Disney totally earned a Bitch-Slapping from De Santis and Florida Legislator ... but wait there's more ... new eyes opening on a new Wonderland
Just like that, tyranny has descended on Florida.
The state legislature, with the support of Gov. Ron DeSantis, voted to repeal the “special independent district” enjoyed by Disney for half-a-century.
This is a sign, we are told, of the advent of an American authoritarianism that brooks no dissent — Disney criticizes a measure supported by the Florida GOP, the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, and immediately gets targeted.
PICK YOUR FIGHTS ... The bible says in Ephesians 4:26 that we may be angry but to sin not and that we should not to let the sun go down with our anger. Beloved, PICK YOUR FIGHTS. Fight the good fight of faith. Fight spiritual enemies (with the weapons of your warfare that are mighty through God). Be assertive but not aggressive. The bible tells us God beautifies the “meek” with salvation (Psalm 149:4). Beloved, “meekness” is by no means synonymous with “weakness” but rather it is actually having the power and choosing not to use it. Hand over the battle to God. God tells us in Romans 12:19 “vengeance is mine…”
There’s a reason this fight escalated to this point, though. Disney was the aggressor in the battle over the education bill, lied about it and pledged to work to repeal it.
Even though the bill had nothing to do with Disney whatsoever — nothing to do with its product, its business model or its employees. The company got pushed and pandered into its stance based on pressure from a woke segment of its employees and from progressives on the outside.
Disney’s case against the bill relied on the smear that the legislation somehow threatened gay or trans people. In fact, the law merely seeks to exclude inappropriate material from being taught to young children in the classroom — an objective that once would have been considered utterly banal.
“Classroom instruction,” the law says, “by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”
Based on that, Disney went to mattresses dancing. And it did so, not to serve its shareholders, enhance its profitability, protect its intellectual property or align itself with its vast and politically diverse customer base.
This was, shockingly, an iconic American brand making itself into a free-floating weapon of woke cultural politics in response to the social and political influence of a small number of vocal progressives.
ANOTHER ONE BYTES THE DUSK ... SUNSET ON DISNEY WORLD
Like so many companies before, Disney calculated the risk/reward of gratuitously taking up a left-wing political and cultural fight and considered it all reward, no risk. The Florida legislature decided to convince it that it was wrong.
Republicans have fantasized about exacting revenge on woke corporations before, but to no effect. Disney’s problem is that it had a glaring vulnerability in the form of an arrangement that can easily be portrayed as a special favor.
The provisions allowing Disney to govern itself in its special independent district are so extensive that one analyst refers to the so-called Reedy Creek Improvement District as “the Vatican with mouse ears.”
“Never before or since has such outlandish dominion been given to a private corporation,” the Florida writer Carl Hiaasen notes in his book “Team Rodent.” “Disney owns its own utilities. It administers its own planning and zoning. It composes its own building codes and employs its own inspectors. It maintains its own fire department. It even has the authority to levy taxes.”
Reedy Creek Improvement District BY NUMBERS
- 134 miles of roadways and 67 miles of waterways built and maintained
- 250,000 daily guests
- 6-8 minute response time for fire and EMS
- 60,000 tons of waste managed
- 30 tons of aluminum, paper, steel cans, cardboard and plastic containers recycled every year
- 22,800 water samples collected by RCID scientists from 1,500 locations on the property for testing every year
- 90,000 analyses conducted to make sure that water quality meets or exceeds state and national standards. Water draining from the south end of the District is generally cleaner than when it entered Reedy Creek at its north end.
- 2,000 vendors, suppliers and contractors used to provide a high level of public services for visitors
For good measure, it can build its own airport and nuclear power plant.
Now, that’s all scheduled to go away in a year’s time. Obviously, it is not a good practice for government to retaliate against a business, even a business enjoying a special status.
This fight could have welcome effects, though, if it convinces Disney it made a mistake by allowing itself to get bullied and cajoled into becoming a combatant in the culture war, and convinces other corporations that there’s a potential price to be paid for joining woke mobs.
Republicans don’t want corporations to become tools in advancing their agenda; they just want them to exit the culture wars and focus, once again, on their business, an outcome that would lower the temperature in the country’s cultural fights at least a little.
Ideally, Disney and the Florida legislature work out a renewal of the company’s special district before it is set to expire, and that the house of mouse — and other corporations seduced into making themselves de facto left-wing pressure groups — resolves to stick to its core competency and mission.
