Victor Davis Hanson
What explains the general breakdown in civilization and the law, in a region where once no one had a key to their front farmhouse door and children free-ranged at age six or seven among their fields and orchards?
One reason, of course, is the open border. Millions have illegally entered the U.S., resided here illegally, and created illegal personas and pseudo-identifications. All that created a climate or habit of illegality, a normalization of snubbing the law that was transferred into all elements of life in the U.S.
I’ve written a book and contributed to many others about illegal immigration. But one facet is never broached. And that is the sense of entitlement of the illegal immigrant, who feels that the very fact he has been exempted from the law is therefore proof of the decadence of his host. Every day, I saw that disconnect of magnanimity interpreted as a weakness to be exploited rather than reciprocated in kind. In almost all these incidents previously described, the perpetrators were angry at the property owner for questioning their right to squat, trespass, dump, and worse.
Reader, you will say, “I prefer your essays on the nobility of immigrants who work hard.” The majority do, and I have praised them often. But when 20-30 million have crossed illegally, even a small percentage, say 10%, can mean 2-3 million are not noble, but normalize their illegality into a habit.
Two, we pass over the fact that globalization of the 21st century wrecked small farming. Vast new global markets favored large conglomerations that could vertically integrate—from the farm to the processing house to the distributor to the port to the in-house broker. Any who were solely on the farming end, suffered from crashing commodity prices, from say 2000–15, and missed out on the enormous markups from transportation, packing, processing, distributing, selling, and shipping. “Get big or get out” was the bankers’ advice.
So as prices for fruits and vegetables crashed in the Valley, as costs and California regulations tripled, small farmers (i.e., say, under 200 acres) were in a strange predicament: they were losing money yearly on farming, even as their land soared in value (although often mortgaged) given corporations saw its long-term value in rich soils, access to good irrigation water, central location, and perfect climate.
So they began either buying broke farmers out at astronomical prices (say, $30,000-$40,000 an acre at one point), or leasing the land from them. Either way, most farmers left. Some used their cash to move out of state and retire.
Some went to the California foothills. Some with more money fled to the central coast.
They left behind farmhouses, sometimes two or more on their plots. Corporations aggregated the purchased land into larger latifundia and gave the houses over to their employees or used brokers to rent them out.
As the illegal immigration wave increased, the occupants began hauling in trailers, building shacks, or converting garages to rent out to new illegal aliens. The result was up and down these rural roads, the old farmhouse on 20, 40, 80 acres or more became a “compound” of 10-20 people, lots of animals, sheep, goats, and chickens, and various sidelights, from cock fighting to chop shops, to quasi-legitimate but illegal barber services and rural daycare yards.
Suddenly, the county authorities avoided these quasi-villages. (I was bitten once while riding a bike by three dogs from one of these clusters. The owners slammed the door when I tried to find out to whom the dogs belonged. I called the authorities to see whether they had rabies shots—they did not. It took 30 days of calling and cajoling to get the sheriff to lock up the dogs for 21 days. I took a chance and did not get a rabies vaccination.)
The post <span class="ultra-flag"><i class="fas fa-lock"></i>VDH Ultra</span>From Rural to Surreal—Once Small Farming Became Latifundia: Part Seven appeared first on VDH’s Blade of Perseus.