You got the weight on your shoulders
That's breaking your back
Your Cadillac
Has got a wheel in the ditch
And a wheel on the track
Oh, Alabama
Can I see you and shake your hand?
Make friends down in Alabama
I'm from a new land
I come to you and see all this ruin
What are you doing, Alabama?
You got the rest of the Union
To help you along
What's going wrong?
- Neil Young, 1971
In recent months, we have begun to see the fuller effects of years, and even decades, of politicians being able to select their voters, rather than the other way around, through that uniquely American political invention known as gerrymandering.
We have some red states that are passing incredibly invasive, and some have suggested racist, anti-immigration laws, such as the one that Arizona first passed (quickly followed by other states, including Alabama, of course) some years ago.
Then, more recently, we had a number of states, again including Alabama, pass brand new, very restrictive anti-abortion laws. Some states, once again including Alabama, do not even make an exception for victims of rape. Missouri closed all of their abortion clinics, although they claimed that it was not an anti-abortion measure, but that it was based on concern for the health of the woman.
Yeah, right. Sure.
Most of the other hard red states that passed sweeping anti-abortion laws were content - for now - to close almost all of their clinics, and to make abortion very, very difficult, even nary impossible, to obtain within their state borders.
And now, instead of merely being content to follow the crowd of other states towards backward, repressive laws and policies that show that the old days of Jim Crow might not be as dead as they had once appeared to be in the Deep South, Alabama's governor just signed into law yet another jaw-dropping bill. This one allows a church to have it's own police force.
Yes, apparently everyone is encouraged to accept Jesus into their lives, but the Republican Jesus police are there to make sure that only the most desirable people get in for the privilege.
I wonder where her Klan hood is? The South should have been allowed to secede. We could have walled it off.
Ah, Alabama. What a state! The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Stay classy, Alabama.
Alabama governor signs law allowing church to have its own police force Owen Daugherty, June 21, 2019:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/alabama-governor-signs-law-allowing-church-to-have-its-own-police-force/ar-AADbRd6?ocid=spartanntp&fbclid=IwAR12BtsMg7aHdAdSeIELtaBWdWA7PWTlB2zpjQgWPqc5UUiH88Y8L0r5rWk
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