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>Disney is hardly the only business which has negotiated preferential treatment. Are you making the case that it's very common, and so it's not special nor unf

by daenz 5y ago

>Disney is hardly the only business which has negotiated preferential treatment. Are you making the case that it's very common, and so it's not special nor unfair? I am very skeptical that more than %0.001 of businesses (1 in 100,000) benefit from these special government privileges. Especially if you consider all people, since corporations are legally people. It smells like crony capitalist corruption to me...far from normal, and very unfair to everyone else. Shouldn't be happening. Take it all away, I don't care what the motivation is, because to me, it's not harm to remove corruption.

Volundr 5y ago
Define common. It's common enough that every single one of the 50 states and the Federal government has a variety of special arrangements at some level or another with multiple private entities. But uncommon in that most business aren't large enough, publicly popular enough, or have sufficient lobbying power to negotiate them. I wouldn't even contest your ratio. Usually these will be around tax breaks but also special water rights, rights to self govern certain things, rights to use public land, exemptions from certain laws, etc. Usually the justification is that it benefits the local economy exactly the same as the justification for Disney's. Yet somehow here Disney is the only one being targeted. Apparently you are allowed to negotiate these things, but the government will renege on it's agreements if you later dare to speak against them. If Florida was pushing to kill ALL of these arrangements it would be a non-issue (or rather a very different issue). Instead they are targeting only Disney, for daring to speak against their party line, in a clear attempt to silence their speech. No amount of trying to re-frame the issue changes that.
- daenz 5y ago
  Every one of the 50 states and the fed having provisions for special arrangements doesn't, to me, say that the arrangements themselves are common, only that corruption is common. I agree, if Florida attempted to kill all of the special arrangements, it would definitely appear less biased to people (although impractical, it could still be purely political cover). If you're making the case that targeting Disney's special privileges vs the other company's special privileges is what makes it unfair, I could get behind that more than other arguments that I've seen. But my response to that would be to expand the removal of these privileges. Since that is far less likely to happen, I'm comfortable with using politically motivated reasons (of any side, I don't care who does it and why) to accomplish it.
  - Volundr 5y ago
    > Since that is far less likely to happen, I'm comfortable with using politically motivated reasons (of any side, I don't care who does it and why) to accomplish it. I cannot begin to fathom this position. Your describing "you can negotiate special privileges if you have enough influence, but only if you never speak against me" as less corrupt than "you can negotiate special privileges if you have enough influence".
    - daenz 5y ago
      Yes, I believe the former is a less corrupt position in a democracy, because it has a natural balance: the opposing side will work to remove those special privileges. In the latter, there is no check to balance it, so it is more corruptible.

by daenz 5y ago

Volundr 5y ago

Define common. It's common enough that every single one of the 50 states and the Federal government has a variety of special arrangements at some level or another with multiple private entities. But uncommon in that most business aren't large enough, publicly popular enough, or have sufficient lobbying power to negotiate them. I wouldn't even contest your ratio. Usually these will be around tax breaks but also special water rights, rights to self govern certain things, rights to use public land, exemptions from certain laws, etc. Usually the justification is that it benefits the local economy exactly the same as the justification for Disney's. Yet somehow here Disney is the only one being targeted. Apparently you are allowed to negotiate these things, but the government will renege on it's agreements if you later dare to speak against them. If Florida was pushing to kill ALL of these arrangements it would be a non-issue (or rather a very different issue). Instead they are targeting only Disney, for daring to speak against their party line, in a clear attempt to silence their speech. No amount of trying to re-frame the issue changes that.

daenz 5y ago
Every one of the 50 states and the fed having provisions for special arrangements doesn't, to me, say that the arrangements themselves are common, only that corruption is common. I agree, if Florida attempted to kill all of the special arrangements, it would definitely appear less biased to people (although impractical, it could still be purely political cover). If you're making the case that targeting Disney's special privileges vs the other company's special privileges is what makes it unfair, I could get behind that more than other arguments that I've seen. But my response to that would be to expand the removal of these privileges. Since that is far less likely to happen, I'm comfortable with using politically motivated reasons (of any side, I don't care who does it and why) to accomplish it.
- Volundr 5y ago
  > Since that is far less likely to happen, I'm comfortable with using politically motivated reasons (of any side, I don't care who does it and why) to accomplish it. I cannot begin to fathom this position. Your describing "you can negotiate special privileges if you have enough influence, but only if you never speak against me" as less corrupt than "you can negotiate special privileges if you have enough influence".
  - daenz 5y ago
    Yes, I believe the former is a less corrupt position in a democracy, because it has a natural balance: the opposing side will work to remove those special privileges. In the latter, there is no check to balance it, so it is more corruptible.