Blue Monarchs, Rail Yards, and Human Strays
And, What's up with that Lawsuit in Federal Court?
Good Morning Friends,
Didn’t expect to be writing again so soon. Indeed— we’ve been trying to manage our own self-expectations and recriminations over feeling as though we’ve not had all that much interesting to say about current events, beyond “Hey, wait for the election. No body’s going to be doing anything until then.”
Well, sometimes the universe brings you a gift. It’s hard not to feel that way about it, even as one realizes that the source of this information— this inspiration of data— this locus of happening, is clearly the result of some other human being in distress. Mental illness. Drug addiction. Who knows for sure, even if it is all but certain to be fruit that’s fallen some distance from the central branches of illegal immigration.
But we get ahead of ourselves.
Workers at the Spofford, TX railyard have been quietly getting their work done— repairing, cleaning, and refurbishing train cars going to and from Mexico for months now in the midst of Operation Lone Star, and the natural affinity human smugglers have for railstock.
One feels it safe to assume they’ve seen some things. But, one also imagines they’ll still be telling the story of the “Blue Monarch” for some time to come.
It starts with reports that began reaching the Kinney County Sheriff’s Office over the weekend of an Anglo woman apparently trespassing at the railyard, and also, later a nearby ranch.
According to reports, the woman seems to have been “camping rough” for at least a couple of days— probably sneaking into the railyard for water and whatever else. Workers at the railyard describe her as strangely aggressive. At some point while workers were on the phone with Sheriff’s Office dispatchers, the unidentified woman could be heard in the background declaring that her name is “Blue Monarch.”
Workers say she’s told them all she needs is a “courtesy ride” back to Arizona.
Deputies have responded to phone calls about Madame Monarch twice— but each time she retreats back into the brush before they can arrive.
One can’t help but speculate at the circumstances that have led to this kind of a situation. Weighing possibility and unlikelihood. One finds it reasonably likely to assume that this is a lady that was tagging along with someone making a smuggling run, who decided there was just too much risk, and cruelly kicked her out of the car— perhaps worried about what she might say or do if they crossed paths with authorities.
Who knows? Maybe she’s just a modern day hobo that’s been riding the rails and just wound up in Kinney County that way.
No one will know anything with any certainty, if deputies remain unable to locate her on subsequent calls. It’s tempting to say that deputies should stay out there however long, trying to track her down— clearly this is someone that needs help, right?
Well, the sad truth is, deputies and dispatchers must cold-bloodedly triage their time. Time burned trying to find someone who doesn’t want to be found— is time they could be spending on finding an illegal alien that is in even worse straits and desperate for rescue. Happens all time. People trip, break ankles, fall off the train, lose limbs, fall into a heap for lack of water. You name it.
Consequently, it may not be until another day or two passes before this individual becomes desperate enough that they’re willing to overcome whatever it is that’s leading them to run from deputies and finally accept what help there is for them.
It is very possible that this individual has family somewhere that is missing them. Worried sick. Out-of-touch for far longer than the circumstances of just this one individual misadventure. It takes a whole lot of misadventuring, one imagines, before your story winds up with you stuck in the literal middle of nowhere, running from deputies that are only trying to help.
In a sense, we are speaking of a human that has adopted the traits of the most ridiculous stray dog, lacking the sense or trust enough to accept their own rescue.
It’s a crazy story— and in the end— it’s only one. One single thing, in a sea of others that have been happening with or without our attention for more than 2-years now.
On that note— we should probably mention, Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe is reporting a record 83 smugglers arrested and charged for the month of October, with a week still to go.
Some may feel tempted to congratulate he and his deputies for the work— and they’d surely thank any one who did— but the Sheriff is actually quick to confess that it’s a mistake to think their efforts indicate any kind of serious inconvenience to the Cartels at this point.
“We’d know for sure we were stinging them if the number of smugglers suddenly dropped tomorrow,” says Coe. Makes sense. Record numbers of arrests just mean you have record numbers of people trying to smuggle.
If numbers just keep creeping on up, that means the cartels just made a simple calculation to leverage an economy of scale, and “record stats” for law-enforcement will only continue to correspond to “record profits” for smugglers.
Some may be tempted to say: “What’s the point? Send them troopers home and call it a day— why waste the tax money?” It’s a great question. Wish we had a short, clear, decisive answer but murky problems only breed more murkiness. Send the troopers home tomorrow. End Operation Lone Star.
What now? Communities will continue drowning in this chaotic mess. The border will only become more overrun. And we will only come to know what greater depths of desperation can be found in the midst of this misery, with no attempt at all to do something about it.
The border is a patient on the crash cart. Operation Lone Star has kept the patient’s vital signs intact, perhaps, but ultimately, the surgeons will have to pioneer other techniques— further procedures to stop the bleeding, and close the wounds.
A small update on what’s seemed to be a languishing federal lawsuit filed by Kinney County and others, alleging among other things, violations of federal law caused by procedural changes forced onto ICE agents by the White House.
Kinney County, several other communities, and a federal employees union are all party to the suit which was first filed roughly a year and a half ago at the Federal Court in Galveston.
The suit has apparently been on hold all this time— while the courts there observe an almost identical lawsuit brought by the State of Texas that looks to be on its way to the Supreme Court.
There’s not much sense in letting the suit progress in Galveston, if it’s going to wind up being superseded by this other case & the Supreme Court.
Indeed, efforts are underway to try and append part of Kinney County’s complaint in the Galveston Case, to the Texas Attorney General’s case that may soon go before Judge Clarence Thomas and the rest.
“It would provide some additional standing to the AG’s case,” said Kinney County Attorney Brent Smith, before adding, “but it’s probably a longshot.”
Oral arguments before the Supreme Court in this case are scheduled for late November 2022.
And finally this morning— in a comment to one of our readers after yesterday’s newsletter, we thought it might be fun to dwell on the irony for the affinity we find in our middle-aged years for the thoughts of French Anarchist Pierre Joseph Proudhon.
If you’d told us at the fine young age of 21 that we’d have something nice to say about such a man, we might’ve laughed in your face. French Anarchist? Sounds like some kind of commie pinko crap, right?
Of course right.
Time is merciless with the ironies it heaps upon us all.
Here’s the man’s wikipedia entry. It says he’s the first person on record as calling himself an anarchist.
Proudhon, who was born in Besançon, was a printer who taught himself Latin in order to better print books in the language. His best-known assertion is that "property is theft!", contained in his first major work, What Is Property? Or, an Inquiry into the Principle of Right and Government (Qu'est-ce que la propriété? Recherche sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement), published in 1840. The book's publication attracted the attention of the French authorities. It also attracted the scrutiny of Karl Marx, who started a correspondence with its author.
—From Proudhon’s entry on Wikipedia
Marx and Proudhon apparently had a parting of the ways sometime later— with Proudhon penning another book titled “The Philosophy of Poverty,” and Marx responding with his own, similarly titled “The Poverty of Philosophy.”
Replace these two jokers with a couple rappers swapping dis tracks for a modern reference for this kind of back and forth.
It’s not clear what exactly led to their schism, though wikipedia suggests it may’ve been something as silly as Marx having a personal problem with someone that was translating Proudhon’s work into other languages.
Some like to summarize Proudhon’s position as ultimately being in favor of workers collectives or individual workers owning property instead of private corporate ownership of land or nationalization of land or workspaces.
It doesn’t immediately sound like the craziest stuff to modern ears, perhaps— but it obviously was some wild stuff for the time and one imagines it would remain so today if you were in fact to take a closer look at it and begin unpacking the ideas and their consequences.
Of late, some revisionists have tried to connect Proudhon to Facism. But perhaps it has more to do with Facism slowly morphing into a modern catchall for “whatever is bad,” versus it’s original meaning. One also has to ignore that Facism didn’t even exist until well after Proudhon’s death in 1865. Some put the creation of Facism at 1919. But, whatever.
If anything, Proudhon is probably closer to libertarianism than true Facism— just see the following:
In a subchapter called "What is Government?", Proudhon wrote:
To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place[d] under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.
—From Proudhon’s Entry on Wikipedia
What is one to make of this mass of words?
Well, speaking for ourselves— one of the things that jumps out at us is how he sticks the landing at the very end— a near perfect example of what many like to refer to as the rule of three, in writing.
Indeed— it almost makes up for what seems like the overdone jumble of the rest of it. “That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.” 1-2-3.
Break those three points up with more words. More points. You would diminish them. Somehow the alchemy between thought and the ear makes three stronger than 4,5, or 6.
He uses the rule of three up earlier in the quote block too, though it’s less noticeable. “To be governed is…. …by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so.”
C’mon! Forget about it. What is a body going to say after that? Shut it down. Go home, crawl into bed, and cry cry cry, for the inability to write so powerfully. Wake up again in time for Festivus and tell everyone how upset you are with them.
And— don’t forget to ignore the fact that without government, it’s every last man and woman for themselves. So maybe we should keep some of that around after all. Weird.
As always, this newsletter is produced as independently as possible from our day job at the Kinney County Sheriff’s Office, and should not be mistaken for some kind of official statement by Kinney County officials in any shape or form. Any errors, misdeeds, or embarrassing expressions of sentiment are entirely our own.
Odds are high we’ll be back again very soon. There’s bound to be some kind of an update on the story of Blue Monarch in the next day or two. Let us all hope it’s a positive outcome for her, whoever she is— even if it’s not the outcome she thinks she wants.
Until then— find someone you love— and tell them what comes naturally.
It’s hard not to roll the eyes in youth, when ancient Fudds and elders tell you to do such things. What do they know, when time seems to stretch out into the blue horizons of endless tomorrows and green valleys of perfect promise.
But the truth is, given modern work schedules, vacation time allotments, and the realities of travel — there are tragic numbers of young people thinking they have all the time in the world to see their parents and others they love, when in fact they may have only a half-dozen or fewer opportunities to be together again.
Don’t blow it, don’t waste it. Tomorrow’s promises come with no guarantees— you have to make your own.
Yes, I read the Wiki; and Proudhom seems to wobble from side to side with a pronounced list to the left. Diverse societies and cultures prevent the cohesion necessary to integrate the world as a free for all. All we can reasonibly expect is to respectfully Marco Polo our way around the planet. Resources and the dominance over them has always lead to vile outcomes to the detriment of indigenous peoples. Government is a nasty business; but someone has to do it. Only recourse is to be vigilant and dismember as necessary. Property is vital to the welfare of the individual except for excess desires. He that has resources to be an entrepreneur is entitled to reap the rewards of his labor. A man is entitled to a fair wage for his labor. It is greed, the desire for power and immorality that destroys. That whom or what you worship is all important. Choose wisely. No one has all the answers. Hence, there will be conflict.