However, even ignoring that, your premise is still fundamentally flawed: Every citizen has rights afforded to them via the first amendment to representation and to redress the government for grievances, regardless of how much they pay in taxes. And corporations have some status as a person, so they share those same rights.
I agree that corporations sometimes don't pay their fair share of taxes. However, that does not seem to be the case with Disney, at least in this particular instance. And it's actually a bad-faith deflection from the real issue of the violation of Disney's first amendment rights against government retaliation for voicing opposition to the "Parental Rights in Education" bill (now law).
I can both dislike Disney and believe this move was unconstitutional at the same time.
It is strange that the entirely of "the left" takes the blame for private actions taken by business, which is then used as some strange "well they started it" reaction by Republican lawmakers to do a much more egregious version of exactly what they repeatedly claim they are against.
An honest call for freedom of speech would defend it against all censorship, public and private.
Indeed, between the two, I find censorship by private "oligarchs" more threatening. Public officials come and go, but the oligarchs remain.
(Edit in response to Volundr: We're not talking about small magazines about Harleys here. Someone who has billions of users and power that rivals governments and changes the outcome of elections must be prevented from abusing that power.)
Edit in response to below: The courts will enforce the law without any input from us. We can only wait and see what they do, if anything. So I'm not discussing that, I'm discussing the hypocrisy in advocating for the principle only when it suits you.
Second edit: It's possible that people simply have different interpretations of the principle, but if that was the case, I'd expect to see a lot more objections to schools that force mandatory ideology on their students, failing them if they disagree; more objections to Canada and European countries when they punish people for their expression; and fewer concerns about Musk taking over Twitter.
What I see instead is people who only call for free speech to defend speech they agree with. Which, as I said before, isn't free speech at all.
Maybe the difference is that not everyone agrees with your expansive definition of the principle of free speech. So what appears to you as advocating for the principle only when it suits your opponents, is simply that not everyone agrees with your particular take on the principle itself.
Its fairly easy to support the interpretation of free speech where the state cannot use its expansive power to punish people for their expression. A forceful (via law) application of this principle to private entities would impact their rights in other ways (such as free association) so it isn't surprising that fewer people agree with this more extreme version of the principle.
Only, you're the one who has defined "the principle" in your own terms. I prefer to read "the Constitution." The position that I defend is the one backed by the Constitution. You can portray that as flip-flopping every time I go from defending a company's right to curate content that it broadcasts to attacking government attempts to enforce religious beliefs through censorship and legislative retaliation to speech, but my position is unwavering.
I cannot disagree with this statement more. What speech you choose to publish and not is a vital part of free speech. If I publish a motorcycle newsletter, and choose to publish a letter to the editor about why Harley's are great, and don't publish another about why Harley's suck that is part of my protected speech. It arguably makes my magazine worse, but that's for my readers to decide. Perhaps they are tired of reading endless articles ragging on Harley's and are pleased to have a publication where they can escape it.
What I do think is that this is the first major case of a fascist pushing the limits of the first amendment. The revocation of the special status was explicitly a direct consequence of Disney's protected speech.
I also believe that corporations should not govern. I would support revoking this district for basically any other reason. But that this targeted punishment due to the content of speech is undeniable, both because of desantis' statements and because The Villages, another special district that is very conservative did not have its status revoked.
If you talk to literal fascists they don't like corporate personhood either.
That's the legal notion that corporations have the same rights as real people, but the special district would still be objectionable if a real person had been allowed to set up their own private local government.
Free speech
Free press
Freedom of association
Freedom of religion
Non-establishment of religion
If a state had such a law would be pretty clearly unconstitutional ab initio.
> If it was being repealed for some politically motivated reason, and white people said "I am being harmed!" would you agree with them?
Assuming the law not only existed on the books but was enforced by the state prior to the repeal, yes, they would obviously be being harmed for an unconstitutional purpose in violation of their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
(If any remedy was available, it wouldn't involve preserving the policy, because that policy is a violation of other people's Constitutional rights, but since we haven't been discussing remedies in the Florida case and no one has argued that the special district exceeds Florida’s Constitutional power, that aspect of the hypothetical is not relevant to the discussion.)
I'm not sure the point you are trying to make, but, you are not currently making a good argument to defend it.
The smoking gun would be a leaked text from De Santis saying "We'll get the woke bastards. We'll take away their special district." But I don't think any evidence has emerged yet showing that was indeed his motivation.
Having said that, it was voted through by Florida lawmakers; it would only take a handful of loudmouth politicians saying to camera "See? We're winning the war on woke at Disney!" for a plausible case to start emerging.
[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/justinbaragona/status/15172454664...