U.S. hoping that the U.S. will rebuild its economy like we did for Germany and Japan after WWII. I won’t spoil the plot any further but to say that “The Mouse” was far more successful than its leaders ever dreamed. It is a riotous case study for the law of unintended consequences.
A little closer to home we find another war being waged by a kingdom represented by a mouse. Vying the Donald for the most regressive low life pond scum elected official, Florida governor Ron DeSantis is working furiously to prove to the Republican party that it is he that is better equipped to bring America back to horse and buggy days. The Donald makes a racist, misogynistic, homophobic statement and DeSantis says, “Here, hold my beer.” Honest!
DeSantis just banned fifty-four math text books for the publisher’s attempt at “indoctrinating” children. Apparently one of the book burners read about the transitive property and decided that Florida’s school children would have none of that. In the words of Inigo Montoya, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Sadly, ignorance is self-perpetuating as well as its own reward.
In an attempt to protect the children of Florida from being exposed to any discussion about sexuality, DeSatan has signed into law Florida House Bill 1557. The bill, also now forever known as the “Don’t say gay bill”, attempts to keep any discussion out of the classroom about sexual orientation. If a teacher is asked, they can’t tell.
According to the Governor in a Faux News interview, “In the state of Florida, we are not going to allow them to inject transgenderism into kindergarten.” Not content to let one stupid statement die on its own, the future of the Republican party opined, “First graders should not have woke gender ideology imposed in their curriculum, and that is what we are standing for.” That kind of deep analysis puts “if x=y and y=z , then x=z” to shame, doesn’t it?
Enter the mouse that roared. Disney World is known throughout the world as the most plain vanilla wholesome environment that can be imagined. There are princes and princesses and animals that talk and sing. In addition to being one of the largest employers in the state, they also bring in BILLIONS of dollars into the Florida economy. Say “Florida” to anyone in the U.S., particularly the ones under eighteen, and they will say “Disney World.”
As a rule, Disney avoids controversy and attempts to stay in the lane of “Mom and apple pie.” All well and good until their employees decided that HB1557 was nothing more than a hate bill and protested. Back and forth, back and forth and then Disney and all of their family (ABC, ESPN, A&E, Lifetime, The History Channel, and more) decided to support their LGBTQ employees.
Verbal salvos have been launched on both sides and the tiny country that is Disney World has declared war on ignorance and intolerance in Florida. Not to be upstaged, righteous Ron says, “Hold my beer”, and has attempted to get lifted the special considerations given to Disney when they offered to take 25,000 acres of Florida swamp and palmetto palms and turn it into a wonderland.
At this point it is easy to say that Mickey Mouse is more responsive to the needs of his constituents than the Florida legislature. Of course, the Florida legislature and Governor are much more insulated from their customer base than Disney World. While workers at Disney are carrying signs and holding rallies to protect their basic rights, the Republican party in Florida are nudging each other in the ribs and saying, “Hold my beer.”
Makes you wonder which entity is actually living in Fantasyland doesn’t it?
