Florida Gotta Go!

jamin | August 7, 2013 | 1 Comment

HRH King Juan Carlos I,

Your Majesty, I come bearing a special request. Could you see to it that Spain retakes Florida? Please? On behalf of the United States of America, I implore you to forgive us for our transgression of negotiating Florida’s land for letting go of Texas. We got Texas in the end, anyway (after asking them nicely to join the country), but I ask you now to take Florida back.

Yeah, let’s make that happen again.

I’m asking this because Florida has become an embarrassment, quickly, in 2013 alone. Your former territory that became Arizona also proved embarrassing all through 2011, but it’s like Florida came along and tried to show Arizona how “crazy” is really done. Arizona is still embarrassing, by the way, so if you want to take that state too, we won’t complain.

Make us the Great 48 again? (Actually, we’re okay with Texas leaving too, so maybe make us the great 47 until Washington, D.C. becomes a state, so we can be the Great 48 again.)

You might wonder what Florida is doing to warrant this request. Here are some of the examples:

1. Florida has a “Stand Your Ground” law, which removes a person’s right to flee in the face of a confrontation with another person in which they feel threatened. They can “stand their ground” and use deadly force with a legally owned handgun, shotgun, rifle, etc., to kill another person they feel is a threat to them, even if the person actually isn’t a threat. The problem with this law is that at the end of the day, it’s the shooter’s word against the dead person’s word as to what happened. This law is used a lot in Florida, and you have a better chance of getting off if you’re black and killing another black person, or if you’re a white man (or used to claim you were white until the media started digging and found out that you’re half-white) and kill a black person, or if you’re not a woman who tried to use the law to justify shooting AT someone attacking you without actually hitting them. Also, they just legalized trailing someone, initiating a fight with them, and killing them when you lost the fight you initiated because of a case of racial profiling combined with sorta-kinda mistaken identity.

The one on the right did that to the one on the left.

2. Florida has a horrible governor.

Florida Governor Rick Scott looks like a viper ready to strike.

3. Florida has long voting lines which discourage people from voting in heavily Democratic districts, which is what those restrictions were designed to do. It didn’t work in 2012, but it was effective at removing some Democratic votes in heavily populated areas.

4. Florida tried to pass a law that required welfare recipients to be drug tested in order to qualify for continued welfare benefits. The law was blocked, but something like more than 95% of the people tested passed anyway.

5. A Florida representative to Congress stated that Obamacare (President Obama’s Health Care Reform law) is racist because the U.S.’s first (half-) black president is taxing people who use tanning beds, which are mostly white people, apparently, because “dark-skinned people” don’t use tanning beds and don’t have to pay that tax. I wasn’t aware that all white people used tanning beds.

6. Florida has a The Hunger Games themed camp for children. You know that movie? The one where teenagers are pitted against each other to the death (the kids actually die in the book and movie)? Well, a camp in Florida took it upon themselves open a camp where children re-enact the movie/book, which was written as a commentary on senseless violence in society. Now, the kids at the camp won’t actually kill each other, but still, why base a camp on that theme?

7. Florida is shaped like a gun and a penis, which is a dangerous combination.

So, Your Highness, there you have it. Florida, like their oranges (which we will miss) is ripe for the plucking. Sorry about all that Adams-Onis Treaty crap. You can have Florida. We’re done with it. They’ve obviously gone about their own business for a while without a thought of how they affect their country. Please re-colonize Florida and do what you will with the land and people. It would be nice to not have to spend money there again to support their utter insanity, and having your ownership of it again might mean better artistic buildings, a richer language, good wine, and tapas!