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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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What, exactly, would you have considered the appropriate response?

Coordinate amongst themselves to find a place for migrants to live in, in the town. Instead they, successfully, demanded deportations and declared an emergency.

Being as generous as one demands others are, is the least one can do.

Reasonable. Or--more reasonable than the OP, I guess. I do note that deportation is not the same as "willingly" transferring them out, though the difference may only be superficial.

Aside from the irony of Republican lawmakers demanding token gestures of equal outcomes, and/or deciding that this is the proper implementation of a social safety net, there are a couple interesting arguments to be had.

First: are these folks the ones demanding others be generous? Trivially, yes, in the sense that they more likely Democrats, subscribe to (or own) left-wing media, and thus might have some culpability. Perhaps not in specifics, since having enough money to live on a luxury island is a great way to become grillpilled and studiously avoid the issue. One wonders how many MV residents have made a public statement on the matter, rather than nodding along at family dinners...It's certainly much easier to them to be sanguine about lax immigration knowing that the main costs will be paid by someone else.

Which brings us to the second point: why do so few illegal migrants end up in the Martha's Vineyards of the country? There are about 330 million legal Americans and almost 12 million illegal immigrants. Your link claims a population of 20k. If those 12M migrants ended up equitably distributed among the legal population, we'd expect at least 727 illegal immigrants living in the area. The lack of such a population is due to the isolation, yes, but also to an irregular job market and ridiculous competition for housing. It appears that migrants don't generally find it worthwhile.

This makes for an asymmetry. If illegal immigrants can't afford the $26 hamburgers, but can get by in San Antonio or even mainland Massachusetts, how did the MV residents become responsible for paying the difference? It's one thing to argue that by voting Democrat they have "demanded" others, in the general sense, make room. I am not so convinced that affirmative migrant action is commensurate.

why do so few illegal migrants end up in the Martha's Vineyards of the country?

For the same reason that the ones who got sent there got kicked out.