I’m a dairy farmer. A lot of my friends and associates are too. Our community is built on immigrant labor.
This is wrecking shit. The paranoia is at levels you cant imagine. The workers are scared. The owners are scared. Regardless of income level or status, everyone is stressed to say the least.
The only consolation I have had was, just this past weekend, I got to look at my neighbor who was stressing and venting about what he will do when ice shows up. And I looked this man dead in the eyes and told him “you got exactly what you voted for, and exactly what you supported”
And he looked at me and agreed. “Yeah, you are right” he was defeated. To say that to me is an acknowledgement of absolute defeat.
It’s funny It sounds nice to think “I warned you”. That smug superiority sounds good in your mind. It’s vindication. It’s another thing entirely to watch you community terrified to move because they collectively fucked up. Vindication doesn’t help the people kidnapped from your community. The destruction of generations of work and mutual cooperation.
What a fucking shitty consolation prize.
I vented on a local Facebook group when that happened. Saying that the continued police abuse of the emergency alert system would quickly cause the alerts to mean nothing. I frequently also got amber alerts for the opposite end of the state, well over twelve hours away.
To say that my concern was an unpopular opinion would be a massive understatement. People were downright hostile. A lot of locals could never fathom that what I was saying was true. And they used all the four letter words to tell me so. A sheriff’s deputy called me a godless cop hater and a disgusting person.
Fortunately that particular cop is unemployed for abusing his power and some domestic abuse allegations. Oh and trying to fight his neighbor while in uniform.
And and I’m still right. They abused the alert system so much it is useless. And children and the elderly and innocent paid that price with their lives.