Florida's flesh-eating bacteria is gonna get us. We better move back to Chicago.
This is an op-ed submission that I recently sent to the Florida Times-Union (the Jacksonville newspaper) responding to a column by Nate Moore. He’s a liberal who informs us how miserable we are under the heel of Gov. Ron DeSantis. It has not been published,.
Four years ago, we fled Chicago to move here, but thank the Lord, we now have Nate Moore to tell us how miserable we are.
Moore imagines (“At RNC, Trump and his allies sell Americans on a Floridian future,” July 17) that Donald Trump and Republicans at their recent convention were trying to sell Americans on the idea that Florida is some kind of utopia. As in “Make America Florida.”
Instead, Americans need to know, Moore said, that Florida is infested with “flesh-eating bacteria [hiding] in [Florida’s] boiling waters — waters that are ever rising.”
“If guns are the sacraments of a deranged American religion,” he goes on, “and Trump its messiah, then Florida is its mecca: steamy, angry Florida.” He indicates that, “modern-day Nazis [are] unashamed to walk in the daylight.”
There’s more: “This damp peninsula – this sprawling, tropical spit of limestone, phosphate, sand and dark secrets – is America’s potential future, if it's not already reflective of its benighted present.”
And more: “Florida is an oasis for people with money; for those without it, Florida is just another miserly Deep South state….”
Okay, Nate, you’ve persuaded us that it’s time to pack it in and head back to a Chicago that, thank the Lord, isn’t Florida. As if we are an invasive species that wants to pave over everything from Jacksonville to Miami. Forgive us, Nate, for ruining your pristine state.
Surely if Nate had been around four years ago, we would have known that Chicago is a much better place. And stayed there. Here are some things that make Chicago and Illinois better:
During the Covid pandemic, Florida’s kids were forced to return to the classroom. Illinois’ kids had it much better. They were given a long vacation during which they could skip the tedium of the classroom, to spend the entire day checking out social media and putting their iPhone to good use.
Illinois’ labor force also got a long, long vacation, a gift from Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker. Unlike the anti-science Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who carelessly opened up his state before it was safe. Pritzker kept his state safe and cozy for months and months, ordering everyone to stay home and shut down their businesses. A long pause was a good thing for their mental health.
Then there’s the weather. “And, my lord, it's hot here,” Nate reveals. Clearly, the weather is better in Chicago. You can always put another on another layer of clothing if The Hawk blowing off Lake Michigan in winter, gets too cold. But in the Florida heat, you can only take off so much, without offending.
Back in Illinois, I can get back to paying the ever-ballooning state income tax. Paying my “fair share” makes me feel oh so much better than my Florida neighbors, those selfish, narcissistic clods who unfairly pay no income taxes. Shame.
Chicago is opportunity city. The many people who drop out of the public schools have a multitude of options suitable to their disposition and abilities: plundering and carjacking. They’re doing a mitzvah by shoplighting great amounts of clothing, groceries and diamond rings for folks unable to afford them. Among them are the newcomers flowing in through the Southern Border, otherwise known to xenophobic Floridians as illegals.
In short, Chicago and Illinois are sanctuary jurisdictions, so welcome one and all. Chicago and other northern cities are the template for diversity, inclusion and equity. They’re so welcoming that they’re putting some of the newcomers up in luxury hotels.
Nate also warns that Florida is awful because, “There are fraudsters, abusers, oligarchs and tech goons, a corrupt judiciary, a corrupt political culture, corrupt corporations, and corrupt bureaucratic systems.”
Ha. Florida can’t hold a candle to Illinois’’ corruption. Four Illinois governors sent to prison. Thirty Chicago City Council members convicted of corruption since 1973 and counting. The nation’s longest-serving state House speaker waiting trial for bribery. Etc.
Well, wasn’t there a JEA corruption scandal here? Ha and ha. Four electric utility executives in Chicago have been convicted of conspiring to bribe the above-mentioned House Speaker Michael Madigan.
Enough. In truth and in measure after measure, Florida is better place to live than Chicago, Illinois or the rest of the blue state menageries. For some reason, Florida enjoys the greatest net migration of all the states. Presumably Nate would recommend therapy for those hundreds of thousands of interlopers like me.
Poor Nate. Stuck here as the Florida columnist for the USA Today Network. With any luck he could find employment in the violent crime -ridden, broke, teachers’ union controlled, high-tax, corrupt and oh-so-progressive Chicago and Illinois.
Dennis Byrne, a retired journalist for the Chicago Tribune, Sun-Times and Daily News, lives in Jacksonville.