Posted 10:12 AM by Floyd

Around 75 years ago H.L Mencken wrote the following:

Of the forty-eight sovereign States of this imperial Federation, which is the worst? In what of them is a civilized man most uncomfortable? Over half of the votes, if the question were put to a vote, would be divided between California and Tennessee. Each, in its way, is almost unspeakable. ...

Tennessee, of course, has never been civilized, save in a small area ...

[California's] laws are the most extravagant and idiotic ever heard of in Christendom. Its public officers, and especially its judges, are famous all over the world for their imbecilities. When one hears of it at all, one hears that some citizen has been jailed for reading the Constitution of the Unites States, or one hears that some swami in a yellow bedtick has got all the realtors' wives of Los Angeles by the ears.

Three quarters of a century later, California is hardly more normal than in Mencken's day, and it contains its fair allotment of idiots in the public sphere. Tennessee has taken steps forward (InstaPundit) and back (Graceland). But California and Tennessee are safe from abuse. The office of worst state can only be filled by Florida.

Where else but Florida could an 18-year-old man be arrested for having sex with his 17-year-old girlfriend? Where else but Florida could highway patrolmen stop travellers for driving under the speed limit, under the theory that they therefore have something to hide? Where else but Florida could the state's "child protective services" agency lose track of hundreds of its charges -- though said children could be found in a few hours by local media?

Where else but Florida could a woman rise to polical prominence, become the chief law enforcement officer of the Unites States, burn innocent children to death in a pointless raid, seize a refugee from tyranny from his caretakers at gunpoint -- after expressly promising not to do so -- and then return home, not as a fugitive, but as a gubernatorial candidate?

Where else but Florida could thousands of senile voters fail to follow simple instructions, thus throwing a presidential election into turmoil -- and then have their congressman snivel on their behalf?

Just to prove my point, Florida has entered two black marks against its name just in the previous week. The less interesting case concerns an election featuring Janet Reno, who occupies a position intermediate between the Bitch of Belsen and Mrs. O'Leary's cow. After the fiasco of the 2000 election Florida had two years to get its house in order. The result? More chaos. Also worth mentioning in passing is Governor Bush's election-day decision to keep the polls open for two more hours. How is that possible? Doesn't Bush have a slight interest in the race? Shall all elections have a variable polling time determined by the party in power?

Then there was the surprising theory of prosecutorial conduct espoused during the murder trials of Terry King. Prosecutor David Rimmer is a careful man, who wants all his bases covered -- so he held two trials with different theories of how the murder was perpetrated, one for King's teenaged sons, and one for a next-door neighbor. The boys were convicted and the neighbor acquitted. But what would happen if both were convicted? I can see Rimmer reading aloud to an appeals court from "Murder on the Orient Express."

Rimmer is a pioneering and enterprising man, but he is clearly limited in his thinking. Why two murder trials when one could have three, or four, or a dozen? (I was going to say "n", but I did not want to send the poor fellow to a calculator to add one to numbers succesively until the fourteenth letter of the alphabet is displayed.) Does the wife inherit? Impanel a jury! Does Steve Spurrier have an alibi? If not, see how close he gets to the frying chair!

What could we call this new legal practice? How about Operation Infinite Justice?