Sen. Rick Scott’s artificial intelligence will surely keep socialists and commies out of Florida

Well! It seems Florida’s Rick Scott, the U.S. Senate’s foremost hologram, has royally gotten his motherboard wires into a jumble of knots. By now you have probably seen Scott channeling his inner Tail Gunner Joe McCarthy’s demagogic fervor in a series of commercials decrying the threat socialists and communists pose to our fair state.

See? And you thought the greatest challenge confronting us was every moment the Florida Legislature is in session. What else can one say except to paraphrase the certifiably nuts McCarthy tormentor Joseph Welch: “At long last, senator, have you no common sense?”

In the commercials, Scott issues a dire warning that socialists and communists are not welcome in Florida. Don’t even think about coming here. Don’t even indulge in a brief sense of whimsy about beaches, or Mickey Mouse, or the bucolic charms of I-4. Nay, we say unto you. And nay again.

Who knew? Who knew Florida was on the brink of doom, should a socialist or a communist get the urge to partake of a Cuban sandwich in Ybor City, or experience the romance of Gatorland, or simply spend a wild and zany few days in Two Egg?

Scott’s manifesto noted those socialists and assorted reds need to know: “We’re the free state of Florida.” And indeed we are — unless you want to read a book, or get an abortion, or enroll your child in a Medicaid program, or love whomever you wish, or feel safe walking down the street without bumping into some Florida man with a gun, or believe in diversity, equality and inclusion, or want to learn more about critical race theory, or perhaps enjoy your constitutional First Amendment rights, which include expressing socialist and communist view points.

Other than that, well sure, you’re free.

What is so odd about Sen. Avatar’s rant about protecting Floridians against the evils of Marx and Lenin is that last month, Rick Scott, the great lefty hunter, voted against the $60 billion military aid package to help Ukraine defend itself against an invasion by a socialist/communist Russia bent on conquering a democratically elected ally.

What does that make Scott? A phony faux patriot? Or Vladimir Putin’s Lhasa apso? Or better yet, Marjorie Taylor’s Greene’s shill?

And Scott instead frets that 1960s radical Angela Davis might buy a ticket to Legoland?

While Scott preoccupies himself making sure Vermont (cue “The Exorcist” theme) socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders never sets foot in Key West’s Sloppy Joe’s Bar, he seems blissfully oblivious to some other guests who like to call the Sunshine State a favorite port of call.

While Scott wrings his hands over the prospect of a Woody Guthrie Convention coming to Orlando, he is remarkably untroubled that Florida is awash in Nazis, white supremacists, the Klan, Oathkeepers, Proud Boys, antisemites, Islamophobes, anti-LBGTQ hate mongers and folks who live in fear a 14-year-old might read “Catcher in the Rye.”

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Do you suppose Scott might find room in his list of people who are not welcome in Florida to also include former chief executive officers of companies like Columbia HCA, which had to pay (at the time) the largest health care fine in history, $1.7 billion, for engaging in massive Medicare fraud on his watch?

And the senator thinks New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is unfit to visit Florida?

An idle question. How would the Senate’s answer to Ian Holm’s robot Ash in “Alien” actually enforce his ban on socialists and communists daring to come to YeeHaw Junction?

Would Gov. Ron DeSantis dispatch his chintzy State Guard to the Georgia border and the state’s airports to inspect luggage containing contraband such as tomes on the Material Dialectic (you know, an approach for explaining the transition from capitalism to socialism) or perhaps a purloined video copy of “The Battleship Potemkin”? Would the guard be ever watchful of anyone humming “The Internationale”? You never know.

How does this sort of inane gibberish happen? What could the Senate’s answer to the Torquemada of tourism have been thinking (yes, that’s a stretch) when he concluded attacking socialists and communists who might want to come to Florida and spend money was a bully idea?

Do you suppose it’s possible Scott used the same political consultant who said to South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem: “Absolutely, include the bit about murdering your puppy Cricket in your memoir. Great story! People will love it.”

Florida likes to promote itself as a place “Where the rules are different here.” And they are, just as long as Rick Scott decides what the rules are. Isn’t all that freedom swell?