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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 4, 2023

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Schadenfreude all the way on this one. If you're going to call yourself a sanctuary city, then live up to it. Otherwise, "we're a sanctuary city so long as none of the alleged refugees turn up on our doorstep" is just virtue signalling. Funny how all those thousands of future productive citizens who will stimulate the economy by the advantages of immigration turn into resource sinks when they do show up in the big city that is built by immigrants and has plenty of jobs, instead of border towns and the south and western states, isn't it?

I'm struck by 1), the fact that the LA city council thinks injunctions and lawsuits will work

Particularly when you have people leaving food and water dumps in the deserts for the illegal immigrants because "no human is illegal!" and breaking laws. If it's fine to break laws to support immigrants, why expect Abbott to abide by legal decisions?

"families and children who have fled their country due to injustices or threats against their lives, who have faced unimaginable obstacles to seek asylum"

So why is LA putting obstacles in their way? Why doesn't it want to help people who have fled injustice and are in fear for their lives?

Yes, it's a stunt, but by God it's great to see the hypocrisy of the liberals exposed like this.

Otherwise, "we're a sanctuary city so long as none of the alleged refugees turn up on our doorstep" is just virtue signalling.

What share of illegal immigrant/asylum seekers/etc... do you think wind up in California? (Spoilers: it's a lot, considerably more than Texas)

LA and the state of CA have perfectly adequate reasons to oppose migrant busing without exposing themselves as secretly anti-immigrant hypocrites:

  • lack of coordination from TX government
  • Denying precedent for the principle that TX can shuttle indigents or undesirables to CA in lieu of handling them itself
  • Ideological belief that shuttling migrants around is unethical.

The preponderance of evidence suggests this is an exercise in lib-owning, so it really shouldn't be surprising that liberal governing bodies are opposed to it.

This is all very very weak

lack of coordination from TX government

This would be valid if the response was "Hey, it's great that you're sending us these people! Can we coordinate to handle this better?", and TX refused to send more people with coordination.

Denying precedent for the principle that TX can shuttle indigents or undesirables to CA in lieu of handling them itself

This requires admitting that immigrants are "undesirables" -- otherwise the precedent is that TX can ship people that CA wants to CA.

Ideological belief that shuttling migrants around is unethical.

This doesn't appear to have enough reason behind it to even refute.

The preponderance of evidence suggests this is an exercise in lib-owning,

Of course it's an exercise in lib-owning. What do you think lib-owning is, if not exposing their hypocrisy and virtue signaling? Saying "You're getting a kick out of my floundering around in cognitive dissonance when you expose my hypocrisy!" is not a defense.

so it really shouldn't be surprising that liberal governing bodies are opposed to it.

Who's surprised? The fact that liberal governing bodies are opposed to something their stated beliefs demand they support is exactly the point. That's why it's "owning the libs"

This requires admitting that immigrants are "undesirables"

No, it requires admitting that TX regards them as such.

This doesn't appear to have enough reason behind it to even refute.

When large groups of people tell you they believe X for reason Y, you should generally believe them.

Or, to put it another way, if they have such a problem with migrants, why do they have no problem with the literal millions of them already there? What it is about a few additional busloads that makes it a bridge too far? Nativists prefer to believe that this exposes their opponents as hypocrites because it vindicates their own sentiments ("our enemies secretly agree with us"), but it doesn't square with reality.

What do you think lib-owning is, if not exposing their hypocrisy and virtue signaling?

Showing off to your supporters that you're tough and cruel to the people they hate.

  • -11

This requires admitting that immigrants are "undesirables"

No, it requires admitting that TX regards them as such.

The whole issue here seems to be that states other than TX, such as CA, finds it undesirable that TX give these people bus tickets that have places like CA as the destination. I'm not sure how it's possible to frame this in a way that doesn't fully admit that the decisionmakers in places like CA that are complaining or at least pushing back at this action by the decisionmakers by TX are seeing these immigrants as "undesirables."

"We don't want to establish a precedent that other states can just ship people they don't want here without our prior consent. If migrants want to come here on their own that's fine, but we don't want the TX government deciding next week that since we're not doing anything about immigrants they can save money on vagrancy or prison facilities as well."

We don't want to establish a precedent that other states can just ship people they don't want here without our prior consent.

That precedent was established a long time ago when CA and TX (and other states involved) joined the United States with the expectation of free movement of people between the borders. If TX officials are handing out bus tickets to people, and those people are voluntarily choosing to use those bus tickets to transport themselves to other places within the United States as they have a right to do, then the Union is working as intended.

If TX officials are using coercion, manipulation, or even just the slightest bit of pressure to these migrants to "ship" them off to other states, that's certainly an issue, though it's one between the individual migrants who have been wronged and the government officials who have wronged them. From what I can tell, there's likely some evidence that something like this took place, and justice for these wronged migrants seems worth pursuing. But if the objection is to a different state handing out resources to its inhabitants which then free them up to voluntarily choose to move within the United States to one's own state of residence, then, again, I don't see how to interpret that objection as anything other than the declaration that those people are "undesirables" in some meaningful way.

From what I can tell, there's likely some evidence that something like this took place,

What evidence? Assertions from people who don’t want to have to deal with them?

It doesn’t seem likely that significant numbers of migrants illegally hop the border to take up residence in places like Eagle Pass and McAllen, and the state governments shipping them off are able to produce signed consent forms on a regular basis.

I didn't say it was strong evidence or good evidence.