Inching Towards Empathy

It didn’t matter what was happening to people or towns on this US side of the border until rascally “traffickers” like DeSantis and Abbot started sending illegals to progressive burgs. Pleas to be treated as citizens rather than outlaws by people in Arizona, Texas, etc. were ignored. There was a protected class of lawbreakers, and their wants and needs were superior to — forgive the repetition of the word — citizens.

Crime and harassment didn’t move anybody in a narrative-shaping position because it didn’t affect them. We’re trending away from Christianity; not something I’m happy about, but religion is a matter of personal choice and not something Duns Scotus or I want imposed on people. That said, we are disastrously moving away from the habits of Christianity. The centrality of the individual is fading. Our language and, per advertising, fetishes tend towards a celebration of personal autonomy, but that’s all about sneakers and choosing prefab emojis as a mode of expression. We group people.

Once horrible red state governors started putting opportunity seekers on blue state-bound buses, downsides to unhindered immigration were discovered. There were stories of crime and jobs lost because of cheap labor, but that wasn’t the lede. Services were overwhelmed. State-funded housing was insufficient, schools were ill-equipped, and emergency services worried about the response. There were always people hurting, like in Arizona and Texas, and it’s tempting to say that journalists at ABC, CNN, etc. saw up close, right there in New York City, what had been equivalent to a civil war in Africa for all the distance between them and the actual contested border. I doubt that.

My suspicion is that the hotel takeovers and high school gym conversions where illegal aliens were housed in New York were no nearer to the daily experiences of a news conglomerate producer than El Paso. They’d more likely hear from city officials and administrative rent-seeking types about the effects on government, so we don’t hear as much about cultural disruption or unfair competition. We hear about strains on the city’s budget, because stuff like that is what’s important when individuals are less so. Stories about Laken Riley and others are a nuisance, but what are we to do about the state? Man, do we group people.

Now, patriarchy means a society led by men. It used to entail more. You were a member of a family in an extended sense, and while loved by some and all that, you were not an end. The health of the family, the reputation and furtherance of its interests, was well beyond you. Is that where we’re headed?

What we’re seeing in group advocacy breaks eggs all over the place. A few die here, a few lose their jobs there, kid rape becomes a fact of transport. The important thing is that one group gets its way and another doesn’t. The members don’t matter in relation.

News about the put-upon government at least acknowledged a problem and stayed in the news longer than a dead Maryland mother. I don’t know how long pet eating will last, but outrage that it’s alleged reveals that there is a culture with norms for someone to be on the side of. You don’t get outraged when someone says immigrants are acting within what you think are the norms.

We’ve done a pretty good job of establishing a culture that allows groups to flourish while respecting the rights of each person. It’s not lost on me that that makes us a group, but we’ve understood priorities.

The stories of people hurting on the border didn’t matter enough. The stories of stressed city managers in NY mattered a little more. Maybe this pet thing or apartment complex takeovers will make people reconsider the trade-offs, look at the ledger, of unrestricted immigration. Sucks for the people, though. Damn patriarchy.