Ber2dca

He said the actions of the GA legislature seem to 'reinforce' the stereotype which to me seems like he's saying that it 'confirms' them. If someone responded and said 'Well your comments certainly seem to reinforce the stereotype of the amoral, degenerate big city liberal', I'd think that it'd be pretty clear what that person thinks about him and what his position regarding those stereotypes is. It's a rhetorical trick and it deserves to be called out IMO.

Now I don't know why this is dragged into these aggressive exchanges given that we're all aware that there's two very different views on guns and gun ownership which both have a lot of support in different parts of the population. There was a time when such disagreements could be handled without resorting to the type of dehumanizing rhetoric about 'the other side' that makes it sound like it's 1858 and Civil War is on the horizon.

pvn

Hey, here's a pro tip, if you get mad that people see your elected officials doing dumb stuff and then draw conclusions about the population, stop electing morons.

puddinhead

You can be kicked off FlyerTalk for exercising your first amendment right, There is freedom of speech but not freedom of consequences.The GA legislature didn't prohibit Delta from voicing their opinion.

Company quits providing discount to questionable organization.
Government cuts off corporate welfare.

Win - Win

gooselee

Um...I suggest you re-read the First Amendment.

Yes, free speech comes with consequences...as imposed by other private citizens who may choose to boycott your business, socially ostracized and ridicule you, or otherwise exercise their own First Amendment rights to publicly and vocally disagree with you.

What the First Amendment very specifically prohibits is the *government* from infringing (or, by extension, imposing consequences) upon free speech, press, religion, petition, etc. The government itself does NOT have First Amendment rights - the First Amendment (and most of the Constitution and all amendments for that matter) serves very specifically to LIMIT the powers and abilities of government, not enable it.

All the same, infringing on DL's future expression of opinion is exactly what the GA legislature chose to do, IMO.*

*I am most certainly not a constitutional lawyer, and there is a complication of DL being a business and not an individual private citizen, but this still seems like a pretty clear case if DL wanted to make an issue out of it. (They won't, of course, because that would be bad for business.)

jdrtravel

While I personally think it was one of the most disastrous rulings of the court in modern history, Citizens United essentially established that corporations have the same rights to free speech as individuals:

From: http://www.annenbergclassroom.org/sp...endment-rights

In the 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Justice Anthony Kennedy argued in the majority opinion that “we have long since held that corporations are covered by the First Amendment.”

“If the First Amendment has any force,” Kennedy wrote, “it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.”

gooselee

Ahh, I almost forgot about Citizens United.

But then it could even more directly be argued that the prevailing opinion from that case provides reasonably clear precedent upon which one could argue that DL's First Amendment rights were violated.

pbarnette

That would be true (maybe) if I hadn't posted "I don't believe that stereotype". Nice try though.

FlyingBeanCounter

SCSA

So does arming teenagers with military grade weaponry.

SCSA

Uhm...a squelching of free speech is exactly what the Georgia Legislature said they were going to do. This was essentially a bill of attainder

pvn

I hope you're not a lawyer

KevinDTW

You have to feel for those GA legislators, caught between DL and the NRA. But they'll find a way to make everyone happy again, perhaps by making a big public show of rescinding the tax break but giving the money back in some lower-profile way.

jdrtravel

It has nothing to do with taxes per se. It is about a government body taking punitive action against a corporation for exercising first amendment rights.

gooselee

This. The damning evidence is Lt. Gov. Cagle's statement via twitter that imposing taxes (or removing the tax break) was in direct response to Delta's actions re: NRA discount. That suddenly and clearly connects the two actions to one another.

As a private citizen, how would you (FlyingBeanCounter) feel if the government told you they would not allow you, specifically, to take a mortgage interest deduction (or standard deduction, or EV tax credit, or whatever other element helps you out) unless you deleted an online post you made in which they perceived your support of some organization?

Different strokes, and that's okay.

Cheesesteak: Having worked in Philly for 2 years and going many places other than Pat's/Geno's after my first month there, I will concede the cheesesteak. Woody's in VaHi does comes close, though.
Pizza: I grew up on Fellini's, so that's my go-to for pizza aside from a few surprisingly good tiny neighborhood joints (Mo's on Briarcliff is particularly good).
Subs: Sub Base in Chamblee is a hidden gem. I won't insult you by championing Publix subs. They're solid daily drivers but if you want to take the top down and shift into the low gears, the little banh mi shops on Buford Hwy are excellent in a very different way.

pbarnette