Ron DeSantis’ Latest Battle Sparks Open Civil War on the Right – Opinion

The battlefield was cleared of many other matters, and Gov. Ron DeSantis is opening up new ground in the battle for left. The Florida legislature called a special session. This special session is aimed at removing a 50 year-old special exemption for The Walt Disney Company.

That comes amid a cultural battle in which Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law, which bars the teaching of sexuality and gender “theory” to K-3rd graders, has been maligned as a “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Disney finally gave in to pressures from many out-of state forces and now has a complete recollection of harmful ideological grooming of children.

As RedState reported previously, a leaked Zoom meeting showed Disney executives and producers bragging about their “not so secret gay agenda” and their plan to force-feed “LGBTQIA” ideology to children. Their public statements haven’t been much better, repeatedly lying about what the Florida parental rights law does while pledging to overturn it.

This has led to a backlash from people who perceive Disney as stealing taxpayers through exemptions and subsidy while directly opposing the rights of parents.

These exemptions are what? One of these exemptions is the Reedy Creek Improvement District. It exists to allow Disney to have its little country within Florida. The absconding party can ignore building codes, zoning laws and other taxes and do what they like. It’s a deal that perhaps made sense half a century ago when Florida was trying to allow Disney to get off the ground in the state. Today, it’s representative of the worst of crony capitalism, where a multi-national, multi-billion dollar company gets to ignore laws that other businesses have to deal with.

In that vein, it’s a no-brainer to get rid of it. The timing is where tension comes in.

One side is that more conservative populists don’t believe that any company can be entitled to indefinite subsidies if it works against the will or taxpayers. This is not a move to shut down Disney. It would also not stop Disney’s freedom of speech. Thus, they are not concerned with the idea that this is “punishing” Disney for speech. They place more importance on the battle against crony capitalism and parental rights than these concerns.

You also have libertarian-leaning conservatives on the other end, who feel that Disney should not be punished for what it believes and shouldn’t have any special exemptions removed in this current climate.

Open civil war has now broken out along those lines (I’m not going to call people out, just go to social media and see), though I suspect the latter group is a good bit smaller than the former. But I have a deep understanding of both sides and think that all are operating in the spirit they believe.

You can place me in the second group. Crony capitalism has always been a problem for me. The unholy alliance of multi-billionaire companies with state and federal government governments has done more to damage our society than any other. It was bad enough before, but with these companies now becoming incredibly far-left and woke, overtly political, and directly working against things as fundamental as parental rights, it’s time to take the gloves off.

The more libertarian-leaning wing is correct to say that Disney’s exemptions should have been taken away long before this and that to do so now is in response to the company’s politicization. Frankly, and with all respect to those who disagree, I just don’t care.

It’s not the Bush-era anymore, and the stakes are too high to keep playing defense. The government and corporations have combined to make the corporation the nation’s major power centres. All aspects of economic policy, from freedom speech to economic policies, are now managed by boards of directors that have enormous influence. I think most right-leaning individuals don’t wish to surrender unilaterally in this battle.

Further, I’m not at all convinced that it is a “principle” that a state government, elected by the people, can’t decide that a company has gone too far and should not have its actions subsidized by the taxpayers anymore. That logic means that any company could become too political to protect their government welfare. It would only be an extension to the crony capitalism already in place.

It does not bother me that it took Disney’s politicization to open the eyes of many on the right about how multi-national corporations abuse the system. You can remove the bandage as long as it remains within legal limits.