State Rep. Gino Bulso (R-Brentwood) is sponsoring legislation to remove most flags from schools. He recently explained that he doesn’t want kids being indoctrinated by, say, a teacher with a rainbow flag on his desk.
“Certainly, you know, 50 years ago we had a consensus on what marriage is; we don’t have that anymore. One-hundred years ago, we had a consensus on sexual morality; I don’t think we have that anymore. So the values that I think most parents want their children exposed to are the ones that were in existence at the time that our country was founded.”
Y’all. Fifty years ago country music singer-songwriter David Allan Coe allegedly had seven wives. Then he lived in a cave out by Dickson (or so the story goes). How many wives does Bulso have? And where is his cave house? I mean, Brentwood must have caves, otherwise where did all the racist gold go? Come on, Bulso, if polygamist cave living is good enough for people in the 1970s, certainly it’s good enough for you.
Oh, but wait! There’s more! "One-hundred years ago, we had a consensus on sexual morality." Gino Bulso said this with a straight face. Whew, Lord. What is 2024 minus 100? 1924? Oh, OK, yeah, the 1920s. Better known as the "Boring ’20s." Excuse me. I’m off to a petting party, which I assume is going to be a bunch of us delighting in the cuteness of our dogs, because everybody in the 1920s agreed on sexual morality.
[Insert a long pause here while I attempt to wipe the smile off my face now that the petting party is over.]
Heartened by the fact that this stroll through history has led me to so many fun sex parties, I decided to spend some time living the values of the founders. I know what some of you are saying: “Betsy, you show up in 1782, just like you are, and people are going to say that you’re a witch.” And fair, but I’m living the values of a Tennessee founder, so the first thing I did was open up my house to tourists and charge them to come experience the spirits in my house. It was hard work getting the dogs in those bedsheets so that I had some spirits, but they seemed to have a good time.
Legislation sponsored by Republican Gino Bulso would ban flags other than those of the United States and the state of Tennessee
Quickly, though, it became apparent that, if you’re living by founders’ values, you want to be living the values of a rich white man in the 1780s, because, whew, it is brutal out here if you’re not. Before I realized my mistake, I lost my house and my property to my male relatives. Then my neighbor gave some random dude 50 beaded necklaces for my property, and I spent a lot of time having to fight him off my land, which I had just had to fight my brothers for. I’ve finally conceded that my neighbor can let his friends stay on the very back corner of my lot if he’ll just stop being such a dick. I’m sure that will be fine.
Then I died in childbirth a bunch, and a bunch of my kids died before they were 5 — and sometimes I was forced to nurse some other woman’s baby because I had milk from the pregnancy of my dead kid, and that baby’s mama was trapped in her own weird hell too, and ... Jesus, no wonder everyone in early photographs had a hundred-yard stare. So, I noped out of bearing the brunt of these founders’ values and settled on having the values of a rich white guy.
I expected this to be awesome. I strutted around fighting everyone who annoyed me and challenging people to duels. I took 30 people as my prisoners and put them to work cleaning my house and doing all my chores and breeding my horses, then riding those horses, and winning races for me while I went down to the tavern and told everyone about how many horse races I was winning all the time. I’m also making them build me a better house. Sure, I’m worried a little that they might plot against me and murder me in my sleep, but I’ve banned all books from the area, so they can’t be indoctrinated against me and my values.
This was all great and I was having a fine time. But was I really living the values of a founder? I needed to up my game. So I did what all great founders do and I locked my sister-in-law in a windowless room in my house. I have to admit, I still don’t get what all the fuss is about. But if it’s good enough for Thomas Jefferson, it’s good enough for me.
And here, dear readers, was the seed of my downfall. I took my focus off living like a Tennessee founder and instead got all in my, “Oooh, I’m Thomas Jefferson. I invented macaroni-and-cheese, I’m so great and handsome and patriotic” feels. But Jefferson had no Tennessee ties.
And my sister-in-law is from Gallatin.
You know what they do in Sumner County to founders who have wronged a girl from Gallatin? Saturday night, an effigy of me got paraded through the streets and then thrown onto a bonfire at the courthouse. Gallatonians ... Gallatians ... people from Gallatin are marching this way with pitchforks and torches. I’m in a complete panic writing letters to people in Oklahoma hoping someone will agree to take me in. I don’t even know anyone in Oklahoma. I’m wearing women’s clothes so that I can sneak out of town before they kill me.
Gino Bulso, I am in this predicament because of you! So, if you soon find a woman posing as a man posing as a woman at your front door with an angry mob following her, you’d better be ready to take me in. After all, if these founders’ values are so great, you should be willing to protect someone just trying to live by them.
