Just daffy

Once upon a time, it was the activist left that wanted to rip private property from private entities, and it was conservatives who sought to prevent such attacks on free enterprise. But that was when conservatives still believed in their own stated principles.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has once again demonstrated how much he doesn’t. His legislation attempting to retroactively strip Disney of its own copyrights as punishment for criticizing Florida’s so-called “don’t say gay” law is not only legally and constitutionally ridiculous, but should be philosophically repugnant to a party that once prided itself on standing against interference with free enterprise.

There is fodder there for legitimate debate, but Hawley confirms this isn’t that debate in two ways: first, by specifying in the first line of his press release announcing the legislation that it is aimed at “woke corporations like Disney,” and secondly by making the provisions of the bill retroactive on the biggest companies (including Disney), immediately taking away currently owned copyrights with no due process.

Legal experts say this would be tantamount to the government yanking away a private entity’s real estate or other property based on a law that wasn’t in effect when the company obtained the property. As Yale Law grad Hawley surely knows, it doesn’t work that way.

He knows, but doesn’t care, because his goal here isn’t to actually change copyright law. It’s to publicly bash Disney in order to get in on some of that right-wing cred that Ron DeSantis—Florida’s governor and one of Hawley’s rivals in his apparent presidential bid—has collected for his vindictive move to strip Disney’s special tax district as punishment for the company’s criticism of DeSantis’ law regulating classroom content.

As cynical and obvious a violation of the First Amendment as DeSantis’ law was, it passed, which is more than Hawley can expect.