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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   38195 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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A great man once said feeble minds discuss people, mediocre minds discuss events, and great men discuss feeble and mediocre minds. As befits my station (see: flair), I will endeavor to do the first two.

Yesterday, Ron Desantis proudly shipped 50 illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard. See Breitbart and Fox News’ takes as well. The individuals were supposedly offered a plane ticket to Massachusetts, without being told they were being sent to a small, isolated island unprepared to receive them as part of a political stunt. Amusingly, not sharing a border with Mexico, Desantis actually had to source his illegal immigrants from Texas. I suppose rustling up 50 of the 772,000 homegrown illegal Florida Mans was too difficult, or may have upset some core constituency, who knows. The only shelter in Martha’s Vineyard has room for 10 and is obviously not equipped in the way that Boston, New York or DC would be and the plane ticket to those places would have been much cheaper.

Also of note: see the Fox News article for the Florida legislature’s $12 million ‘immigrant relocation program’ Own The Libs/Desantis for President fun.

I can stomach a border wall and even see the necessity, despite disagreeing with what it represents. I can sympathize with people living near the border and dealing with crime and drug cartels. But manipulating impoverished people seeking a better future and treating them as nothing more than chattel to score political points and ‘own the libs’ absolutely turns my stomach. Which, judging by the Breitbart comments and replies I expect here, laughing at my pearl clutching is absolutely the point. You want me to be mad, you want me get up on my soapbox and bleat some self-righteous Soyjak lines about muh poor illegals so you can get mad right back and it feels good.

So I guess I won’t do that, although I never know what to say instead. I’m sorry that you hate Obama and Clinton (see: Breitbart article) so much that the thought of them having to deal with poor third worlders is amusing. I’m sorry that you’re so angry about illegal immigration and the libs that we’ve come here. Please, let’s all try to treat our countrymen better and do what we can to dial down the hate.

But manipulating impoverished people

How are they being manipulated? From what I've heard, lots of those being bussed or flown out were asked whether they wanted to go and said yes.

and treating them as nothing more than chattel to score political points

But, of course, conservatives are just going to turn around and say that this is exactly what liberals have been doing, and in the even more literal sense of "point-scoring," namely deliberately refusing to enforce immigration laws in order to politically profit from future naturalizations or even present unlawful voting by illegal immigrants.

How are they being manipulated? From what I've heard, lots of those being bussed or flown out were asked whether they wanted to go and said yes.

They were (ostensibly, this is dependent on honest reporting) asked if they wanted to go to Massachusetts, not Martha's Vineyard. Would you consider it honest if I asked an immigrant if they wanted a flight to the United States and I dropped them off in Soldotna, Alaska?

But, of course, conservatives are just going to turn around and say that this is exactly what liberals have been doing, and in the even more literal sense of "point-scoring," namely deliberately refusing to enforce immigration laws in order to politically profit from future naturalizations or even present unlawful voting by illegal immigrants.

Politically, perhaps, although if we had that conversation we'd likely recycle tired talking points about how the United States has always been a nation of immigrants. The US population share of immigrants is higher than it was in the 80s, but on par with the early 20th/late 19th century.

From a humanitarian perspective, I strongly disagree that they are equivalent.

  • -11

Would you consider it honest if I asked an immigrant if they wanted a flight to the United States and I dropped them off in Soldotna, Alaska?

How is Martha's Vineyard remotely comparable? The migrants were bussed out of there within 24 hours and it's only a couple hours from Boston.

From a humanitarian perspective, I strongly disagree that they are equivalent.

You're right, getting here in the first place is infinitely more expensive and dangerous than being transported from a red state to a blue state.

Would you consider it honest if I asked an immigrant if they wanted a flight to the United States and I dropped them off in Soldotna, Alaska?

Most people consider Alaska to be a worse place to live than the median locality in the US, thats why people have to paid to move there.

By contrast MV is a luxury locality, where the vast majority of people would be overjoyed to live.

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