It’s not libertarian or free-market to pretend that it has a property right to the legal creations of a favorable legislature.
Charles and I agree on a lot when it comes to DeSantis and Disney. We agree that the Florida governor did not have to pick this fight. I thought it may have been imprudent; Charles was sure that it was. We also agree that Disney doesn’t have a right to special privileges created by the legislature. But Charles objects to my analogy that Disney’s transformation is akin to Sea World turning itself into a strip club, and he accuses me of dishonesty. He writes:
Walt Disney World did not “reinvent itself as a strip club” — or as anything else for that matter. Walt Disney World is exactly what it was when it opened in 1971, and exactly what it promised to be when it was granted its special district back in 1968: It is a gigantic amusement park with some hotels attached. What Disney did was speak. That I happen to disagree with what Disney said is immaterial, as is that I happen to favor the law to which Disney took exception. The chain of events is clear: Disney spoke out against the incumbent government, and, in response, the incumbent government took action against Disney. I know this. Michael knows this. We all know this. It has scarcely been hidden. Given the complexity of this area, I do not know if Florida acted illegally when it retaliated against Disney. I do know that Florida retaliated against Disney.
Charles has a less favorable view of DeSantis’s action: He calls it retaliation against speech the content of which is “immaterial.” That’s where we disagree.
Walt Disney World and other Disney attractions in Florida no doubt got many of their special privileges because of the values Disney promoted in 1971. The arrangement was seen as an extension of an uncontroversially family-friendly entertainment brand. As the Advocate‘s pictures from Walt Disney World’s “Gay Days” show, however, some things have changed since 1971. The culture has changed. Now, Disney is a company that admits to sneaking subversive messages into its films. And the content of its political speech — that publicly funded smut should be in primary-school libraries and second-grade teachers should discuss sexual orientation and gender identity with seven-year-olds — is seen not just by the governor but by many in the state as politically obnoxious.
We can have many arguments about the prudence of these actions. But it’s not libertarian or free-market to pretend that Disney has a property right to the legal creations of a favorable legislature, or to hold that the legislature can never alter these creations because of speech it disfavors. If Disney didn’t want to be at the mercy of political winds, it could have refused these special privileges. The risk of government “retaliation” against speech is a necessary consequence of accepting special government “favor” for speech.
Disney has a great deal of political capital in Florida, and it has been able to use it for its political purposes. It spent some of that political capital and lost some of its political favor. That its political privileges were altered in the process is not a violation of free-market principles, as Mike Pence alleges, or of free speech, as others have alleged — it’s more like a law of political gravity.