After the catastrophic wildfires, the city passed a sweeping law: every fire alarm must be investigated. No triage. No discretion. Every alarm gets routed to a central dispatch system, just like 911.
911 calls get ignored, hung up on, escalated up or down, or just not answered.
I'm never sure why people post comments like this. This what, invalidates the hypothetical? Ok. Should I delete this post? What's the action I should take? It must be VERY important that everyone know I'm a moron who just assumed that 911 works in LA. Should I formally retract it? If not, why not? This was obviously VERY important. Much more important than the argument the hypothetical was meant to illustrate.
No, don't delete the post. In a perfect world, a call to 911 would always be answered. It's just this isn't a perfect world. Since 911 doesn't always work, neither does our immigration system, nor the legal system. Every system is manned by people with their own agendas. We are experiencing a continuation of the old system.
👏👏👏👏Thanks for your analytical clarity ( including the mathematical underpinning) regarding the system being utilized by the current administration to reverse the damage and chaos caused by the complete and knowing abdication of the Biden administration of any attempt to control the illegal immigration which we experienced during the four years of the worst presidency of my 82 year lifetime. And the trial hypocrisy of Biden and his supporters regarding this issue and their attempt to blame their opponents for not passing ‘legislation necessary to solve the issue” has been completely exposed by how the flood of illegals across our southern border has bee n reduced to an almost non existent title in the past three months with no new legislations. And also the Orwellian language has now been eliminated from the majority of the report ting, they are no longer benign individuals who happen to be undocumented, they are illegal aliens ( a term codified in law) whose mere presence in this country means that they have committed an illegal act. The lunatic fringe off the left just keep digging their hole deport on this topic, even though all polls indicate that public opinion continues to move against them. That Senator Chris Van Holden believes that an alleged MS13 member and human trafficker in this country illegally deserves more vocal support than the mother of Rachel Morin shows how mid-laced his priorities are and how in his infection by TDS and desire for publicity his political instincts have completely deserted him. For him to attempt to convince me and other law abiding citizens as he did on TV today that I should be concerned that the Trump administration will attempt to disappear me into an El Salvadoran gulag is laughable and I am disappointed that the interviewer did not confront him or laugh in his face.
We as a nation are about to discover the reality of uncomfortable, painful truths. Anything that can't go on forever, won't. A broken system will be abandoned and replaced with a brutal one which no one wants but all know is required.
We do not have the political will to stop the abuse of our good nature. Americans have always been seen as a kind, compassionate people, and now that compassion is being used against us as a weapon to weaken our will and destroy our morale. Our only option is swift, painful action to rectify the problem.
That would such action look like? It would be violent. Anything to brutalize and severely punish the perpetrator, up to and including heads on pikes displayed beside lamp posts, hangings from trees, public floggings.
Just remember: there is no one more brutal than an angry man who just wants to be left alone. He will stop at nothing until the problem is eliminated to his benefit. Or he himself is eliminated.
Thank you for your due diligence and gifted essay. Your hard work relieved from me the maddening frustration that no one gets that forces are successfully attacking and destroying our government, our rights, and our freedoms. Sadly, I cannot believe that the last 100 days of triage will save the USA as rogue judges and fools in guise as congressmen fight to keep and return illegal gang members.
You explain reality really, really well here. The harsh truth is that we have a major, major mess on our hands with illegal immigration--and its consequences are far reaching. There is simply no way to fix a problem this big without making it hurt badly. It's tragic, but unavoidable. The real solution was to deal with the problem a long, long time ago. But at this point, there are only two options: deal with it despite the pain or ignore it and watch the problem only get worse.
I would add a little to one of your sentences:
"They’re demanding the impossible — and calling it justice."
I'd say that the ignorant are demanding the impossible and calling it "justice." But there are many who know it's impossible--I'd say they are demanding the impossible, calling it justice, and laughing all the way because they know exactly how well they are manipulating themselves to power.
My wife is Japanese. Her algorithms are feeding her horror stories of people with legal immigration paperwork being thrown out of the country. I don't typically panic about these things. If it's something reported by the news there is always some important detail to the story being left out that, if we were allowed to know it, would collapse the frame through which the stories are being written, and that is when reporters aren't making things up completely.
She is going through the renewal process for her permanent residency card. The wait time for a new one is apparently now being measured in years, although in cases like hers there is a paper legal immigrants get extending permission to stay after their current green cards run out. Without a criminal record and now with a couple years of 1040s that show us having to pay federal income tax, she should get renewed no problem. But this immigration nightmare spills over and affects a lot more than just a bunch of wife-beating gang members' deportation trials...
Finally got around to reading this Holly, thank you for the perspective as it has been very hard resisting agreeing with the more authoritarian elements on the right who WANT Trump to just break the system and hand more power over to the government regarding these issues. The system is already on fire, things WILL need to be done and it IS dangerous...but we also no longer have the luxury of standing around and waiting. We failed to catch the Cancer before it became malignant and now Chemo, burning it out, is the only option.
I just now am getting to this in my inbox. It's what I get for taking a tech sanity break for a few days.
Please, please, please make this shareable. Your breakdown and examination of this very touchy topic needs to be seen by more people. Not that I have much faith in people being able to step back and actually process what you've so brilliantly laid out and then come to the conclusion that "yes, she's right". A large swath of people in this country wallow in willful ignorance - while others delight in being purposely obtuse. And then you have the knowingly evil who stir up and feed on scenarios just like this unfolding catastrophe. Paralysis is the goal - a feature not a bug.
After the catastrophic wildfires, the city passed a sweeping law: every fire alarm must be investigated. No triage. No discretion. Every alarm gets routed to a central dispatch system, just like 911.
911 calls get ignored, hung up on, escalated up or down, or just not answered.
I'm never sure why people post comments like this. This what, invalidates the hypothetical? Ok. Should I delete this post? What's the action I should take? It must be VERY important that everyone know I'm a moron who just assumed that 911 works in LA. Should I formally retract it? If not, why not? This was obviously VERY important. Much more important than the argument the hypothetical was meant to illustrate.
No, don't delete the post. In a perfect world, a call to 911 would always be answered. It's just this isn't a perfect world. Since 911 doesn't always work, neither does our immigration system, nor the legal system. Every system is manned by people with their own agendas. We are experiencing a continuation of the old system.
Not just in the USA. Even in NZ. Same issues, but we only have 5 million people.
👏👏👏👏Thanks for your analytical clarity ( including the mathematical underpinning) regarding the system being utilized by the current administration to reverse the damage and chaos caused by the complete and knowing abdication of the Biden administration of any attempt to control the illegal immigration which we experienced during the four years of the worst presidency of my 82 year lifetime. And the trial hypocrisy of Biden and his supporters regarding this issue and their attempt to blame their opponents for not passing ‘legislation necessary to solve the issue” has been completely exposed by how the flood of illegals across our southern border has bee n reduced to an almost non existent title in the past three months with no new legislations. And also the Orwellian language has now been eliminated from the majority of the report ting, they are no longer benign individuals who happen to be undocumented, they are illegal aliens ( a term codified in law) whose mere presence in this country means that they have committed an illegal act. The lunatic fringe off the left just keep digging their hole deport on this topic, even though all polls indicate that public opinion continues to move against them. That Senator Chris Van Holden believes that an alleged MS13 member and human trafficker in this country illegally deserves more vocal support than the mother of Rachel Morin shows how mid-laced his priorities are and how in his infection by TDS and desire for publicity his political instincts have completely deserted him. For him to attempt to convince me and other law abiding citizens as he did on TV today that I should be concerned that the Trump administration will attempt to disappear me into an El Salvadoran gulag is laughable and I am disappointed that the interviewer did not confront him or laugh in his face.
We as a nation are about to discover the reality of uncomfortable, painful truths. Anything that can't go on forever, won't. A broken system will be abandoned and replaced with a brutal one which no one wants but all know is required.
We do not have the political will to stop the abuse of our good nature. Americans have always been seen as a kind, compassionate people, and now that compassion is being used against us as a weapon to weaken our will and destroy our morale. Our only option is swift, painful action to rectify the problem.
That would such action look like? It would be violent. Anything to brutalize and severely punish the perpetrator, up to and including heads on pikes displayed beside lamp posts, hangings from trees, public floggings.
Just remember: there is no one more brutal than an angry man who just wants to be left alone. He will stop at nothing until the problem is eliminated to his benefit. Or he himself is eliminated.
This is a brilliant assessment. You are way more than a math nerd!
Thanks. :)
Good piece. You make the argument considerably better than the administration itself does.
The counter argument:
"JD Vance Pretends Due Process Is Beside the Point
By Andrew C. McCarthy
April 19, 2025 6:30 AM
The faithful execution of the law must not be a casualty of the administration’s immigration policy."
https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/04/jd-vance-pretends-due-process-is-beside-the-point/
Thank you for your due diligence and gifted essay. Your hard work relieved from me the maddening frustration that no one gets that forces are successfully attacking and destroying our government, our rights, and our freedoms. Sadly, I cannot believe that the last 100 days of triage will save the USA as rogue judges and fools in guise as congressmen fight to keep and return illegal gang members.
Thank you for reading!
Very well said, Ms. Holly.
Thanks for your plea towards common sense.
You explain reality really, really well here. The harsh truth is that we have a major, major mess on our hands with illegal immigration--and its consequences are far reaching. There is simply no way to fix a problem this big without making it hurt badly. It's tragic, but unavoidable. The real solution was to deal with the problem a long, long time ago. But at this point, there are only two options: deal with it despite the pain or ignore it and watch the problem only get worse.
I would add a little to one of your sentences:
"They’re demanding the impossible — and calling it justice."
I'd say that the ignorant are demanding the impossible and calling it "justice." But there are many who know it's impossible--I'd say they are demanding the impossible, calling it justice, and laughing all the way because they know exactly how well they are manipulating themselves to power.
Your best work yet!
Thank you!!
My wife is Japanese. Her algorithms are feeding her horror stories of people with legal immigration paperwork being thrown out of the country. I don't typically panic about these things. If it's something reported by the news there is always some important detail to the story being left out that, if we were allowed to know it, would collapse the frame through which the stories are being written, and that is when reporters aren't making things up completely.
She is going through the renewal process for her permanent residency card. The wait time for a new one is apparently now being measured in years, although in cases like hers there is a paper legal immigrants get extending permission to stay after their current green cards run out. Without a criminal record and now with a couple years of 1040s that show us having to pay federal income tax, she should get renewed no problem. But this immigration nightmare spills over and affects a lot more than just a bunch of wife-beating gang members' deportation trials...
Finally got around to reading this Holly, thank you for the perspective as it has been very hard resisting agreeing with the more authoritarian elements on the right who WANT Trump to just break the system and hand more power over to the government regarding these issues. The system is already on fire, things WILL need to be done and it IS dangerous...but we also no longer have the luxury of standing around and waiting. We failed to catch the Cancer before it became malignant and now Chemo, burning it out, is the only option.
I just now am getting to this in my inbox. It's what I get for taking a tech sanity break for a few days.
Please, please, please make this shareable. Your breakdown and examination of this very touchy topic needs to be seen by more people. Not that I have much faith in people being able to step back and actually process what you've so brilliantly laid out and then come to the conclusion that "yes, she's right". A large swath of people in this country wallow in willful ignorance - while others delight in being purposely obtuse. And then you have the knowingly evil who stir up and feed on scenarios just like this unfolding catastrophe. Paralysis is the goal - a feature not a bug.
Damn you're good, Holly.
It is shareable -- that one's not paywalled. You should be able to just send the link to whoever. And thanks!
Apparently besides tech break, I've taken a brain break, haha! Didn't realize. Thank you!!