I know that I am often annoyingly sympathetic to alternative political viewpoints, but I just cannot get my mind around how anyone can defend DeSantis’ actions on this one.
It’s not hard. Disney peddled a false narrative and lie about the bill. They were getting special privileges from the state that decided to push a false narrative about the state (lie about). I know we disagree on many things political. But this one is easier to understand from DeSantis than the “kick the elf across the Potomac” which was funny and understandable for someone like me (granted most have forgotten that one by now). Don’t lie about those giving you privileges is a lesson learned. Now it could be argued the state should just deal with the lie to not pay lawyers. But I am fine with standing up for what Floridians want…
We’ve had this same debate many times, so I don’t think we will come to agree here, but to me, the first amendment makes it very clear that the government is not vested with the power to determine what is true and what is a lie. Further, granting a special public privilege to a private entity contingent upon that entity taking a particular political position is a most obvious abuse of power. I see this retaliation as no different than DeSantis offering tax breaks to all citizens who post only public messages that praise his political actions.
I agree we will not agree on this issue. But Disney has been granted special privileges by an entity (the state). They are not being punished outside of what the common law dictates. It would be different if they were already on the same playing field and being punished beyond what everyone else has to abide by. But that is not the case here…
Not really although it doesn't quite fit. I had made a comment about the strike earlier in the thread and I didn't feel like starting new thread on the strike, as I correctly anticipated it would not be of that much interest to others. Without looking it up, I was generally commenting on the fact that conservatives could find a reason to support Disney on that issue, because they exploit labor
They have had a claims for monetary damages under the contract clause. That will really cause some cognitive dissonance among the conservative legal movement, who loves to use the contract clause to justify all types of contracts of adhesion between parties of grossly unequal bargaining power. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.
Indeed. Again, I don’t see how the benefits being special changes the situation. In my hypothetical above, the tax breaks that pro-DeSantis posters received were indeed special. If anything, the special nature of the benefits makes this look like a bribe, where DeSantis agrees to let Disney have special treatment only if they say nice things about his actions in public.
They can cry all they like but those sweetheart tax governing zone is gone forever. It was stupid of Disney to play politics.
The Reedy Creek Improvement District did give Disney "special privileges" but it also implicitly required the company to perform most of the functions normally performed by municipal governments. As I previously mentioned a common trope among conservatives is that private corporations can perform governmental functions more efficiently than governments themselves. Disney actually proved that the model worked and now butt hurt Meatball Ron decided to end Disney's governance of the district in retaliation for a position articulated by the company.
Not only that but fail to recognize that Disney is the largest single site employer AND the largest taxpayer in this state. They drive tourism here and I haven’t seen anybody bitching about ANY of the other special districts here. Interesting to note that numb nuts new tourism board decided to cut the 8 million dollars that Disney was using to pay for security on their properties by hiring off duty Orange and Osceola deputies. Now taxpayers will be on the hook for those calls and those officers lose out on extra income. Back the blue, amirite?
It is absolutely comical that some of these people think Disney should have come into the state and committed billions of dollars to a project on the scale they did in central Florida and not have considerable control over the area and a significant level of autonomy over their operations. The relationship between Disney and Florida has been wildly successful and it has been a symbiotic, not parasitic, one. Everything was fine until our Neo-Nazi governor got butt hurt over a relatively innocuous statement....people should try actually reading it. Disney, our largest employer and taxpayer, has a very diverse group of employees, not at all uncommon in the hospitality industry, and they should have taken a stand in support of their employees. I will be pulling for Disney to run the table on their litigation and make DeSantis look even worse, if that is possible. In 2026, we'll have a new governor and hopefully we can start undoing some of his policies before the damage he has inflicted upon us becomes irreparable.
And that DeSantis did nothing about the other approximately 2000 special districts in Florida. The entire argument that Disney has special treatment is a sham.
Nope. Floridians want to protect the most innocent. November showed that most are not okay with killing the most innocent for convenience.
Certainly, I am sympathetic with this explanation, but I am still surprised by how the action is being defended despite how textbook this case is.
