Open Borders Come to Martha's Vineyard
How DeSantis' Political Stunt Proved its Point
“Peoples such as these leave their own lands…driven out by necessity, and this necessity arises either from famine or from a war and the oppression they have experienced in their own country, which has compelled them to seek new homelands. Such people come in great numbers, and then they violently enter the lands of others, murder the inhabitants, take possession of their property, create a new kingdom, and change the very name of the province.” - Machiavelli [Discourses, II.8]
If you live in America, you couldn’t have possibly missed the grimly comical saga of nationally prominent Florida Governor Ron DeSantis sending two planes of Venezuelan migrants to the famously wealthy vacation island of Martha’s Vineyard. Now, there is no denying it is not nice to manipulate the lives of real humans in this fashion, but it is also true that the humanitarian conditions of the massive border crisis are absolutely appalling, and that the Vineyard should be a nicer place to stay than whatever facility they were in before. There is no sense in which it is correct or fair to make border communities deal with these enormous numbers of people while wealthy people call them racist and fight against anything which resembles border enforcement. Though some of the domestic political rhetoric on this may be nasty, it makes all the sense in the world to distribute illegal immigrants [which is what they are, whether or not they are in the process of trying to become legalized by seeking asylum] throughout our vast country instead of concentrating them in border areas. Further, few people immigrate to the US to stay in desert camps on the Texas border, and even fewer of them have the money to make the long trek north which many desire to do. Despite the fact that hypocritical racism-baiting northern politicians are unwilling to handle it, given the disaster we are already in, some of these enormous numbers of people simply have to be moved to communities farther away from the border with remaining capacity to assimilate or at least support them. Say what you will about DeSantis and his decision, but he showed that the wealthy liberal elite are disgusting people who would never open their vast, empty vacation homes to immigrants- except, of course, to have them cook or clean.
Before I continue, I feel that I need to say a few words about immigration generally, though finding the best immigration policy is not the purpose of this article. Firstly, despite what open border maximalists may say, physically controlling territory and determining who is allowed to live there, and with what legal status, is the most basic function of any government. In a republic where decisions are supposed to be made by a consensus of citizens, this means that determining the nature, purpose, and quantity of immigration is well within the lines of appropriate political discourse and having a secure border isn’t racist, though certainly racism and xenophobia can be a reason why someone opposes immigration. However, I have asked many people about this, and essentially everyone in the conservative, rural area where I live would rather a family of African refugees move next door than wealthy white Californians, so the race component is clearly overplayed. I think the most reasonable immigration policy would be to make it easy and orderly for most people to pass through, while properly screening for known violent criminals and those with communicable diseases et cetera, and then assuming anyone who still attempts to cross illegally is a threat to public safety. It’s also a strange thing, because while people give lip service to improving Central America, only the President of El Salvador has really said they should aspire to be a country that the most ambitious people want to stay in, whereas their other leaders seem to have permanently accepted this status quo in return for periodic handouts to their ruling classes. The truth is that few immigrants these days besides Cubans- who have a different immigration system anyhow- are being purposefully trapped by their governments. This means that a system could be set up that is as easy as sending ahead an ID, bio-metric data, and a background check to the border guards in advance of the person arriving. What we have instead is the worst of all worlds, where masses make a grueling and dangerous journey then are subjected to horrible conditions when they reach the United States, and if caught live in large prison camps where they are unable to work or contribute; alternately they make it through and stay in the country without legal status subject to deportation at any time while hoping for one of our periodic ad hoc amnesties. Meanwhile, families who may legitimately be fleeing things such as violent drug gangs trying to recruit- or kill- their sons have no protection from those gangsters following them to this country.
While my opening Machievelli quote is currently hyperbolic, it has been the case from Moses to David Ben-Gurion that peoples will immigrate in large numbers and then violently take over the place; not to pick on the Hebrews, places such as France, England, and the United States of America also got their names and became what they are by huge numbers of immigrants moving in and violently displacing the residents. Sure, there currently aren’t enough immigrants for that to be a risk for our entire enormous and populous country. However, if migrants are concentrated in border areas because northern governors are unwilling to do their “fair share” of the burden of working towards assimilation, it could easily happen region by region across the South that they are wholly taken over by men seeking a new homeland. In short, it is neither fair to us nor to immigrants to continue the awful inhumane system that we have, and the point DeSantis’ has made with this had to be made if we are going to come to any sort of workable immigration policy.
Famed anti-war podcaster Scott Horton’s commentary on this video that went around of a surely greatly “compassionate” Martha’s Vineyard resident is largely my take on this broader issue:
And random border communities with far less wealth do have the ability to support these populations? As The Federalist showed, this island whose population goes up by 750% during peak tourist season clearly has quite a lot of room to host immigrants, at least if they thought immigrants were deserving of living in the same luxury as the residents.
The hypocrisy knows no bounds, except it really isn’t hypocrisy because they see themselves as being governed by different rules both legally and morally than us plebs. These people clearly thought- or pretended to think- that the border crisis was made up by racists despite overwhelming statistical and video evidence of how bad it is. And now, ignoring that it’s been well known that the Biden Administration has been moving immigrants all over the country in the dead of night with no approval of the people, they want to call DeSantis putting them on planes to a ritzy neighborhood “human trafficking.” Here is the reliably brilliant social commentator Shant Mesrobian on the issue:
Amusingly, despite presumably having abnormally high education levels and surely having Spanish speaking servants, apparently no one in Martha’s Vineyard actually speaks Spanish. Journalist Zaid Jilani, himself the child of immigrants, also had great commentary on this matter, comparing, as he likes to do, race relations in the north to his home in Georgia:
I’m reminded of the Bluths in Arrested Development who humorously have no knowledge of Spanish despite living in southern California, running a construction company with many Hispanic workers, having Mexican servants, and in GOB’s case even dating a Spanish speaker. The people in Martha’s Vineyard seeing Hispanic people who are not holding leaf-blowers is basically like this scene where Lindsey tries to avert a strike by showing up with their maid’s extended family who are in town for a family reunion:
“You don’t want to work, fine, I’ve got a staircar full of Mexican laborers who would be happy for a day’s work!”
“Laborers? I’m a professor of American Studies at the University of Mexico City.”
“I took a dance class there.”
Joking aside, for now, most people can see that the true blame here lies with the federal government who are actually in charge of immigration and border security, whether or not they agree with DeSantis’ choice to do this stunt to showcase the problem. Thus far it appears he hasn’t even lost support from Florida’s Venezuelan community over this:
The Venezuelans are certainly correct to blame this on the disinterest and incompetence of the Biden Administration and the nation’s liberal elite who are quite clearly trying to create a permanent subservient underclass for their own benefit. For example, Biden famously made the clueless Kamala Harris his “Border Czar” and then she never bothered to visit the border, though after relentless criticism she did visit a Border Patrol facility and spoke with some liberal activist groups in the area. Now, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, not to be outdone by DeSantis, sent a group of fifty migrants to the door of Harris’s Vice President’s Mansion. The people pointing out that the 15,000 population island of Martha’s Vineyard doesn’t have federal facilities for processing immigrants are correct, if intentionally missing the point, but that cannot possibly be said for the federal capitol.
And then the response of the Biden Administration came, from the one person under 80 who is more incompetent than Kamala Harris: the new White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. In under a minute she managed to misidentify well known Texas Senator Ted Cruz as the Governor, and proceeded to refer to Venezuela as a communist country, which would greatly change the legal status of people who entered the United States from that country:
Sure, everyone messes up speaking sometimes, but this is her one job, she’s clearly reading off of something, and these are mistakes are factual errors about well known things. I guess we can take some small comfort in knowing the Biden Administration is nominally anti-communist, in spite of the fact that they went hat in hand to Maduro begging for oil earlier this year even though they continue to “recognize” their stooge Juan Guaido as the “real” President of Venezuela. Like Harris before her, this woman was clearly chosen for no reason but being a black woman, which surely only harms black women who have gotten where they are through hard work and competence. While it’s surely true they could have easily found a more competent Press Secretary to handle this sort of situation even limiting their applicant pool to black women, as my friend Laurie Calhoun of The Libertarian Institute pointed out, her incompetence is so incredible you could take it much farther than that:
Based on everything I’ve seen, they could have gotten an intern who studies communications at the local community college to come in a couple of hours a day and do a better job of defending what one might generously refer to as the Biden Administration’s “policies.” It’s really sad to imagine being a desperate person fleeing oppression and poverty and facing this level of disinterest from the party that is supposedly compassionate and has basically invited you to the country for cheap political points. Trump’s rhetoric may have been unpleasant and sometimes hateful, but at least it got the message across that things will be bad for you if you enter the country in this fashion so you should make different plans.
And so, after a touching and traumatic few days of interacting with Hispanics who didn’t have the vacuum cleaners and lawnmowers that the children of Martha’s Vineyard probably assumed were their favorite toys, the Martha’s Vineyard immigrants were transferred to a federal military base where they will surely be protected from deportation. Never mind that it’s against Massachusetts state law for state authorities to turn in illegal immigrants who are not suspected of any crime to federal authorities, these are mere details that were never meant to apply to situations where ultra-wealthy vacationers have to look at them.
Something, or many things, certainly need to be done about the immigration disaster on our borders. Transporting immigrants throughout the country- openly, not secretly Biden Administration style- is perhaps one solution to the problem, but another huge component is simply guarding the border properly while we work towards a workable immigration policy. Unfortunately, this country is corrupt past the point of ever coming together on good policy, so most likely this tragedy will continue while we wait for everything to collapse. In the mean time, we can thank DeSantis for showing the true depravity of the liberal elite, which caused NBC News to tweet and then delete this quote, from what is ostensibly an immigrant advocacy group:
What is going on here is that like with everything else- covid, crime, education, and energy to name some- our elitist patricians and Pharisees detest us and don’t ever expect to be the ones who have to suffer from their awful policies. But when they come face to face with what they have wrought, they melt down faster than Taylor Lorenz and are suddenly the victims. While I feel bad for the migrants as fellow humans, their ordeal is nothing compared to the vast human suffering caused by the liberal policy of letting everyone in when they know well our country does not have the policies nor consensus required to properly care for and assimilate them [the liberals also being anti-assimilation is a matter for another day.] It’s unfortunately true that someone had to make the point Ron DeSantis made with this stunt, and on top of it being darkly amusing, it is genuinely for the greater good that he did.
I will leave you with a Tucker video, who with his characteristic wit and insight explained that this is not hypocrisy because these people genuinely believe they are better than us and deserve different rules:
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Haha--I've been avoiding twitter (in an attempt to get stuff done...), but this popped up in email and I could not resist. Thorough analysis of the "stunt" and the problem. Thanks. I'm still trying to figure out how what Santis did can qualify as "human trafficking", when it is just what the Biden administration has been doing, as was explicitly verified by the former Press Secretary, Jen Psaki. I mean, the only people who might be able to complain in a coherent way would be Florida's taxpayers, since the job of processing immigrants is that of the Federal government.
Tucker is correct. The age-old conservative grift about 'imagine if a Republican did that' has built a lot of lucrative outrage audiences (TPUSA comes to mind) but the reality is, this isn't hypocrisy.
Rules are for plebs, not them. High time people understood that.