The NAACP (National Association For The Advancement Of Colored People) distinguished itself this weekend by issuing a travel advisory, i.e., a warning, for people traveling to Florida. Fair enough you might think, as there are many dangers in having too much of a good time in hot weather. But instead of reminders to pack some sunscreen, the NAACP had something else in mind: “Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals.”
At first glance this would appear a silly outlier, but the NAACP is actually not the first organisation to issue an advisory about travel to Florida; in fact it piggybacked on a couple of other activist organizations –LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens) and Equality Florida. LULAC’s advisory concerned Hispanics (both legal and illegal), while Equality Florida only referenced LGBTQ+ people.
Florida admittedly has quite a few dangers for the unwary. But gators sunning themselves on golf courses do not restrict their attacks to minorities. And hurricanes during the summer months (now thankfully more infrequent due to climate change) do not blow onshore as soon as they see a Pride parade. The dangers are coming from the humans – Republicans, especially Ron DeSantis! And this in the week that DeSantis will announce his candidacy for the Presidency. Quite the astonishing coincidence.
The Florida problem for far-left activist organisations, such as the NAACP, is summed up by the Federalist. Since Ron DeSantis won his landslide victory in 2022, “on an almost weekly basis, Florida Republicans are implementing laws designed to defeat leftists’ ongoing jihad against sanity and the American experiment”, writes the Federalist. Most of the woke leftist initiatives that have plagued the U.S. in the past few years have been stopped dead in their tracks in Florida to the horror of the freedom-haters. In Florida, students will no longer have to sit and suffer in silence while DEI nonsense is forced down their throats in public universities. Ditto for Florida’s children at state schools, who will not have to listen to all manner of sex talk in their first three years of schooling. Political indoctrination classes masquerading as history have also been kicked out of Florida’s schools. Florida has also just passed legislation codifying what rights patients and doctors have when it comes to vaccinations and immunity in general (hint: it’s the individual’s choice). DeSantis is also keen to introduce measures to prevent Covid-style lockdowns ever happening again.
Population data would suggest that the NAACP’s characterisation of Florida as a dystopian hellhole has been somewhat exaggerated. Florida is the fastest-growing state in the U.S. in terms of population – a remarkable feat for an already-populous state. Since the pandemic in particular, the biggest population trend in the U.S. is people moving out of high-tax blue states to low-tax red ones. It is no surprise that Florida is the number one destination for these refugees. As well as moving to Florida, people want to visit as well. The Sunshine State has just had a record quarter for tourist visits with 37.9 Million heading for the land of freedom, of which 34.9 Million came from the U.S.
And data overwhelmingly suggests Florida is a state where non-white folks flourish. Miami is well-known as the capital of Latin America due to its high Hispanic population (70%) and its role as the financial and cultural gateway between the strongest economy in the world and some of the most promising ones. The 2020 census, for example, shows Florida has the highest number of businesses with African-American ownership – 15,149 – as opposed to the runner-up California with 13,729 (a state which has nearly twice the population of Florida). Urban Beach Week, the biggest hip hop festival in the world, will take place this Memorial Day Weekend in Miami, with 350,000 hip hop fans expected to attend. People are hoping that Florida’s own hip hop stars, such as Flo Rida and Pitbull, will perform.
As for LULAC’s warning to Hispanics that they will suffer nothing but racial harassment in Ron DeSantis’s state, try telling that to the local Hispanic population. DeSantis won 58% of the Latino vote in 2022, including 68% of Cuban Americans, 56% of Puerto Ricans, and 53% of all other Latinos combined, according to the NBC News exit poll.
The reaction of DeSantis and his team to the advisories was one of unrestrained amusement. Rather than commenting in any serious way, they just had a good laugh. Tweets were sent out documenting Florida’s tourist stats, as well as reminding the leaders of the organisations condemning Florida that they actually seem to love the state – Lewis W. Russell, Chairman of the Board of the NAACP, lives in Tampa, while the NAACP’s VP, Karen Boykin-Towns, likes to go on vacation in Clearwater.
This affair is another nail in the coffin for the NAACP. It had an excellent reputation stemming from its role in the Civil Rights movement. But since then it’s been mostly downhill. It has devolved into a far-Left organisation frozen in time with its mission and tactics unchanged since the 1960s. Although it claims to be non-partisan it has been a tool of the Democrat Party for quite some time. It doesn’t directly fund political candidates, but OpenSecrets data show members have donated exclusively to Democrats since 2016. It could have morphed into a powerful voice for African-Americans taking advantage of all that is on offer in the land of the free, but instead it’s just one more voice trying to whip up old tired grievances.
The travel advisory did get bigged up by the media this week, but only by the media that has taken the Democrats’ shilling. TV networks such as CBS and ABC discussed with a straight face how Florida was descending into darkness. My favourite was from CBS presenter Gayle King: “I keep thinking about the black people that live there. I actually have two sisters that live in Florida… I don’t know. It’s very unsettling to me on many levels.”
She was mute on whether her sisters lived anywhere near the Chairman of the NAACP or rely on any of the 15,149 African-American-owned businesses or know any of the two million+ Hispanic-Americans who voted for Ron DeSantis.
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“lockdowns were rolled out across the world last March in spite of never having been tried before”
It was worse than that. Lockdowns were explicitly recommended against in the WHO pandemic guidelines, re-published less than six months before.
So the WHO clearly had a big think about lockdowns and decided against them, presumably for sound scientific reasons. And governments worldwide ignored the advice. Not only the WHO’s advice, but their own previously developed pandemic plans. The same, incidentally, was true of mask-wearing.
What, or who, changed the governments’ mind? All governments, simultaneously? That is the question that needs to be answered – if we ever get beyond this “pandemic”.
Yes, absolutely this. This article keeps pulling it’s punches, over and over again/on several critical points.
Not was worse than that, is worse than that.
Canberra full lockdown for 1 case, New Zealand borders closed till 2022 when they have a grand total of 26 deaths!
This has nothing to do with health, it’s conspiracy against the people of the world.
If anybody still believes this is all just a big mistake that will soon go away, they live in fairyland.
“the WHO clearly had a big think about lockdowns”
It depends on what you mean by ‘the WHO’. I think that there is a profound distinction (paralleled in the NHS) between the politiciized leadership of the organisation and the professionals who produced the 2019 strategy.
Agreed. That really is the fundamental question. I doubt the great cover up will allow it to be answered.
I think “faith based” is generous
I reckon the top advisers and probably the cabinet knew it was all rubbish from very early on if not from the start
It was political
I think faith might be referring to their belief in their own god-like status in their own minds.
It’s like “the man who would be king”, hopefully
No, it is correct, the bombardment of absurdities cannot be justified in reason, it demands faith.
I’ve had a lot of respect for their stand in the past but it is a very bold statement to write now “The excellent vaccines we now have ”
when those vaccines have not had any medium or long term testing.
They don’t seem overly excellent either
We have a situation of extreme prejudice. To even get to have your views published you have to toe the policy line and that is most obvious with regard to vaccines. If there is the slightest ‘anti-vax’ flavour in your article you will quickly find its at best ignored and usually cancelled.
So an article basically rerunning the Great Barrington ideas has to appeal to the ongoing policy on vaccines.
Its clear that the reason for so many ‘bad decisions’ were only bad from the perspective of the sane individual wanted to most good for least cost ( not just economic cost). But if your aim was always to introduce a biotech ID system across nations that supported a growing fascist totalitarianism, then the decisions were all ‘good’ as far as that outcome was concerned.
When that line keeps advancing, and you won’t cross it, then you’re in retreat.
That’s a poor way to win an argument, let alone a cultural war.
“Usually cancelled”.
That is the great thing, and golden thread of this sites, Toby Young’s deep and genuine commitment to free speech. So whatever you may think personally of his views, you will have a chance to put your own view across, and hopefully give people the information they need to make up their own mind.
Ferguson has a long history of being ‘wrong’……over 20yrs; but remember everything he deals in are predictions – he’s just an ‘octopus’.
His model on foot & mouth disease led to the slaughter of 12-15m farm animals……which in turn cost the tax-payer over £3bn, and private businesses about £5bn…….it caused huge numbers of farmers to sell up and a small number to even commit suicide.
Guess who benefited from the sale of huge acreages fo farm land – Big Agri-business and super-markets.
Ferguson only provided the ‘evidence’…….the driving force was Blair. Everything that Ferguson has done in 20yrs has been at the behest of government instructions – or the influence of those who have funded Imperial College.
UK COLUMN have a brilliant documentary on the Foot and Mouth fiasco. When you watch it, it is difficult not to conclude that it was a trial run for what we are going through today.
Oh, and as most on here will recall the person in charge at the time was one Tony Bliar.
Coincidence? Conspiracy theory?
Now now.
Imperial? Are those imperialists going to get cancelled? N.B. there are plenty of problems with the very real new forms of imperialism.
The influence of his funders. Blair did what he was told be because he was terrified of the political implications. I covered the story for the Telegraph at the time. I remember the expression on Blair’s face as he stood in front of a crowd of desperate, raging. farmers in Carlisle. It was terror.
And yes, Imperial loved its power then.
Pressurise the Government to release the papers on the Foot and Mouth fiasco.
Please, not “lockdown”. The phrase is “criminalisation of all normal human activity by unaccountable, unchecked diktat”.
If you give up on the language, you’ve already ceded the argument.
I rather fancy “human rights abuses”, but “lockdown” is widely understood.
House arrest.
“Decision making quickly became more faith based than evidence based. ”
Faith is trusting in what you have reason to believe is true. What we have here is at best superstition, which is something else entirely.
“Faith is believing in something you know isn’t true” – The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux.
I realise that we are now in an age where the definitions of words are changed to suit, but the definition I gave is what has been the accepted definition for the last 2,000 years in Christian countries. If I were to say I have faith that, in their third bout, Tyson Fury will beat Deontay Wilder, you’re saying that I know that Deontay Wilder will win, but that I nevertheless believe Tyson Fury will win? Or do you not think that I have reason to believe Tyson Fury will win, based on the fact that he beaten Deontay Wilder before and is a far better boxer?
It’s just a line from a book when all is said and done and up to the reader to decide how it fits with the narrative. It could be being said by someone sarcastically and mean the exact opposite, who knows?
I agree with you, faith usually has some element of trust and belief in it. Like you I have faith in several things, the love of my husband, my fiends and my family to name a few. I think when people say the word faith its immediately assumed to mean some sort of religious faith which I think is a different thing.
I don’t think religious faith is any different. Ask someone why they think a sprig of white heather is lucky, I doubt you’ll get a reply from anyone that involved any reason – it’s a superstition. Ask a Theist why they believe in God and you’ll get a number of arguments i.e the moral ontological argument; the KCA etc.
I think it’s intrinsically impossible to either prove or disprove the existence of God, therefore belief in God (or being convinced there isn’t one) require faith.
It is impossible to prove something doesn’t exist.
Your post denies man can reason.
That sounds like a variation on the fallacy that you can’t prove a negative.
Reason and truth are key at the end of the day, and certainly key regarding the current shambles. By the same token, it’s impossible to prove that random combination of amino acids has never resulted in a protein. One might suggest some jolly powerful reasons to believe this to be the case though.
The death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ give very good indications of the existence of God.
You don’t need to prove that God exists, it’s enough to show that His existence is more plausible that the contrary.
Your fiends?!
(Of course love of one’s fiends is a noble act…)
And probably a far better man as well!
Clearly a deluded smart alec. How much do we actually “know” anyway?
No, faith is belief without evidence
No, it’s not. Are you saying that my faith in Tyson Fury’s ability to beat Deontay Wilder is something for which there is evidence?
Maybe he/she/they is saying it’s not faith but an educated guess?
without proof. Surprisingly little that we can know for sure, it seems to me.
If you mean blind faith of course (and no, that’s not all faith).
It’s sort of mediaeval which also explains the possible witch hunts and persecution of the unvaxd. We really haven’t moved on much from those days despite all our inventions, going to Mars and the internet. Underlying it all, we’re still quaking under a trembling sky, hoping that God doesn’t strike up down dead…
On the bowling green this morning a double jabbed lady collapsed with what looked like a mild stroke or TIA. The paramedics insisted everybody there put masks on, despite us being outside and mostly 40 feet away. Sick of the theatre now, needless to say I’m exempt but everybody else unquestioningly complied.
Oh, the sort of paramedics who want you to give “Covid safe” CPR (and don’t want you to rescue a girl stuck on a cliff if it breaks health and safety rules)?
When he isn’t censored or no platformed (which is most of the time) Carl Heneghan handles well the abuse hurled at him and steers interviews back to evidence based medicine, which is, after all, his area of expertise.
I think the importance of driving the evidence based approach is probably the best way to hammer home the need for change in the government’s approach. Our next PM must surely act swiftly to change SAGE and fundamentally alter decision making to demand an evidence based approach to all decision making. (I’ve given up on the current PM ever getting there).
The present composition of SAGE is an expression of government policy. Why would they change it?
Dingwall, the only vaguely sceptical member IIRC, was removed. So, yes I think we have to assume that if the government really didn’t like the advice they were getting, they’d have changed the choir or told them to shut up. SAGE have been allow to brief often against the government. It’s hard to imagine that was because the PM belives in freedom of expression – he was furious with Sunak about the travel industry, for example.
Completely and utterly spot on; as Boris has with his unelected spouse and his imitation of Dr Strangelove doing “climate change” ( I cannot believe he is that stupid so what or who else is driving him?), surround yourself with people who are going to tell you what you want to hear ( Shakespeare and other playwrights have examined this character defect as we know). My only issue is what came first with Bozo, as he appears to have not been sold on lockdown until the effects of Covid 19 destroyed his brain and he converted from known sceptic to rabid acolyte…the volte face, if you consider what Cummings has said, appears broadly accurate. Did he have carte blanche with the make up of SAGE or was it a n other(s) – it is too coincidental that SAGE is almost 100% lockdown frenzied/RT-PCR positive case number brainwashed and could not give a toss about the massive long term harm of the strategy they have seen enacted, now that Dingwall has been removed.
You fail to understand the gravity of our situation.
“Our next PM…?”
Persisting in believing this is cock-up and incompetence is deluded.
Though I suspect he/she/they probably won’t, unfortunately
I think the idea of “Lockdown” dates back to the early 60’s when the threat of nuclear war was considered to be a real possibility; particularly in the United States.
Provision needed to be made to restore order as quickly as possible. The populous needed to be fed, receive medical care, feel safe and keep looting and crime to a minimum. Curfews were certainly considered likely and, in certain circumstances, would be extended for longer periods.
What we have witnessed may be what happens when the powers that be use the wrong manual.
I love dr Sunetra Gupta, and her GBD colleagues, plus Drs Scott Atlas, John Ioannidis, Harvey Risch, Pierre Kory, Simone Gold and so many more and yet a number of these experts still believe the experimental biologicals are the answer for some people, despite the serious adverse events and deaths post vaccination around the world. There is no mention on their behalf of the possibility of something sinister going on with the use of coercion and vaccine passports. May I ask why they are ignoring the massive elephant in the room?
Potential ridicule and media wolves looking for a tasty – and easy – snack. These people know full well what is going on. They’re bright, insightful people but in the same breath they are also scientists and doctors and need to be taken seriously on the science and not the implication of government actions. That’s my take on it anyway.