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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   4841 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 18, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Steelman: Martha's Vineyard is a vacation resort and doesn't have the infrastructure to handle this, they'll be taken to the city and helped there (DeSantis is an asshole for using people for politics).

Retort: Border Towns are poorer than MV and don't have the resources either.

Steelman: [Not sure what goes here to be honest.]

The final steelman is that border towns do have the infrastructure (which is not the same as resources). They have local state and nonstate entities which deal with this all the time. Similarly, SF is richer than

Detroit, but which is better equipped to deal with 8 inches of snow?

According to Wikipedia Martha's Vineyard has the infra to handle 85,000 visitors (the difference between MV's year round population of 16k and their summer population of 100k). Quickly browsing travelocity suggests there are easily places for 50 people to stay in their beach front guest houses. The first few results were "beach house, sleeps 6", "resort condo, sleeps 4", etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha's_Vineyard

I do not recall anyone calling the National Guard when Obama brought in in 400 celebrities and 200 servants: https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-08-04/barack-obama-scales-back-60th-birthday-party-amid-delta-variant-spread

If you believe that the normal MV guests require different "infrastructure" than summer vacationers and that you can't just drop these guys into some beach houses, maybe you can be specific about what infra they need and why you can't?

I assume that recent arrivals need all sorts of services other than a mere roof. And indeed there is whole network of agencies in border areas which provide such services. Are doctors in MV conversant with the health issues common to migrants from Central America? With the symptoms of common diseases in Central America? Are there even medical, educational, etc, staff who are fluent in Spanish in MV? Are there local Spanish-language religious services? Those are just a few things that pop to mind. Are there others? I don't know,and THAT IN ITSELF is an illustration of the issue: Part of the infrastructure is people with the knowledge of what needs these people are likely to have.

They have 100k population in peak tourist season, as I heard. That means they are probably equipped to deal with all common conditions that can happen in a population of 100k people that are having a good time. Of course, they might not be able to handle Dr. House level medical mystery - but do you think whatever medical services the illegals are getting under a Texas bridge beat whatever services they can get in Martha's Vineyard hospital? I don't think the bridge would win this competition. I'm sure somewhere on the border there might be one or a dozen of Dr. House's that can spot rare medical conditions and act promptly on them. The chance of a random migrant that is one of tens of thousands passing the border every month to meet that specific Dr. House at the specific moment they are at the border - I'd evaluate it as rather low.

In other words, if I were sick with some mysterious disease and was offered to be dropped next to Martha's Vineyard hospital (2 hr drive to Boston) or at a migrant camp in Texas (2 weeks to see a nurse because there's 5 to 10k people crossing the border every day?) - I know what I'd choose.

I guess deporting people on the theory that maybe they are carrying scary exotic diseases is only racist when non-wealthy people do it.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure MV has the resources to hire...1 spanish speaking Texas doctor for 4 days (assuming 30 minutes/exam x 8 hour days x 4 days = 64 exams > 50 people).

Once you start having any quantity of non-native speakers, you need to have a foreign-speaking doctor and a teacher and a dentist and a lawyer and ...

I am on the conservative side, but this thread was about the steelman.

That's obviously not so for "any quantity" - a single person who speaks non-English language would neither necessitate nor able to support all these highly paid professionals speaking their particular language. Of course, if you have a lot of persons that speak only or preferentially non-English language, they would create a demand for professionals speaking their language and be able to support such professionals. But that number is well above 50 for most professionals.

When I was an immigrant, I spent time in regions where such folks were not really available. I guess someone should have called the local version of the national guard on me?

I was referring, of course, to treating those diseases, not deporting those who have them.

Anyhow, if MV has to import professionals from TX, doesn’t that sort of imply that they don't have the infrastructure in place?

Look, OP asked for a steelman. The infrastructure issue clearly is a one. That doesn’t mean that DeSantis is a good guy, nor that he is a bad guy. Ditto re people in MV. Ditto re the migrants themselves. But surely you are willing to admit that maybe, just maybe, sending the migrants to MV was not in their best interests?

Anyhow, if MV has to import professionals from TX

I see no evidence they do need to do this because the idea that all 50 of them needed a Spanish language medical exam for exotic foreign diseases is laughable.

But surely you are willing to admit that maybe, just maybe, sending the migrants to MV was not in their best interests?

I defer to the migrants in question, all of whom made a choice to get on the plane to MV.

Note how carefully most news articles hint - but don't explicitly state - that they were forced to. Meanwhile DeSantis quite explicitly states that it was voluntary, they had a packet which explained everything and had a map of MV. (I see no reason to trust their vague hints now given how frequently the media has mislead people about DeSantis in the past.)

And the litany of other services? Are you really arguing that there is NO chance that an area in which migration is a constant featureswill have better infrastructure to deal with migrants than some dinky island 1500 miles from the border?

The news articles very clearly state that they were fooled into going, not that they were coerced. And, as for what they thought was in their best interest, that is irrelevant: the OP was about MV residents, and their views. If they are correct that the migrants best interests were not served by being sent there, then what is the basis for criticizing them.

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