Thursday, January 2, 2014

Florida Governor Scott looking for new group to drug test after Court ruling. Here's a suggestion: Florida politicians.

Florida Governor Rick Scott (R)
A Florida District Judge has ruled that Florida Governor Rick Scott's legislation to drug test the poor is unconstitutional and must be stopped.  Judge Mary Scriven found that the legislation is essentially illegal search and seizure.

Furthermore, the testing of welfare recipients that has been done has found that the poor actually take drugs at a rate that is only 25% of the rest of the country.  Only 2% of the poor tested were actually found to be guilty and many of them  have denied it, bringing concerns about false positives in the testing.

It seems that Republican politicians rely heavily on stereotyping when considering new legislation.  Florida, like other Republican controlled states, has proven that our Republican leaders are not very smart and utilize fiction as fact.  The "welfare queen" who takes drugs and sleeps most of the day while relying on the government to pay for her every expense, is a reality in the minds of Republican leaders.  This is why Republicans must punish the poor, not only by requiring unnecessary drug testing, but also by denying expanded medicaid.  Republicans believe the poor lie about who they are when voting, so their voting rights must be challenged.  Republican leaders believe that the unemployed are just goofing off, so unemployment benefits must be stopped.  To Republicans the poor cannot be trusted.  They are low-life scum who are the scourge of society and Republicans believe it is their duty to eliminate them.

How much intelligence does it take to understand that the results of drug testing prove that the need for drug testing is completely unwarranted?  How much intelligence does it take to know that spending tax payer money on policies that offer nothing to society is not a good use of that money?  How much intelligence does it take to use federally offered money with no state cost, to expand medicaid to cover the helpless?  Apparently more than our Republican leaders possess.

So Governor Scott is not stopping his pet project and promises to appeal the ruling to a higher court.  He may even run on it.  Worse still, many Floridians agree with Scott that drug testing for welfare recipients should be policy in our state.  We forget that taking drugs requires money that welfare recipients do not have.  Some of us may have fallen for the "welfare queen" myth and lost the ability to reason because of our anger.

On the other hand, if Scott would like to find a group that is more likely to be hiding drug use while requesting government welfare for themselves, perhaps he should choose Corporate CEO's who receive tax advantages and government subsidies or Florida politicians like Trey Radel who take a government paycheck and like to snort.  At least the monied part of society can afford to take drugs and as long as the drug laws are written to target the poor, they are also the most likely group to get away with it.