This week, 50 immigrants were sent by Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis, to the liberal paradise of Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts.
Hilarity ensued.
The rhetoric, the hyperbole, the hypocrisy, the duplicity, and the outright stupidity has been breathtaking to watch. As someone in the United States who advocates for state abolition, it was doubly entertaining to witness. But I'm putting on my statist thinking cap now and I want to highlight some things that are both entertaining to me and somewhat bewildering at the same time.
"Why would Ron DeSantis want to recreate the Holocaust?"
Yes, the Holocaust. This was some of the hyperbole used by left-wing media pundits and commentators who equated sending 50 immigrants on a plane to a popular, rich, elitist resort destination with rounding up and executing millions of people of an ethnic group. Sending immigrants to a fancy island that proclaimed to be an accepting town for immigrants is the same as committing genocide.
A liberal actor decided to weigh in on the situation and provide his own comparison to Japanese internment camps in the United States during World War II.
Idiotic hyperbole aside, there are in fact questions here that need to be asked and answered:
If you disagree with open borders and allowing illegal aliens to enter and remain in the country, then why load them on a plane and relocate them to another part of the country?
If you have the money to move illegal aliens, why not send them back to the border or the country from where they entered the United States?
This is where law-and-order Republicans lose some of their moral standing. Sending the aliens further into the interior of the country does not solve the problem of them being in the country illegally. It doesn't help when the Biden Administration does it and criticizing that Administration while adopting the same policies is hypocritical. There's no getting around that.
As witnessed over the last couple of days, Democrats have no problem exploiting this hypocrisy, even if it highlights their own - which it certainly does. They accuse DeSantis and other Republican governors of using immigrants as political pawns and of "trafficking" human beings even as they use immigrants as electoral political pawns and the Biden Administration sends them on semi-secret night flights around the country. Engaging in the same behavior takes away legitimate political advantage.
Granted, sending 50 immigrants to Martha's Vineyard absolutely exposed Democrats for what they are: Liars, hypocrites, frauds, and (not surprisingly) completely lacking any self-awareness and compassion.
Just look at the timeline of events and what has been said.
DeSantis sent 50 immigrants to Martha's Vineyard on a plane.
The local government of Martha's Vineyard, one of the richest places in the United States, claimed that their "little" town didn't have the resources to house 50 people, even as dozens of nearby million-dollar-plus mansions sat vacant and summer rental homes were advertising availability.
The media and Democrat politicians condemned Ron DeSantis for his "political stunt" while claiming that dumping immigrants on unsuspecting small towns can send those towns into crisis due to lack of preparedness and resources.
At the same time, they proudly exclaimed that they are not like their racist counterparts - the evil white Republicans in border states - and that they welcome the immigrants to their community.
A day after the 50 immigrants arrived in Martha's Vineyard, the town declared an emergency, had over 100 National Guard troops deployed to their resort island, and proceeded to ship the immigrants off to a military base in Cape Cod.
While this was happening, NBC News was promoting an article by one of its NBC Latino writers that compared the immigrants to "trash" in an attempt to condemn DeSantis.
And just to be clear that Martha's Vineyard really does love the new immigrants that they quickly deported from their town, a GoFundMe fundraiser was created for the Martha's Vineyard Community Foundation. The money raised, since the "migrants" were already shipped off, would remain with the Foundation and not be spent on "this group of migrants and their situation."
In a span of less than two days, the schizophrenic town and its people claimed that they "stand with immigrants," claimed that their rich town with an abundance of empty homes had no way to house 50 immigrants, claimed that they would nevertheless care for the 50 immigrants because they and the immigrants are good people, claimed that the people who sent the 50 immigrants to their town were monsters, they declared an emergency because of the 50 immigrants, they called in the National Guard to deal with the 50 immigrants, they deported the 50 immigrants off of their wealthy island, and they solicited money to put into a fund for possible future scenarios where they might have to deport another 50 immigrants from their elitist town.
Of course, this is all beyond comical.
However, the disgusting part of it all is the whining and crying of once-proud sanctuary-city mayors, media personalities, and even the Biden Administration that point out how liberal, interior-U.S. towns and cities can't possibly bear the brunt of a plane or a bus full of immigrants or even several planes and buses full of immigrants. The same people who refuse to enforce borders and immigration laws and shamelessly declare their cities to be sanctuaries for illegal aliens go on television and/or Twitter and complain about how their cities can't handle a few hundred or a thousand immigrants over several months. Simultaneously, they expect small border towns to handle thousands of immigrants per week or per day.
Despite all of this, the island of Martha's Vineyard is not wrong (other than their hypocrisy and exploitation).
Martha's Vineyard, or any other town in the United States, should not be forced to take on the burden of illegal aliens. The idea that Martha's Vineyard should accept the burden because they have more money and can afford it is just as repulsive an idea as thinking that the United States as a whole should take on any and all immigrants simply because it had attained historically-high standards of living and wealth.
Certainly, none of this should be an issue for a city or a state in this country to solve.
The federal government has been mostly derelict of their duty for decades. Presidents, governors, state senators, local assemblymen, and every politician in between should be speaking out about the burdens of unenforced immigration laws and open borders. The federal government, instead of wasting billions of dollars on proxy wars, green energy subsidies, or student loan "forgiveness," should be doing its job securing borders and protecting its citizens.
Nevertheless, Ron DeSantis demonstrated, in less than 48 hours, that the Democrat policy on borders, immigration, and sanctuary cities is unsustainable by their own admission.
Ron DeSantis demonstrated, in less than 48 hours, that liberal elites don't want illegal aliens dumped into their towns just like border residents don't want illegal aliens dumped into theirs.
Ron DeSantis demonstrated, in less than 48 hours, that even liberal Democrats can efficiently deport illegal aliens out of their cities if they have the desire to do so.
So there's a lesson to be learned here for Republicans. Democrats have provided the blueprint, which isn't actually a blueprint - it's something that has been done many times before. If Republican governors want to resolve their issues with illegal aliens, then this is what they need to do:
Deport the illegal aliens.
That's it. That's the plan.
If you have the money to send a plane to Martha's Vineyard, then surely you can pack up some buses and send the aliens back to the border. Declare an emergency and deploy the National Guard in your states to protect your state borders, if needed.
If that remedy is good enough for sanctuary cities and their virtue-signaling Democrats who claim to love and have compassion for immigrants, then it's certainly good enough for rule-of-law Republicans. Allowing your political opposition to both define your moral terms and hamstring you with federal laws that they won't even enforce is nothing but extreme weakness.
The "political stunt" of busing and flying immigrants to sanctuary cities is great for exposing hypocrisy and proving unsustainability but it's not a solution. Democrats will never cave on this issue. They will use the power of Congress, the White House, the federal bureaucracy, and the courts to further punish you.
Stop playing by their rules - because they aren't following them anyway.
Protect your economy.
Protect your constituents.
Do what's right for your state.
As an anarchist, that's my advice for statists.
Also as an anarchist: Abolish the state.