(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Satire reminds us to laugh while we can [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-30 [No Artificial Intelligence (AI) was used to create this article or the images in it. Judge for yourself any other kind of intelligence involved.] The following is satire, at least so far. Check out these two fictional court decisions and three fictional proposed laws. Have a chuckle or a guffaw or two while you can, because satire isn’t funny anymore when it comes true. Then please comment and tell me why any or all of this could not happen in the next 24 months. Scene: America in the near future. Federal judge admits women have one Constitutional right more than dogs and horses. Missouri sheriff’s deputies pursued a boat carrying ten women and a male driver at high speed across the Mississippi River towards Illinois. Within yards of the Illinois shore, the deputies launched a harpoon that impaled the driver and stuck in the hull. They towed the boat back across the river where the ten women were arrested. The women were denied bail as proven flight risks. All of the women were pregnant and traveling from Missouri, where abortion is illegal, to Illinois where it is legal. Lawyers filed a petition for habeas corpus seeking their release which was denied by a Missouri Federal District Court judge on several grounds. In his ruling, the Red-appointed judge mimicked the reasoning of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions. As an ‘originalist’ and a ‘textualist’ the judge stated that, since women are not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, the only Constitutional right women have is the right to vote. Using the “social customs doctrine” applied by the Supreme Court in the Dobbs decision which overturned Rowe v. Wade, referring to long traditions of society, the judge noted that rights were never granted to women by any nation or potentate before the U.S. Constitution, even though women had been commonplace in society for thousands of years, and that clearly the Founders intended to continue this tradition. The judge said that dogs and horses have been a part of society for thousands of years and no one ever granted them any rights, either. Thus, rights for women, if any, including travel, are for the individual states to determine. Missouri and other Red states have set up checkpoints at their borders, especially at borders with Blue states. These checkpoints are often staffed by volunteer sheriff’s deputies in full body armor with multiple weapons and accessories, paid out of property and cash seized from travelers. Missouri’s border with Illinois is the Mississippi River, and only a few bridges connect the states, with traffic backed up for 100 miles. When stopped, women and girls from 10 to 50 are subject to pregnancy tests on the spot. U,S, Supreme Court affirms states’ rights to restrict women’s travel. A previously leaked decision from the United States Supreme Court in Glassjaw v. Missouri upholds Missouri’s controversial law forbidding pregnant people to travel to other states. Several other Red states, including Texas, have passed similar laws which are now or soon will be in effect. The 6-3 conservative majority of the Court ruled that the Constitution does not specifically provide any right to travel, and therefore the states can make their own policies and laws regarding the rights of their citizens to travel. As in other recent decisions, the justices relied upon legal precedents in English law from as far back as the 1200s, other precedents in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, and the Hammurabic Code (Babylon, 1750 BC). The Court stopped short of saying outright that states can declare women as chattel property of the state or of male citizens, but didn’t exclude that possibility, either. References to a woman being the property or possession of her father or husband are included in many of the cited legal precedents, leaving not only travel but the entire scope of women’s rights, other than the right to vote, for the states to decide. The right to travel freely between states was specified in the original Articles of Confederation, signed by Congress in 1777 and ratified by the states in 1781. The Constitution, which replaced the Articles of Confederation in 1789, does not specifically mention this right. While Article Four Section Two of the Constitution grants visitors to another state the same rights and privileges as citizens of that state, there is no textual basis in the Constitution for the right to travel to another state. The right to travel has been taken for granted for over 250 years but is only legally supported by a few narrow court cases, the latest in 1999. Glassjaw relies on more seasoned precedents. No AI was used to create this image. © Bob Waterstripe Texas leads the way in creative legislation to address mass shootings. In state legislative news, the Texas Legislature held a special session on school shootings. Red states are already rushing to copy the Texas Good Kids With Guns Act filed just yesterday in the state senate. The proposed law requires two hours per week of handgun instruction for students aged nine-and-a-half and up, until they become certified to carry a gun in the classroom “to protect their teachers and fellow students.” Older students would take turns protecting the classrooms of younger kids. When he filed the bill, Red Texas state senator Wilbur ‘Davy’ Crockett declared, “Thoughts and prayers are not the answer to bullets, especially after our children are dead. The way government and police [air bunnies] protect our children at school, they might as well not bother, and save us a whole lot of money.” He added, “If twenty-five kids shoot at once, they can’t all miss. No way any deranged school shooter will kill more than two or three kids before he’s blasted to kingdom come.” The bill authorizes $2 billion for the purchase of four million .380-caliber compact semi-automatic pistols. Democrats filed their Lock Schoolroom Doors Act to upgrade classroom doors in Texas’ 9,000 schools so they could lock from the inside, for $200 million. Reds laughed and sent the bill to committee to die. Red Texas state representative Richard ‘Dickie’ Allford filed his Minimum Armed Response to Shootings (MARS) bill, requiring a minimum of 100 armored cops with assault rifles to stand around a school after a shooting, not counting any officers who enter the building, and a number of armored vehicles based on the number of students in the district. Recently, some Texas school shootings were shamefully attended by as few as 40 armored officers with assault weapons standing around in the aftermath, in some cases without a single armored vehicle. Allford conceded that with mass shootings on the rise everywhere, it would be unrealistic to expect the level of response seen at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, 2022. 376 officers, including 140 feds from various agencies and one game warden, and numerous armored vehicles, surrounded the Robb Elementary School after 19 children and two teachers were killed. Courteous law enforcement professionals allowed an 18-year-old with his brand new, legally purchased, AR-15 modern sporting rifle a full hour and twenty-two minutes to execute his mission unmolested. Allford said, “Uvalde was the Gold Standard, but we need to be practical. The MARS Act requires a minimum of only 100 armored officers with assault rifles to stand around after a shooting. Anything less than this bare minimum is an open invitation to school shooters to come on in. A massive armed response is the best deterrent to school shootings.” Even opponents to the bill admit that since the massive response in 2022, there has not been a single school shooting in the city of 15,000. Tree-worshipping analog druid embraces the digital future! Celebrate with a FREE eBook. The foregoing are background details from my fast-paced, action-packed, widely unread satiric masterpiece, The Big Karma Law Firm: What You Asked For. The heroes use the legal system to raise billions to bribe Congress to end money in politics. Now this priceless novel is price-less for a few days. Through November 12 you can get the new $9.99 eBook version FREE from B&N, Google, Apple, and Kobo ($0.99 Kindle, because Amazon). Read the description and WARNING here on my book page, where there are links to the book at these vendors. I guarantee you’ll laugh your ass off, or your money back. Be sure to order extra free copies for friends and family, and especially for any Reds you wish would just shut up. Reviewers, please remember what your mom always said. Non-satire stories by me: How full solar homes and EVs will transfer massive wealth from Big Oil and banks to working families The inevitable rise of Rabies Babies (and kids and adults) in the U.S. This is not satire. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/30/2198840/-Satire-reminds-us-to-laugh-while-we-can?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/