Glad to Be in NC

As a former Tennessean - and glad to have that status given the kinds of laws now popular in that state - I do keep up with goings on there, especially in the legislature.  This year, Tennessee legislators have outdone themselves.  They have tried to outlaw Muslims, and when they found that this law was - well, unconstitutional - they changed it to allow the governor or AG to designate any organization, person or other entity a terrorist supporter.  There is no provision for providing any proof that would merit this designation.  In fact, it would be done secretly with no public oversight.  The law would enable the gov or AG to freeze and seize assets, surveille people and even arrest them, all without providing evidence or a recourse for the people to appeal the process.  Since the sponsors of the bill let a hate group, with a decided anti-Muslim bias, draft the legislation, you know who they want designated.

There is also a  bill to allow science teachers to teach Creationism - it's artfully worded, but the upshot is to allow alternative theories, whether scientific or not, to be a part of science education.  Because you want a Creationist-trained physician doing your triple bypass don't you.  Another bill would restrict sex education classes to only discussions about heterosexual sex - if teachers aren't allowed to say the word gay, then all gays will disappear, I guess.

What really boggles the mind is the spate of legislation that would allow anyone with a Conceal/Carry permit to take their weapon basically anyplace - schools, churches, parks, workplaces, restaurants and even bars.  Their argument is that when the evil ones come to these places to slaughter the innocents, the Concealed/Carry people will automatically turn into Bruce Willis, able to spin on the floor while deftly killing bad guys and never wounding or killing bystanders.  Because a permit and a few hours of training gives every one of these gun owners these magical powers.  They will never lose their cool or their uncanny ability to aim and fire accurately under conditions that might be termed stressful.

Recently, the head of one of Tennessee's college police departments spoke out against this law arguing that even trained policemen have a hard time being that accurate or coolheaded simply because life and death situations are extremely tense.  He also added that armed civilians present a huge dilemma for police because they are trained to take down armed civilians, especially when there are reports of an armed civilian killing people.  So, how are they to tell the armed good guys from the armed bad guys.  The reaction of some Tennesseans was to call into question the constitutional rights of a police officer to consider an armed civilian a threat.  I guess the cops are supposed to conduct an investigation to determine if the guy brandishing a weapon in TGIF is safe or not.  Try pulling a gun while a police officer is around and telling him he has no constitutional right to shoot you and let me know how that works out for you.  In NYC, a guy got shot 42 times for holding a cellphone.

Some Tennesseans argue that Conceal/Carry permit holders would never break the law by taking a drink while packing, because as everyone knows the greatest fun on a Saturday night is to go to a bar and drink club soda while vigilantly looking out for the ones who are drinking.  All of this nonsense is predicated on the notion of self defense, although even with high profile mass shootings, the odds of being attacked at Applebys is much less than 1%.  It's like erecting a wall around a city to keep out Raptors just in case someone is able to make Jurassic Park a reality.

All of this is not to say that people in NC are saner - although the fact that we elect Democrats more often might be proof of said sanity.  It's just that Tennessee tends to elect people who make Donald Trump look like a serious world leader.  This started happening after I moved, so I can only determine that I was the one who was responsible for electing people with IQs above room temperature and when I left - well, I ain't going back, so people of the Volunteer state are going to have to live with the oatmeal brains they elected.  I will stick to a place where basketball outranks every other social or political issue.  There's something comforting in that.