Of course I agree with Ari Melber that the Tennessee drag show ban is wrong and should be overturned as an infringement on something, though I think calling what we choose to wear in public "speech" is, frankly, stupid. I say that even though I've seen a lot of drag shows that are extremely offensive and some that were innocuous fun and a few which were very clever. Like all kinds of show-biz, it's about 98% crap for 2% good.Part of the problem with the legislation (undoubtedly an ALEC production, or someone like ALEC) is the veiled attempt to avoid First Amendment scrutiny by labeling the banned drag shows in question as containing "sexual content" of a type unsuitable for some persons.
In other words, it's porn; and porn ain't free speech.
It's a load of crap, of course, because they can't even define what "drag" is. And probably many a drag show is not that entertaining or high-brow or morally uplifting (or sexually arousing), but have you seen the stuff on TeeVee, Cable, Satellite, streaming services, and in the movie theaters? And drag is the pervasive moral problem of our times?
As if.
There is no connection between these legislative proposals and reality, and the people proposing it don't care. If this junk becomes law it will be struck down by the First Amendment and they'll just blame "lie-bral" judges and move on to the next outrage. The significant question is not how long this will go on or what damage it will do. The significant question is: how long does the electorate put up with this clown show? Even in Arkansas the youngest voters are unimpressed by their elders:
“I’m sorry, you just don’t get to talk on the bill," English told the students. "If you want to talk on this amendment, specifically things that are in this amendment, you’re free to do that, but you cannot speak on the bill.”The students had missed two previous hearings on the measure that were held during school hours, and English told them the bill had already passed both chambers so they could only comment on a six-page amendment that had been sent back to the education committee for debate.“I’d like to speak on the amendments, and how they do not go far enough to tear down and decimate this bill,” said student Ethan Walker, over repeated interruptions by English. “These petty little wording rearrangements don’t do anything to address how bad this bill actually is."Another student, sophomore Rhone Kuta, worked around English's objections by referencing a specific line on a specific page, as the Republican chair repeatedly interrupted him."Where it deletes ‘and’ and substitutes ‘or,' the reasons I believe this amendment is bad is, this should actually say we are deleting the voucher program on section 63 because the voucher program absolutely reallocates resources from the working class Americans and Arkansans and reallocates it to the upper class," Kuta said.He was able to work in criticism of a ban on teaching anti-racism content before English sent him back to his seat, and other students who followed managed to roll through English's objections by pointing to specific passages and calling for more sweeping amendments to the bill.“The amendment that says page 90 line 3, delete ‘and’ and substitute ‘or,’ is insufficient because there’s nothing that amends the clause that is talking about having school choice policies that will make it so that students who are minority groups will be left in public schools while privileged students go to private schools," said senior Gryffyn May.The adults who followed the students were given their full two minutes of public comment without much trouble from English, and Little Rock School Board member Ali Noland told the committee chair she had inadvertently given the teens a much larger platform by attempting to silence their criticism.“By talking to them and cutting them off in this way, believe me, you are giving them much more of a platform than you would have if you had just listened to their criticism of the amendment in the first place," Noland said. "They showed up after school on their own time to tell you these amendments do not satisfy their concerns.”
I don't think the kids are going to save us (I was around when 18 year olds got the vote and were supposed to save us all from Nixon. Then they elected Reagan.). But the clown show is being noticed by people other than Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies. That’s worth something.
There is another question: why are the kids in Arkansas so particularly upset with state government?
I really can’t imagine…people often joke about "late capitalism" and such, but this has a distinct "early-to-mid industrial capitalism"/Dickensian ring to it https://t.co/SJfPXKhh1r
— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) March 9, 2023
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