More on " Don't say gay" bill

 The Florida State Legislature

is considering the " Don't say gay" bill, which would ban discussion of LGBTQ issues I.    So, now that we have opened the door to closing the door

on the discussion of controversial topics in the classroom , like being gay, and are now even discussing banning and burning certain books whose philosophical underpinnings do not match with our newfound American Puritanism, I have a great idea. Let's ban all teaching about and discussion of the Crusades. You have to agree that even 900 years later, the Crusades and the idea they stood for , among others, driving out the infidels, is still very much alive in mid twenty first century America. 

     Knights in shining armor have been replaced by such groups as " The Proud boys", and " The oath keepers".  The spear and shield have been replaced by tiki torches and flagpoles, but the idea of the use of force to trample upon the ideology of their perceived foes is every bit as intense. They learned it from the Crusades. Maybe it is best to pretend they never happened, or to ignore them in spite of their being factually something that did actually occur. They were not the fantasies of some narcissistic unbridled authoritarian style leader. They were real. All the better reason to ignore them. 

     The Crusades were sanctioned by the pope, and Crusaders who fell in battle were officially declared to be saints in heaven. All the sins of a Crusader were extinguished upon death. They lasted for almost four hundred years , from the tenth to the fourteenth century, and did result in the temporary rescue of Jerusalem from the Muslim infidels in 1099. The Muslim forces regained control by the late 13th century, and the Crusaders turned their eyes on Moorish Spain, and Eastern Europe and Jewish communities from the diaspora. There was always some group to condemn, hate, and to try to extinguish. The Crusader's cry was " God wills it!"

     Hmmmm. Sound familiar? The whole notion that God is on the side of one religious group vs. another, is a theme that has been adopted by modern day crusaders against such things as abortion and immigration. 

     It would take tons of white out to erase the Crusades from our history books, but the effort would be worth it. Imagine a world devoid of partisan religious zealotry? Who would there be to fight against? Race would remain as a dividing line. So too might political tribalism, but if we took religion off the table, there would be a major drop in radical contention. So , let's ignore the Crusades. Let's snuff them out of the classroom, and banish discussion of the conquering spirit of religious zealotry. 

    Next, we could maybe ban any discussion of Hitler, and World War II. What's to learn from studying Nazism, anyway? And then wipe out the story of our westward expansion as a nation, the Wild Wild West, and the massacres of native Americans whose hearts were buried at Wounded Knee. 

After all, we made it up to them. Casino franchises did the trick. 

     Come to think of it, maybe we would be better off by just burning all of the history books en masse. What good is an understanding of history anyway. It takes away your freedom to repeat mistakes of the past. Maybe, just maybe, ignorance would bring bliss. And then, maybe not. But attacking the most attackable, most vulnerable of our constituencies, like " the gays", is at least a starting point. So Florida Governor Ron DeSantis , there's your platform Gov. DeSantis , for advancement. Grab this new bull by the horn of attacking the weakest, and who knows, you too might find your way to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.  We once thought that impossible for such advocates but recent history teaches us that is not the case. Oops! There we go with history again. I'd better stop while I'm behind.