CARLTON FLETCHER: Legislation for sale … cheap … It just costs a vote

I am the bull-god.

— Kid Rock

In case you haven’t noticed, it’s an election year. (I approved that message.)

If you live in the state of Georgia, here’s what that means: You can get a law passed — any law passed, no matter how absurd. (Of course, you have to be white, be wearing a MAGA cap or be an avowed “conservative,” but now is the time you can get legislation approved that doesn’t make sense, isn’t good for anyone but you and your family — the larger the family, the more outrageous the bill … gotta get them votes — and is going to cost more than all the next three budgets combined.)

Republicans who have gerrymandered themselves into all of the state’s positions of power — except governor and lieutenant governor, and one stepped down and the other’s on mighty thin ice — have no shame in passing bills that they think will win them a majority of the ever-shrinking voters who think like they do. There’s a chance these godless Democrats might pull a Biden or a Warnock or an Ossoff on them, so they have got to pass legislation that will keep their base of voters happy. If they lose them, there could be some big changes underneath that Gold Dome.

Soooooo:

♦ Pretty soon, everybody in the state can go out and get themselves a gun. Conservatives love guns — the NRA is, after all, the one true religion — and it just don’t sit right that a good ole God-fearing man or woman ought to have to fill out some paperwork just to get a gun. Man’s gotta protect himself and his womenfolk. Of course, there is that little thing about 5,000-plus people who were turned down as unfit for gun ownership last year under the state’s present laws. Now, that’ll just be 5,000-plus more of the “good guys” (yeah, you know who they are) who will be protecting us from the bad guys.

♦ We will be getting rid of all those ballot drop boxes that allowed people who feared COVID infection to drop off their ballots. That, obviously, was part of the well-orchestrated plot carried out by heathen Democrats to keep the real president — and senators — out of office. No more worries about that.

♦ We’re not, by God, going to do business with China. Umm … not that anyone was or was even planning to, but in case those voters out there wondered, they now know their men and women in Atlanta have closed the door on that bit of business.

♦ If you’re one of them (right-thinkin’) folks who believes computers is a tool of the devil, and any book that has the word “heck” in it is too obscene for your children, you now can determine what school’s teach. You know better than teachers and educators. Ain’t nothing wrong with them three R’s … they got you where you are today.

♦ It’s not enough that the governor has the advantage of incumbency, now (providing some pansy court doesn’t mess things up) he can just rack up more and more money while sitting in office, doing the important work of signing off on all these bills to protect the rights of wh … um cons … um Georgians, yeah, that’s it.

♦ Gerrymandering the state election lines to assure at least another decade of minority rule (does anyone else think of South Africa?) on the state and national level is simply not enough. Now you can get your city, county or district changed favorably in the legislature (per the same requirements in paragraph two), even if the elected officials of that city, county or district object. Gotta pay off those political debts; who cares if it goes against the legislature’s unwritten laws since … forever.

(Perhaps most egregious of all), if your kid’s soccer or football or baseball or chess team is going to have to compete against schools of its own size based on the number of students it has and you don’t want it to have to, you can do like Chickamauga — Chickamauga!!!??? Ocilla’s bigger … and has a better athletics program — Sen. Jeff Mullis and just write bills that takes authority away from the governing body of high school sports. Hell, you can be in charge, so long as you don’t mess with the high school in Chickamauga. (It’s amazing that any individual thinks he or she has the authority to enact such legislation, but if you’re Mullis, like Tom Murphy before him, you just put the legislation out there and dare any of those weak-kneed underlings to vote against you.)

So, come on, election time is drawing nigh, and the session is winding down. Get your orders in today!