Free Florida is a facade

Prince Gregory Potemkin is remembered for creating villages that could be put up along the Dnipro River before Catherine the Great arrived and disassembled once the empress he wished to deceive had moved out of sight. “In politics and economics, a Potemkin Village is any construction (literal or figurative) whose sole purpose is to provide an external facade to a country that is faring poorly, making people believe that the country is faring better.”

A notorious Potemkin Village in the Twentieth Century was the Teresienstadt concentration camp, built to show neutral countries how well off the people were. The rationale failed to explain why such people needed to be removed from society.

Florida Governor DeSantis is promoting the Free State of Florida as a paradise among U.S. states. But it takes very little research and critical analysis to realize that what he is promoting is a Potemkin Village type state.

Florida is not free when felons who have “paid their debt to society” are not allowed to vote, despite an overwhelmingly passed amendment to the state Constitution.

Florida is not free when these former felons are told that they must pay court fees and fines if they want to vote, but there are inadequate records to allow them to assess what these are. This is akin to the Jim Crow ruse requiring African Americans to correctly tell the number of jellybeans in a bottle or the number of bubbles in a bar of soap before they can be registered to vote.

Florida is not free when the representative districts are gerrymandered against the state Constitution for DeSantis’s political benefit.

Florida is not free when local municipalities have local powers stripped to permit the will of the gerrymandered state government.

Florida is not free when New College, designated as Florida’s honor college, dedicated to “educating free thinkers, risk takers and trailblazers” for 63 years, is shanghaied to be a publicly supported, ideologically oriented college intended for the conservative educations of DeSantis’ supporters’ children at state college rates. The culture that made the school ranked as fifth best public school in the nation, that produced many Fulbright scholars, is replaced by one that promotes a minority ideology.

Florida is not free when the New College president and board are abruptly fired and replaced by six new board members appointed by DeSantis to carry out the coup against the nature of the school.

Florida is not free when a twice elected state prosecutor is removed for only saying that he would not enforce certain laws that he believes are unconstitutional, when in practice he had done no such thing.

Florida is not free when Disney, a major state employer, is stripped of a 58-year-old status for criticizing a DeSantis policy and put under a new entity with a board that are all DeSantis appointees.

Florida is not free when two student minority groups are demonized, with transgender students denied medical care that is accepted nationwide.

Florida is not free when the state determines which books, videos, and comments can be used to teach Florida students, and when the teachers are threatened with felony convictions for not complying with the edicts.

Florida is not free when nonpartisan local school boards are taken over by DeSantis partisans who put his edicts above the needs of the local students whose proper educations are under their care.

Florida is not free when DeSantis appoints a state surgeon general who is disavowed by mainline medical associations, who then proceeds to discourage COVID vaccinations and mask usage against reliable medical data.

Florida is not free if teenagers entering puberty cannot discuss menarche and menstruation with a licensed adult educator.

There are more Potemkin policies by DeSantis that can be named, and surely more to come. It is up to the voters to stand up to the governor’s attempts to make the state government autocratic and not democratic.

Michael F. Finkel, M.D., of Naples practiced adult and child neurology for 40 years, including Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic appointments. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology, a Fellow of the Florida Society of Neurology, and a retired member of the Child Neurology Society.

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Free Florida is a facade