Category: Florida

Twitter won’t suspend a politician who lies to get money?

by philg

Twitter banned Marjorie Taylor Greene for saying, without seeking cash, that the COVID-19 “vaccine” did not prevent infection and transmission (CNN). Let’s look at a politician who asks for money and supports his request by saying that he’s 1% behind in the polls:

Charlie Crist and ActBlue wouldn’t lie to us, surely? The FiveThirtyEight summary of the polls, captured on November 1:

The $5 sought doesn’t seem as though it would help bridge the 8-14-point gap in the polls. More likely, Crist would need the miraculous help of Christ in order for Science (with the explicit promise of mask orders, forced vaccination, school closures, and lockdowns) to prevail.

Why aren’t Crist and ActBlue deplatformed for spreading misinformation, particularly since they seem to be spreading misinformation in order to get money.

Maybe the argument is that Representative Greene was putting lives at risk spreading misinformation about COVID-19 by falsely claiming that the pandemic-ending vaccines would not end the pandemic. But people with less money live shorter lives. Every person who donates to Charlie Crist can expect to live a slightly shorter life as a result. Maybe the sacrifice of lives would be worth it in order to avoid the Nakba of a second DeSantis term. But if there is no practical chance of a Crist victory, lives will be shortened without any compensating benefit.

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Halloween in Abacoa

by philg

Happy Halloween everyone! If you open your wallet at Home Depot, is it possible to create a spooky environment when it is 80 degrees and sunny? You can be the judge! Here are some photos from our MacArthur Foundation-created neighborhood in Jupiter, Florida:

I declare these two the winners of the costume party at the neighbor’s pirate house:

Your own faithful blog host as a British Navy officer fighting the pirates next door:

Another neighborhood, still within Abacoa:

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Why isn’t Ron DeSantis dead?

by philg

It’s been a month since Team DeSantis began the Hurricane Ian rebuilding effort (“build back quickly” will not be the motto?). The hated tyrant, from a Democrat’s point of view, spent the week prior to the hurricane organizing an army of about 100,000 utility workers, soldiers, state workers (to clear roads and inspect bridges), etc. During all of this time Ron DeSantis was in close contact with other humans, many of whom were no doubt infected with SARS-CoV-2.

Here’s Ron with a taxpayer:

Neither of them is Following the Science with an N95 mask. There has been plenty of COVID-19 transmission outdoors and yet… no masks (and where is the hand sanitizer?):

Three days before the hurricane hit, “‘Make preparations now’: DeSantis urges vigilance as Ian poised to strike as major hurricane” (Tallahassee Democrat):

With a vast swath of Florida’s Gulf Coast facing the possibility of a direct strike from a major hurricane in the coming days, Gov. Ron DeSantis urged residents to finish making preparations and not focus too much on where the storm’s center currently is predicted to track, noting there still is significant uncertainty about its path.

“It’s important to point out to folks that the path of this is still uncertain,” DeSantis said Sunday during a press conference at the state Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee. “The impacts will be broad throughout the state of Florida. Don’t get too wedded to those cones where they” show the projected landfall location.

This turned out to be great advice, but what’s relevant for this post is that we see Ron DeSantis in a room full of people with… no masks (and no vaccine requirement either, since that would be illegal in Florida).

There is no evidence that the new bivalent vaccines protect against the currently circulating strains of SARS-CoV-2. In any case, it seems doubtful that Governor DeSantis would have had time to stop at CVS and then take two days off for the vaccine side effects. There is plenty of evidence that the old vaccines, which he might have gotten, do not protect against the currently circulating strains of SARS-CoV-2. Death with a COVID-19 tag is common among both the vaccinated, the vaccinated and boosted, and the vaccinated and boosted and boosted (and boosted?).

Unless we’ve been fed lies regarding SARS-CoV-2, how is it possible that Ron DeSantis has survived his contact with so many people in such a short time period? At a minimum, shouldn’t he be in bed with Long COVID?

Related:

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Invite to an election night party

by philg

Here’s part of an invitation that I received to an election night party:

The party is here in South Florida, but the host is a lockdown refugee from San Francisco. Some political signs have gone up in our town. There is a lot of enthusiasm for Governor DeSantis and a bit for Congressman Brian Mast (a Republican who is somewhat hostile to civilian gun ownership). Marco Rubio is predicted to win, but I haven’t seen any signs for him (compare to 50+ for DeSantis and a handful for Mast).

Charlie Crist has run a 99% negative campaign. Here’s a recent example:

Twitter unpersoned Marjorie Taylor Greene for saying that the COVID “vaccines” did not prevent infection or transmission. Why is it okay for this Democrat to say that Ron DeSantis has “banned” abortion care for pregnant people when Florida reproductive health care providers are providing abortion care to pregnant people every day? From abortionfinder.org:

If you’re 15 weeks, 6 days pregnant or less, it is legal for you to get an abortion in Florida.

This rule allows for more abortion care than almost anywhere in the European Union (Germany has a 12-week limit, for example.) Doesn’t Crist’s statement at least merit some kind of warning sign to users that the facts are “missing context”?

Despite Crist’s crusade for freedom of the press (undoing DeSantis’s purported “banned books” action) and freedom of speech (undoing DeSantis’s purported “banned saying ‘gay'” action), he apparently has failed to generate excitement among people who live in Jupiter. I have seen no signs for him.

Who else has been invited to an election night party? I can’t remember this much excitement for the typical mid-term election. I wonder if it is because government has become larger and more pervasive and therefore there is now much more at stake than in previous decades. For example, if you have a student loan outstanding the outcome of this election can determine whether you’re going to be $10,000 richer or not. That’s a tax-free bonanza, right? If the election doesn’t go well, the gender studies graduate might have to work a second job to earn $20,000 pre-tax to be equally well off compared to if Democrats prevail and the college debt can be shifted onto the backs of the working class?

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Climate change leader tosses a $110 million 6-year-old house into a landfill

by philg

Let’s start off in the Department of Sick with Envy… “Lavish Palm Beach mansion built just six years ago, then bought for $110m last year ‘by Estée Lauder boss’ will be TORN DOWN and replaced with new property” (Daily Mail):

A never-lived-in oceanfront mansion that quietly sold for $110 million last year is to be torn down and replaced with a new property.

The mansion, built in 2016 at 1071 N. Ocean Blvd, Palm Beach, is owned by a company linked to cosmetics billionaire William P. Lauder.

He owns an empty lot next door and is believed to want to combine both parcels of land before building his dream home, just six miles from former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.

The home was originally purchased for $40.42 million by Philadelphia businessman Vahan Gureghian and his wife, Danielle, an attorney, but they never moved in.

There is even room for a two-lane bowling alley in the basement – although it’s soon to be destroyed by the wrecker’s ball.

He purchased that lot, at 1063 N Ocean Blvd, for $25.4 million in April 2020 at which point he demolished the existing home which had stood there since the early 1960s.

(What kind of engineering was involved to make a watertight basement? Almost nobody in Florida has one.)

To make our envy even more intense, the article includes a photo of the dilapidated eyesore:

It is at times like these that I’m glad I voted for Bernie!

What does the guy who is throwing out a 6-year-old 36,000-square-foot house have to say about our beloved planet? A 2021 talk from the committed environmentalist:

During the pandemic, concerns about the environment have intensified and Lauder noted that, at this point, sustainability is no longer a choice for companies.

“We have to think about what we make and sell from cradle to grave,” he noted. “How can we get more recycled material in our packaging? How can we reduce the use of plastic and other components that end up in landfills?”

The entire house will go into a landfill, but that’s okay because very little of it is plastic?

It’s all about the Science:

Sustainability and science go hand-in-hand. Lauder said…

See also “Estée Lauder Companies Reaches Milestone Climate Goal, Net Zero” (2020):

The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) announced on November 2nd that it has achieved Net Zero emissions and sourced 100% renewable electricity globally for its direct operations, reaching the target it set on joining RE1001.

Building upon this achievement, the company has also met its goal to set science-based emissions reduction targets for its direct operations and value chain, positioning the company to take even more decisive action against climate change in the coming decade.

The Estée Lauder Companies commits to reduce absolute scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions 50% by 2030 from a 2018 base year. This target is consistent with reductions required to keep warming to 1.5°C, the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement. The Estée Lauder Companies also commits to reduce scope 3 GHG emissions from purchased goods and services, upstream transportation and distribution, and business travel 60% per unit revenue over the same timeframe.

It was Science who said “toss that 6-year-old house into the landfill”!

So we started off sick with envy, but ended up learning something profound about the role that each of us can play in saving Spaceship Earth.

Update, 10/26: Government moves fast in Florida! The environmentalist got a demolition permit and the house is on its way to the landfill.

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Florida Gubernatorial Debate Notes

by philg

Charlie Crist and Ron DeSantis debated tonight, moderated by Liz Quirantes, a TV anchor and “Hispanic Woman of Distinction for South Florida”. Here are my notes…

The local NBC station had a pre-debate show in which they attributed Charlie Crist being behind in the polls solely to Ron DeSantis having more money to spend. If Crist had more money, in other words, his all-abortion-care-all-the-time message would have persuaded voters. Ron DeSantis has so much money that he hasn’t even bothered to spend most of it (over $100 million just sitting in the bank ready to be spent on original Hunter Bidens to decorate the campaign HQ).

Crist accuses DeSantis of being responsible for high prices for insurance, gasoline, and other essentials. The Tyrant of Tallahassee turns it around and blames Joe Biden for discouraging domestic fossil fuel production. “You deserve a governor who has your back,” says Crist, in promising to lower insurance rates (but the insurance companies haven’t been making a lot of money in Florida, so how would this work?). He sounded fantastic when he said this. I was ready to vote for him because I want a politician who “has my back” and will lower all of the prices that I find painful to pay. For at least a few seconds of warm feeling, it did not occur to me to question the ability of any governor to deliver the marvelous things that were being promised.

Crist accuses DeSantis of not “encouraging” Lee County to order a mandatory evacuation earlier, which definitely would have saved 100 lives from Hurricane Ian. This assumes the same model of the world as used by the Covidcrats: the population will comply with whatever authorities say to do. But if that is the correct model, the population would have evacuated in response to the orders that actually were issued (more than 24 hours prior to landfall). DeSantis responds that everyone thought it would hit Tampa until the morning of the day prior to the hurricane and the evacuation orders were issued as soon as the forecast track had shifted. He doesn’t duck the question as he might, given that it is solely the job of the countries to issue evacuation orders. Nor does Ron point out that you have to budget for human nature when dealing with humans and assume that not everyone will follow the “mandatory” order. Nor did he point out that the weekend prior he told everyone on the west coast of Florida to prepare and be ready to go at a moment’s notice and that it wouldn’t be easy to predict the hurricane’s track.

When inflation comes up and how the FL governor is going to help Floridians cope, DeSantis points out that Crist says Biden is the best president he’s ever seen and, therefore, Crist is responsible for the Biden policies that have created runaway inflation. DeSantis offers to make all baby products and pet food free of sales tax. (Why not just lower the sales tax rate instead of indirectly paying people to have more kids?)

“Don’t Say Gay” (Parental Rights in Education Act) comes up. Crist had called it “heinous”, notes the moderator. Crist complains that teachers aren’t paid enough in Florida. I would have expected Ron D to point out that this is a county function and counties can and do pay whatever they want, but instead he hits Crist for supporting teaching sexual orientation and gender identity to kindergartners and also crows about protecting “girls” from transgender athletes horning in. (Maybe the state actually does determine teacher pay to some extent? This press release suggests that there is some state function. I am a long way from figuring out how Florida’s government works.)

Critical Race Theory is brought up because apparently Florida bans teaching young people to feel guilty based on stuff that folks with the same skin color did in the old days. Crist says we should teach “facts” and “the truth.” He says slavery will come back if we don’t teach history properly and completely. (An odd prediction given that the trend is for Americans not to work at all.) Ron responds by saying that Crist’s running mate wants to teach kids that America was built on stolen land (exactly what I would tell kids! Except for South Florida, nearly all of which was a mosquito-infested swamp that wasn’t used by the Native Americans because it hadn’t been drained).

Crist says that something he did when he was a (Republican) governor of Florida 10+ years ago is actually the reason that the Sanibel bridge was able to be rebuilt quickly. (Everyone can take credit for the quick bounce-back from Hurricane Ian.)

Crist says governor doesn’t care about women and their right to choose or their right to vote. DeSantis points out that Crist didn’t want women to be able to choose whether to get the “COVID shot”.

Moderator asks about public health and says that the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade is the biggest “public health” issue (a softball for Crist!). Ron talks about a Jamaican woman who contemplated abortion care, but eventually decided not to get one and how the not-subjected-to-abortion-care baby grew up to get appointed to the Florida Supreme Court. (As in Star Wars, Democrats will say “This is not the Black woman we are looking for”?)

Crist says DeSantis has made Florida “unaffordable to most of our citizens” (true, but he had a lot of help from Andrew Cuomo, Gavin Newsom, and other lockdowners!). Crist doesn’t say how he is going to get rid of all of the Californians and New Yorkers bringing money into the state and bidding up prices. And what if Science-following Beto O’Rourke wins Texas and the lockdown-averse from there begin migrating to Florida, which does have some limits to growth?

Moderator points out that Crist called for stay-at-home orders and mask orders and asks whether he sticks by his. Crist says he would have “listened to Science”. You take a “commonsense approach and listen to health care providers.” Crist blames DeSantis for at least half of the COVID-19 deaths suffered in Florida. Crist says over 6 million Floridians have gotten COVID under DeSantis and implies that it is his fault.

Now it is gender transitions for minors. DeSantis points out that Europeans have backed away from “genital mutilation”. Crist says that this reminds him of DeSantis’s position on a woman’s right to choose. DeSantis imagines that he knows better than doctors, the ultimate example of sinful pride. DeSantis says “we’re talking about 15-year-old kids” and they can’t get a tattoo under Florida law and they also shouldn’t be able to decide if they want a double mastectomy. Crist works the woman’s right to choose into almost every response, regardless of apparent relevance.

Moderator talks about “illegal immigration” (a false premise, since it is not illegal to walk across the Rio Grande and ask for asylum) and the Martha’s Vineyard migrant deposit. Crist said it was “inhumane”. Moderator asks if Crist wants to make Florida a sanctuary state. Crist responds that he wants to secure our border (not with a wall, I hope!) and points out that the migrants transported included a pregnant woman and a 1-year-old baby (we are informed that migrants boost our economy by adding workers; when will this currently pregnant woman be entering the workforce and paying taxes? And the yet-to-be-born baby?).

What will you do to protect Floridians from drug overdoses and related problems? DeSantis talks about providing NARCAN, harsher penalties for fentanyl dealers, and addiction treatment (does that work?). Crist says he will be tough on crime and that crime is up under DeSantis (the population has grown a lot; is he talking rate or absolute numbers?). Ron D replies that “Charlie was tough on crime about six political parties ago”.

Asks about the death penalty for Nikolas Cruz. Crist says Cruz should have gotten the death penalty (i.e., the jury was stupid?). DeSantis agrees that Cruz should have gotten the death penalty and that it was a travesty that one juror was a holdout. DeSantis stresses that the shooting happened before he was governor and then talks about increasing school security, firing the cowardly and incompetent sheriffs, and other actions in response. (I personally would not have supported the death penalty for Cruz, 19 years old at the time. And I disagree with Ron DeSantis on the merits of ugly chain link fence around every school (I would work on making it easy for all of the children to run away from the school, e.g., with an exit door in every classroom, rather than rely on making it impossible for a motivated criminal to get in; the Uvalde school was fenced and had defenses against entry).)

One-minute closing statements…

Crist: I want to unite Florida, not divide it like the bad man is doing. I want women to have the right to choose, especially in the cases of rape or incest. He says that when he was governor, he lowered insurance rates and property taxes (how? aren’t they set by the counties?).

DeSantis: We have accomplished a lot in the past four years. Talks about the massive budget surplus. Largest increase in teacher pay in Florida history. “I led based on facts, not based on fear,” says DeSantis regarding coronapanic. “I took a lot of flak, but I protected your job and wasn’t worried about saving my own.”

My impression of the 66-year-old Crist was improved by watching. He seemed to have a fully-functioning brain, which is more than one can say about a lot of top Democrats. He exuded empathy, which seems to be the Democrats’ strong point. Maybe hyperinflation will wipe out all of your savings, but Joe Biden and Charlie Crist will care deeply about your plight and that will make everything okay from the point of view of more than half of us. Ron DeSantis seemed fairly humble and not too harsh/mean so my impression of him was also improved. Given that Americans want the appearance of empathy above all else in a politician, I was not convinced by his debate performance that he is presidential material.

Crist, the old guy, came off as perhaps the better choice for old people. (He’s also the better choice for unionized teachers, presumably, since he running mate is the president of the Miami teachers’ union.) Crist’s vision is to try to dial back prices to what they were before all of the rich lockdown-averse New Yorkers moved in (“The Manhattan residents who moved to Palm Beach County had an average income of $728,351, IRS data showed.” (NYT)). If he can deliver on his promises, most of which assume the full powers of a central economic planner, it would be a huge help to the elderly on fixed incomes. The “abortion care in every health care facility” concept is also good for reducing pressure on housing!

DeSantis, the young guy, came across as the better choice for children and working-age Floridians. He’s all about making sure that kids have a school and people who want to work have jobs. The result will be explosive growth, but it is better to try to help people adjust to that growth rather than try to strangle the growth in its crib.

Speaking of growth and the invasion of the rich, here’s a McLaren (720S?) in our neighborhood, built for the middle class and 30 minutes away from the rich parts of Palm Beach County (Palm Beach island itself and the horse farms of Wellington).

If the McLaren owner can afford $300,000+ for two seats and no baggage space, he/she/ze/they is presumably driving up prices for a range of goods and services. Crist wants to send him/her/zir/them back to California. DeSantis wants to build him (Ron is not pronoun-compliant) a garage.

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Fortress Florida

by philg

“Florida Coastal Living Reshaped by Hurricane Housing Codes” (Wall Street Journal, October 17, 2022) opens with what I think is the usual misleading footage of a destroyed section of Fort Myers Beach, i.e., of a trailer park that was predictably no match for a hurricane. The article contains, however, some interesting stuff about what is entailed in building a house that can survive on barrier islands:

Five blocks away [from a destroyed wooden 1976 “cottage”] stands a roughly $2 million house that weathered the storm with negligible damage. Fernando Gonzalez built the two-story, concrete-block home six years ago to exceed the requirements of the building code at the time.

Instead of raising the house 12 feet as required, he said he lifted it 4 feet more. He said he also built the foundation stronger than mandated, going 6 feet below the ground and installing thick concrete walls instead of columns, with vents to allow water to flow through in case of storm surge. He estimated such upgrades added about $15,000 to the construction costs.

“If you want the luxury of living near the ocean, you have to pay,” said Mr. Gonzalez, 57.

The accompanying photo shows a house that won’t win any awards for architectural beauty:

The middle class will have to move inland or maybe to other states:

As older homes in the Fort Myers area are taken down, those that replace them will cost significantly more, Mr. Wilson said.

Here’s the required roof tech for a new house:

Nobody with money in Florida wants to live in an old house regardless of stormworthiness, so the process of hardening the coastal housing stock to survive the expected hurricanes shouldn’t be as wrenching as in states where tradition is valued.

Alternatively, of course, Floridians could refrain from building in vulnerable areas. But as long as there are people with sufficient funds to pay Cemex, I wouldn’t bet on restraint.

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Trust the Science: CNN and Hurricane Ian

by philg

“Ian’s 5-day forecast predicted landfall only 5 miles from actual location” (CNN):

The National Hurricane Center worked around the clock to get the best forecasts out and they did it with incredible accuracy.

Looking back at the forecast, the landfall location, Cayo Costa, was in the forecast cone for all the forecasts given, according to CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller.

Miller also noted that the forecast pegged Ian’s landfall (as a major hurricane also) within 5 miles of its eventual landfall location a full 120 hours in advance – that’s pretty remarkable given how unreliable forecasts can be at the five-day mark and beyond.

So folks on the barrier islands in Lee County, e.g., Sanibel, Captiva, and Fort Myers Beach, had five days of warning regarding precisely where the hurricane would hit? They must be even dumber than we thought.

Thanks to Amygator, we can see that the forecast on Friday at 11 am did show the hurricane hitting Lee County at 8 am on Wednesday (somewhat sooner than it actually did hit).

What CNN leaves out is that on Saturday the NHC forecast that Tampa would hit. On Sunday, the forecast was that Hurricane Ian would strike Ron DeSantis in Tallahassee:

By Monday, it was back to Tampa (and officials there reasonably ordered an evacuation of low-lying houses). By Tuesday, the predicted track was closer to Fort Myers and its barrier islands (and the Lee County officials reasonably ordered an evacuation of those barrier islands).

So, CNN tells us that Science predicted Ian’s landfall five days in advance, but omits to mention that Science also predicted landfall in a variety of other locations, some of the hundreds of miles away.

Perhaps we think that the fearless purveyors of truth have superior access to Science. From What to Know About Ian and Climate Change – The New York Times (nytimes.com):

What if you studied atmospheric physics in college instead of journalism and don’t pick 1980 as your starting point? “Changes in Atlantic major hurricane frequency since the late-19th century” (nature.com, 2021):

To evaluate past changes in frequency, we have here developed a homogenization method for Atlantic hurricane and major hurricane frequency over 1851–2019. We find that recorded century-scale increases in Atlantic hurricane and major hurricane frequency, and associated decrease in USA hurricanes strike fraction, are consistent with changes in observing practices and not likely a true climate trend. After homogenization, increases in basin-wide hurricane and major hurricane activity since the 1970s are not part of a century-scale increase, but a recovery from a deep minimum in the 1960s–1980s.

One of the most consistent expectations from projected future global warming is that there should be an increase in TC intensity, such that the fraction of [major hurricanes] MH to [Atlantic hurricanes] HU increases … there are no significant increases in either basin-wide HU or MH frequency, or in the MH/HU ratio for the Atlantic basin between 1878 and 2019 (when the U.S. Signal Corps started tracking NA HUs … The homogenized basin-wide HU and MH record does not show strong evidence of a century-scale increase in either MH frequency or MH/HU ratio associated with the century-scale, greenhouse-gas-induced warming of the planet. …Caution should be taken in connecting recent changes in Atlantic hurricane activity to the century-scale warming of our planet.

The Science is settled, according to nytimes.com: “strong storms are becoming more common in the Atlantic Ocean, as its surface water has warmed. … Climate change has already contributed to a rise in destructive hurricanes like Ian, and its effects are still growing.” This is a Scientific true fact that has been established beyond any doubt. The nature.com article, on the other hand, says that this is not true and that the data do not show major hurricanes becoming more common.

Let’s look at the crackpots behind the nature.com article:

It is possible that nytimes.com is correct and nature.com is wrong, of course. But the nature.com folks, with their file cabinet full of PhDs (… in Science), don’t say that they are presenting facts that cannot be and will not be falsified.

Related:

  • “Tropical Cyclone Frequency” (Vecchi and others in Earth’s Future; Wiley 2021): “There is no accepted theory that explains the average number of TCs that occur each year on the Earth, nor how that number will change with global warming.” (full text)
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Tough questions from reporters for Ron DeSantis

by philg

“Hey Florida, your energy bills to rise if regulators approve this plan” (Tampa Bay Times, November 2019):

Both decisions could collectively cost customers more than $3 billion in the next three years and are being closely watched… The first issue regulators will decide is a rule that implements a law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis this year that will allow utility companies such as Florida Power & Light, Duke Energy and Tampa Electric to charge customers so they can bury power lines in order to reduce storm-related outages in the future.

I wonder if the folks who opposed the Tallahassee Tyrant’s spending initiative on electric grid hardening and undergrounding are still opposed!

Separately, do we have a final verdict on the restoration of public services in Florida by Team DeSantis? Aside from repairs to and/or replacement of individual structures, what’s left to be done?

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Living in the U.S., but not on land stolen from the Native Americans

by philg

Today is the anniversary of the Royal Proclamation of 1763, in which King George III told the white settlers in the colonies that they couldn’t steal any more land from the Native Americans. Our Founding Fathers owned a lot of land to the west of the Proclamation Line and, therefore, had a huge financial incentive to secede from Great Britain.

A righteous American will typically admit that the land he/she/ze/they is using was stolen. Here’s an example from the principal of the Lincoln, Maskachusetts 5-8 school:

This morning we had an all school meeting. I began with a land acknowledgement that we are sitting on land that belonged to the Wampanoag Nation and that was forcibly taken.

Note that she does not offer to give the land back to the Wampanoags, who are alive and kicking, and then pay them rent for its continued use. The “land acknowledgement” is sufficient.

What if empty words aren’t sufficient? Where can a person live in the modern United States without being on land that was stolen? South Florida! According The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise, the Native Americans never lived in most of South Florida for the simple reason that most of South Florida was a “river of grass” as Marjory Stoneman Douglas put it. Not even a Native American is in sufficient harmony with Nature to live in the middle of a river. When the Spanish arrived, there were some Calusa living on the coast of Southwest Florida, but they hadn’t figured out how to drain the swamp and build condos on it. The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Palm Beach megalopolis is nearly all on “reclaimed” land. What about the Seminoles?

IN MODERN SOUTH FLORIDA, where just about everyone comes from somewhere else, it turns out that even the Native Americans are out-of-state transplants. Today, the Seminole Indians and their Miccosukee relatives are known as the people of the Everglades. But they didn’t start out anywhere near there. They were driven there. Seminoles began streaming into north Florida from Georgia and Alabama during the eighteenth century, just as the Calusa were dying out. They had little in common with the Calusa. They were known as cimarrones—“breakaways,” or “wild ones”—because most of them split off from the Creek Confederation, and they retained their Creek traditions, worshipping the Breathmaker at annual Green Corn harvest ceremonies. They were farmers and traders as well as hunters and fishermen; they were also some of America’s first cowboys. They visited the Everglades to hunt, but by 1800, their permanent villages only stretched as far south as Tampa Bay. When a Seminole chief issued his famous vow to remain in Florida—“Here our navel strings were first cut, and the blood from them sunk into the earth, and made the country dear to us”—he meant north Florida.

So… any American who is sincere about not wanting to be implicated in the great theft of land from the Native Americans by European migrants (this should not be confused with the scientifically disproved Great Replacement) should join us here in Palm Beach County! (Or, if not as boring as we are, in Miami)

Related:

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