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Posts Tagged ‘U.S. borders’

Action Trumps Talk

January 30th, 2017 No comments

Source: Trump’s Immigration Order Tests Limits of Law and Executive Power – The New York Times

Donald Trump has officially been in office just over one week.  In that time, he has produced a virtual avalanche of directives that have his detractors feel as if they were drinking from a firehose in attempting to react to them.  Who could have known that he would: approve the building of a wall at the Mexico border, move to redact and repeal Obamacare, move to reduce burdens of over regulation, restrain the EPA, approve the Keystone pipeline and now restrict the movement of individuals from areas of the world where terrorism is endemic?

Actually, if anyone was paying attention, everyone should have known!  For well over a year, his entire campaign platform had all these planks firmly front and center without apology or reservation.  Now that he’s acting with the blessing of the recent vote, detractors are ‘shocked’.  Imagine that; a political executive doing what he promised.  It’s not as if his campaign rhetoric included promises to lower the oceans and heal the earth. You may not like the guy, but a liar and a slacker, he ain’t.

The most current uproar surrounds the “sudden” restrictions imposed on persons travelling from areas of the world known to be terrorist hot spots.  Again, no one was paying attention to his campaign rhetoric if they think this was ‘sudden’.  Predictably, a collective howl has arisen from all corners of the usual leftist world, invoking racism, Nazism, etc etc.  On the very next day of the travel restrictions, headlines were already screaming about how Trump has impeded the progress of science.

We are not in the lawyer racket, (and amen to that), but claims of Trump’s actions being illegal and unconstitutional are as valid as Michael Moore beauty products.  The primary mandate of the president of the nation is to keep the nation safe.

No doubt, many innocents will be caught up by this policy, but a logical question arises.  Why do refugees and immigrants need to come to the US, or for that matter, any country.  Nations have the right to restrict people from entering their borders, or else, why have borders?  But a more logical question may be framed this way: If a person was being persecuted for religious or personal safety reasons, why would they board a plane and make the onerous trip all the way around the world when there are presumably options in the immediate vicinity? Why not Germany or Sweden or even Canada, all known for their expansive immigration policies.  Or how about any of the nation states within a 4 hour drive, such as Saudi Arabia? Oddly, most Muslim dominant nations have been quiet so far on this.

One of the more kooky critiques of the new policy is that this will serve to further inflame anti-American sentiment among certain nations and that this will be another recruitment incentive for radicals to join ISIS.  Really?  There’s yet another notch of hatred above what we’ve seen?  How far does this scale go?

To be clear, the new policy is not a permanent ban.  It is a temporary measure to allow more scrutiny of people from dangerous areas of the world.  If this is irrational, then so are security lines at airports, so are travel restrictions upon persons travelling from disease infected locales; recall the SARS outbreak of many years ago.  But as we’ve seen, almost half of the population are not known for any ability to think rationally.

Maybe Should Drive Instead

May 30th, 2010 No comments

link Pushy fliers may show up on TSA’s radar – USATODAY.com.

Much ink has been spilt on the “egregious” new law in Arizona attempting to suppress the chaos and violence associated with the out of control illegal immigration problem in that state.  Impassioned pleas from opponents of the new measure insist that the new law is draconian and and nothing less than a full assault on human rights and promotes racism.  Politicians at the highest level are denouncing the new law even though it essentially mirrors a federal law already on the books.  Even actors and comedians, known of course for their broad intellectual grasp of major issues, are weighing in with their opposition to the new law.  If an intellectual heavyweight such as George Lopez thinks the law is unjust, well maybe we’d better rethink the whole immigration policy.

What a waste of time.  There are far greater numbers of troublemakers attempting to get on planes than trying to sneak across borders.  Why waste time, effort, money and possibly life on enforcing such unpopular things such as immigration law.  The efforts are much better expended on airport harassment.  The cost benefit analysis skews the results considerably towards airport security as a means of spotting criminal behaviour.  Rather than having to pay trained police officers armed with deadly weapons, we need only pay for minimum wage workers to screen for troublemakers.  Instead of facing potentially armed drug criminals, the TSA people need only face the unarmed young and elderly.  Naturally, with all the vocal groups protesting human rights violations, they would have to exclude Muslims, Blacks and Hispanics from special screening.

If you are part of a constituency that has never had a history of causing grief to the nation, well you’re in for special scrutiny.  The elderly, the very young, Whites, Asians, business people, all will be easier targets of intimidation because there is no fear of these groups protesting their mistreatment.

As it stands now in the U.S., police officers feel reluctant to ask for legitimate identification for fear of stirring racism and profiling concerns.  At airport security, there is no such reluctance.  Heck, citizens can even be asked to strip to a certain degree and be felt up like a package of Charmin tissue.   Any protests will instantly plop their names onto an official troublemaker list and voila, a permanent criminal suspect is created.  As time goes on, this list can only grow as the definition of pushy travellers gets fuzzier and fuzzier.  Statistics will soar on the TSA troublemaker database and will be justification to demand more money into their coffers to combat the rising incidences of disturbing airport behaviour.  Which of course, will lead to even more invasive and surly TSA procedures. It will be entirely logical to transfer the weapons from Border agents to arm the TSA staff.

Illegal entry across U.S. borders will cease to be an enforceable pursuit and movement there will be free and easy.  Just as long as they don’t attempt to fly in.