It is all about economics

Dollar-signI have been having a similar conversation with a few people over the past few days.  The topics are Florida and Texas.  The stand-your-ground law in Florida that allows citizens to patrol their neighborhoods with concealed weapons that led to the killing of an unarmed African-American teen who supposedly looked suspicious.  In Texas, the strict controversial abortion law banning any abortion after 20 weeks that became a law last week.  I'd like to see Rick Perry get pregnant by mistake and have to go through the anxiety of attempting to have an abortion or having the state Government live in his bedroom. 

There are some major events that take place in both states that bring in millions of dollars into both Texas and Florida.  What would happen if Art Basel Miami decided that they are going to pull out and instead do Los Angeles Art Basel.  All those economic dollars would be sucked out of Florida. 

What if the people who run Austin City Limits or the people behind SXSW opted to pull out of the state of Texas to make a statement about the abortion law?  Although Austin is a small Democratic oasis inside a conservative state perhaps the law makers would begin to feel different. 

We are in the process of passing gay marriage in almost every state.  More than likely the legalization of marijuana will start to move across the country which will be a huge boon in tax dollars.  Yet in other states there is a movement in a completely opposite direction.

When the gun law was not passed in the Senate and there were a handful of Democrat senators that voted against its passage I decided not to financially support them anymore.  It isn't a huge amount of money but I am pretty sure I am not the only person who made that conscious decision.  In the end it all adds up.  If organizations decided to pull the plug on major events that bring huge dollars into those states, then perhaps the hard core conservatives who are becoming a minority not a majority would think twice before they voted. 

Comments (Archived):

  1. Tara

    Pregnant by mistake and the be so what? – complacent, lazy, uncaring, undecided-that you can get it taken care of in the first 20 weeks?

    1. Gotham Gal

      It appears that there is a large group of hollywood stars that are boycotting Florida too. I just read that yesterday. I wrote the post last week (posted today) so I am not the only person thinking about this.

    2. jim

      How about be so protected by the U.S. Constitution? Like them or leave them, the Supreme Court is the final interpreter of the Constitution. This law clearly violates Supreme Court precedent and will be struck down forthwith. It’s a shame the state allocated so many scare resources on something like this, especially considering that once a child is born in Texas she lives in a state that favors massive cuts in childhood education and health care. I guess you’d just blame those lazy kids, always looking for a handout.

      1. Gotham Gal

        nice one!

  2. awaldstein

    Good for you.Voting with your dollars is how change starts.

  3. Mark Westling

    Sorry, I don’t think this approach will work. Politicians who support these laws aren’t concerned with economic loss to people who likely didn’t support them or the laws in the first place.If SXSW were to leave Austin, the economic hit will affect Austinites — who probably didn’t support the law anyway. Supporters of the law might be happy since it effectively punishes Austinites and they don’t give a damn about SXSW anyway. And people who don’t care about the law might see an economic boycott as outside interference.It’s also useful to turn the situation around. Imagine there’s a huge Republican get-together in update New York each year that brings millions of dollars to the community and the Republican National Committee threatens to more it to Arizona unless New York voters pass a law toughening abortions. You get the idea.I wish I had an alternative but I think an economic approach is too rational… and the laws in question aren’t exactly based on rational appeal.

    1. JLM

      .You have to stop believing the MSM, the entire extravaganza was a national media fabrication.Cecile Richards — Planned Parenthood Potentate and daughter of the late Gov Ann Richards and a woman with deep Texas and Austin roots — could not even get a full busload of folks for the PP Tour of Texas protest.BTW, I used to coach Lilly at the YMCA basketball league, her daughter and Gov Ann’s grand daughter, and she is a delightful person until she gets into the mud on abortion.JLM.

  4. Anthony Serina

    “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed” William Gibson

    1. Gotham Gal

      nice quote

  5. Jay Trien

    Isn’t Federalism great!You like it when companies innovate, why not allow states to do the same thing?You can vote with your money and others with their feet, but each state should be allowed to do its own thing.As to TX, I think Tara nailed it.

  6. Kirsten Lambertsen

    When it comes to the Florida boycott, what I’d like to see is these same artists go play in the Florida projects and low-income neighborhoods for free. Over and over again. There are people who are stuck in FL because of circumstance and can’t get out. They need to be uplifted, unified and empowered to make change together. Don’t evacuate – occupy.I think boycotts end up hurting the people they’re supposed to help.On a positive note, I think these crazy laws are a sort of last gasp. When the guardians of the status quo see the ground falling away beneath them, that’s when they really pull out the stops.

  7. LE

    “If organizations decided to pull the plug on major events that bring huge dollars into those states”But if that happened the side effect would be that the small businesses that make money off those events would also suffer. The dollars are going somewhere in the local economy.(Similar thing happened, for different reasons obviously, when Miss America pulled out of Atlantic City and moved to Las Vegas).More to the point though when you make investments you don’t vet the political views of those you are investing in do you?I think it’s easy to ignore economic impact of a decision though (even if you did) when it doesn’t affect someone directly. Or if the impact is minor.I might decide not to do business with someone that is doing something objectionable to me (and I’ve done that a few times) but that’s because I can do so economically. If I needed to feed my family, and by turning down business it meant a bad fate for them, I’m sure I would look at things differently.

    1. Gotham Gal

      I agree but unfortunately economic leverage is one of the few things that speak more loudly than words.

  8. pointsnfigures

    Florida voted for a hard left Presidential candidate that was African American. Hardly the racist state the left is making it out to be.Agree with Tara. If you can’t figure out if you are going to have an abortion before 20 weeks you might as well have the baby. It can survive outside your body then. It’s humanThe opposite is also true.What if they pulled out of New York or Mass because of political votes?There is an excellent tape on the Trayvon trial at Reason by Bill Whittle. Comes through with facts on both Trayvon and Zimmerman that the MSM didn’t report.Before boycotting or calling for a boycott, best to try. And see all sides of the issue.

  9. JLM

    .As an Austinite who actually understands the nature of the debate and the facts — oh, those pesky facts — let me try to clear up a few misconceptions.Less than 1% of all abortions in Texas are contemplated at or beyond the 20 week point. So, we are talking the low hurdles here. This is not a massive intrusion into the status quo.The science of neonatal care in such places as Seton Hospital over on 35th St is that these babies are viable outside the womb. This is not conjecture. You show up at Seton — where my kids were all born — and those neonatal docs and nurses will deliver a healthy and living baby.So the debate is really all about killing a child who would otherwise become, well, YOUR child.If a woman can’t figure out whether she wants to have an abortion before she has been carrying a baby for 20 weeks, then let’s state the obvious — she is dumber than dirt and her ability to make decisions about anything should be questioned.More importantly this is no longer a decision about an abstraction, at 20 weeks it is a decision about a baby. Don’t agree? Get over to Seton and debate it with those neonatal docs and nurses who routinely deliver the goods.The other provision of the bill was the necessity for places that provide day surgery — abortions — to conform to standards for, well,…………………………………………surgery.This includes physical plant issues, sterilization practices, training and education standards — the exact same standards applicable to the outpatient surgery of removing a wart from your forehead.Again, not exactly the freakin’ high hurdles and no change in the current law. Abortion clinics, which are in fact surgical clinics providing invasive surgery, simply have to adhere to good medical practices. This has nothing to do with social policy and everything to do with preventing infection and minimal medical practices to increase rates of survival and recovery. It is medicine.As to folks boycotting Texas and Austin — bring it but remember what goes around, comes around. You want to piss off 26MM folks (well, 1.5MM of them are recent California immigrants) and start a food fight?One of the things I love about Texas politics is the ability to engage in open and honest hand to hand combat.I love the idea that Wendy Davis filibustered the first bill. Hell, I even like Wendy on a personal basis. What a great life story — young Mom goes to Harvard law. Strong as horseradish Texas gal. We grow them tough and strong in Texas.She got a full hearing of her thoughts and probably destroyed her political career in the process but I applaud her actions and I love her rant.Make no mistake, Sen Davis is no force in Texas and is a complete fabrication of the national media. She will struggle to be re-elected from her District.More importantly, everything that she wanted the Senate to consider was considered and was not supported by a majority.Texas was completely controlled by the Democrats in the late 1960s and morphed to the status today — not one single statewide office is held by a Democrat.What changed? The governing philosophy of the Lloyd Bentsen Democrats is the exact same as the governing philosophy of the Rick Perry Republicans. The Texas Democrats became Texas Republicans as the national Democrat governing philosophy evolved into a nanny state.Gov Rick Perry? The guy started his career as a Democrat and changed to the Republican party.On Earth as it is in Texas.JLM.

    1. Gotham Gal

      Great great comment

    2. jim

      Understands “the facts”, eh? Would love to see your evidence that a fetus can survive outside the womb at 20 weeks. Come on cowboy, show us what you’ve got.

      1. JLM

        .Your ignorance is appalling. This is why it is so difficult to engage in a constructive and honest dialogue on these type matters.Facts always trump slogans.You should read articles such as this one from the British Medical Journal which uses quite outdated statistics.http://www.guardian.co.uk/s…I picked this one, in particular, because it is a well respected journal, has some age on it and is not drawn into the abortion debate. It is just factual.It is published by the Guardian and indicates infant survival rates of the 22-26 month period as increasing dramatically over the stated period from 40% in 1995 to 53% in 2006.The statistics are even more overwhelming and encouraging when they are brought to the present.Age is going down and survival rates are going up. Why don’t you know these facts if you are a serious person and looking for the truth of the matter?Places like Seton Hospital in Austin have saved babies of such a young gestation as to be unbelievable.This is real and this is happening now.For you to be this fundamentally ignorant on this subject is to damn any utterance you might make on the subject.Now get your flat heeled goat ropers on and deal with it, greenhorn.JLM.

        1. jim

          Look dipshit, the article is talking about 22-26 week old fetuses. The law was specifically and aggressively written to target fetuses older than 20 weeks. Show some evidence that such fetuses are viable. This law wasn’t written to “protect life” it was written to challenge Roe and progeny. So I say: Bring it on. The law will not survive.It’s also ironic that you abhor the “nanny state” while lauding a fascist state that wants to cut funding for childhood programs. I’m sure you call Stand Your Ground laws furthering freedom while bemoaning accessibility to abortion as taking human life. You, cow bow, like to talk before you think. As on earth as it is in Texas indeed!

          1. JLM

            Uhh, Jimmy, the lower lower limit for statistical analysis in 1995 was set at 22 weeks old since that was viewed as a reasonable lower limit for viability.This is exactly why I guided you to the British Medical Journal to avoid being involved with stats that are focused on abortion and rather on stats which focus on survival rates.Between 1995 and 2006 that survival rate had increased from 40% to 53%. Survival rates. Huge improvements.Why? Advances in neonatology.The Texas law was revised because since 1995, the lower limit for viability has advanced 14 days to 20 weeks. Eighteen years to advance 2 weeks.THE LAW WAS CHANGED BECAUSE THE SCIENCE CHANGED.It is not the high hurdles to suggest that in 18 years the science of neonatology has advanced 14 days.Today over 64% of babies delivered at 20 weeks survive. That is a huge improvement and the intellectual basis for the change in the law.Less than 1% of all abortions are performed at or after 20 weeks so the notion that this is a big issue is just silly.The rest of the nonsense in your post is just that nonsense.Texas does not have a “stand your ground” law, it has the Castle Law which is even more draconian.BTW just for a quick reference, Texas gun ownership is at an all time high and the murder rate is at an all time low.”Dipshit” really? Grow up.JLM.

          2. Gotham Gal

            Ok guys. I have a friend who delivered 30 and the babies did not survive. Their eyes were still fused. Bottom line babies that are born that early have multiple issues the majority of their life