Our former home of Lincoln, Maskachusetts:
(I tried to Zoom in for the meeting, but the link resulted only in an “Invalid meeting ID. (3,000)” error message.)
The town spent money producing its own guide to dodging La Migra (ICE). Excerpts:
A former “illegal alien” is no longer “undocumented” but rather “with uncertain immigration status”:
What if the worst happens and a “Massachusetts man” who arrived in the U.S. a few days earlier is being hauled away?
Note that, due to the two-acre zoning minimum, the typical neighborhood in Lincoln, MA is home only to those undocumented migrants who have at least $1 million to spend on a vacant lot. The town does, however, have a small public housing development in which those who don’t work, regardless of immigration status, can live at taxpayer expenses.
Here’s a friend’s photo from near the Town Hall:
In addition to the advertisement for the event, the photo includes a righteous hater of inequality who has bought him/her/zir/theirself an expensive Audi. He/she/ze/they could have made due with a Camry and donated the extra $40,000 to the worthy poor, but apparently that wasn’t an option. The photographer’s comment:
paint is coming off the house, ugly pipes on the ground and ugly wiring
(As a Floridian I’ve become allergic to the sight of utility poles and exposed wires and boxes like the ones in the photo.)
ICE is adapting with camouflage “Chinga La Migra” stickers. Here they are loading a person with uncertain immigration status into one:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ICE_Watch/comments/1osy4fw/ice_agents_rolling_around_chicago_with_chinga_la/
“Chinga La Migra” literally means “Screw the Migration” in Spanish, but “migra” has taken on the meaning of “immigration authorities”. I guess ICE is taking back the power (of literal translations). ✊
Phil, I’ve said it before, but your depravity is unmatched. Here we have a situation where the good people of Lincoln, MA have sought to help our new Citizens, yet you treat them with utter disdain. This, even after you have moved away from this town that celebrates all types of diversity to a state that is renowned for discrimination against all manner of good folks. Disgusting. All that said, I am hopeful that some of our newest Citizens, who originally landed in Martha’s Vineyard a few years ago, will find Lincoln a welcoming town for them. They just weren’t appropriate for us on Martha’s Vineyard (lack of affordable housing etc.).
I’m quite sure the good folks of Lincoln, Mass. do not miss their former resident Dr. Greenspun. His views surely reflect what Florida is most famous for: political malevolence. We get it. Phil hates Lincoln and he hates Massachusetts. Enjoy Florida where there are absolutely no crazies espousing bullshit politics. That’s what Florida is known for. You now live among your own kind. You have a genius governor and highly respected senators in Florida. The state government is the bastion of well thought out policies.
What do you have against Florida’s senators? I admit that Rick Scott should have retired some years ago, but what’s bad about Ashley Moody? Like our beloved President Trump, she’s a former Democrat! At age 50, Senator Moody is too young? She needs to be properly seasoned like Nancy Pelosi (age 85)?
Senator Moody has accounting and law degrees from University of Florida. So at least she will be able to notice/count the next $40 trillion in borrowing by Congress!
Anon: I’m 99% sure that you’re right about the residents of Lincoln not missing me! I don’t think that I was widely hated until I opposed a $110 million school renovation project ($250,000 per student). See
https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2020/02/28/most-expensive-school-building-in-the-united-states-goes-over-budget/
I suggested that they spend the money instead on a $1 million signing bonus for every new teacher in order to lure the nation’s best teachers or, alternatively, use the money to double the number of teachers and, thus, halve the student-teacher ratio. The architect for the renovated/new building had said that the old building was good for another few decades with modest expected repair costs.
It turned out that I was, as usual, wrong! The town was able to borrow almost for free and then Bidenflation plus continued deficit-spending by Congress means that the bond payments in a couple of decades will be about the same as the price of a Diet Coke.
(All of that said, property tax in Lincoln has grown to epic proportions. A typical household there pays over $20,000/year in property tax and doesn’t send any child to school. The median annual property tax rate here in Jupiter is less than $6,000/year and we don’t have to pay state income tax (up to 9 percent in MA) or state estate tax (16 percent in Maskachusetts). Palm Beach County schools aren’t quite as luxe as the new school in Lincoln, probably, but we have gifted programs that Lincoln doesn’t have and magnet schools that Lincoln doesn’t have, e.g., https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/florida/districts/the-school-district-of-palm-beach-county/suncoast-community-high-school-5380 and https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/florida/districts/the-school-district-of-palm-beach-county/alexander-w-dreyfoos-junior-school-of-the-arts-5396 ).
These days you really don’t have the option of “crazy or not”. You kind of have to pick which variety of batshit crazy you can live with. Read the bios on Wikipedia of the governors/senators of MA/FL and tell me total_pol_crazy(MA) >> total_pol_crazy(FL) or total_pol_crazy(FL) >> total_pol_crazy(MA). To me they are approximately equivalent.
(R) or (D) or (I), assuming Phil was a quiet, nice neighbor, with only the occasional biker-gang party, I would probably miss him while sitting in the middle of my McMansion on 2+ acres and on a pile of money (hopefully–net being robbed by the state of Taxachussetts), especially if he was being replaced by a fleeing, er migrating, Floridian adjusting his/her/xher political scene to the left.
Ice: The year after I left, Maskachusetts changed the tax rate on successful people from 5% to 9%. https://www.choate.com/insights/understanding-the-new-massachusetts-millionaires-tax/
This 9% rate applies to those who sell a house or have some other one-time capital gain or who are just high earners (over $1 million). I’m wondering, though, if it won’t soon be time to go back to the voters and ask for the threshold to be reduced to $500,000/year.
Anon, Michelle and I share your outrage. Thank you. We go even further than Phil, though. Not only do we hate Lincoln and Massachusetts, but we also hate all of America and Western Civilization. Allahu Akbar to you!
@philg > the tax rate on successful people from 5% to 9%
Successful? Hah, success has been redefined as loafing around collecting government benefits (when the Democrats allow it to run), not something that comes after hard work and innovation–didn’t you get the memo? And if Mass-taxachusetts raised your tax from 5% to 9% couldn’t you just go into your boss’s office (assuming you aren’t “successful” and have a job) and put in for a 5% raise to make up the difference? Most employers would be happy to help shoulder the burden of increased immigration and $100M lux reformatory schools.
@BO
I hate Obama Care, like a lot. Nice “compromise-as-a-legacy”, dude.
Illegal immigration is not probable cause?
Illegal immigration is a criminal offense!
Tom, these new Citizens are here because they are eligible for asylum. They are fleeing from murderous, genocidal regimes, like the one in Israel.
But for some reasons, “Illegal US-Mexico border crossings hit lowest level in over 50 years” [1]
Could it be that, somehow overnight, those dangerous countries from which people were fleeing from have now become safe to live in?
[1] https://archive.ph/Z5ic4
ICE agents are under no obligation to answer those questions or allow such a person to disrupt their business lmao
I have spent time in Lincoln, a wealthy town, and in poorer cities like Worcester (both in Maskachu$etts).
In Lincoln, I have hardly seen any illegals, yet I have seen plenty in Worcester. So it is unclear to me exactly whom the town of Lincoln believes it is protecting.