Apologizing for American Insanity

[Plaid Adder]

OK, I hate the Patriot Act just in principle, but now it's getting personal.

I'm trying to put together a large event at which many of the attendees will be from outside the country. I've just had ANOTHER participant pull out because he's found out what he'll have to do in order to land on American soil, viz, get fingerprinted and, if possible (he says) they're now doing retina scans.

Is this guy a criminal? A terrorist? Some shady master Al-Qaeda stooge with something to hide? No, he's just a guy from somewhere else where everyone isn't insane, who thinks that surrendering this kind of information to the state creates opportunities for abuse, and isn't willing to run that risk just to breathe American air.

He was very apologetic. I wrote back and said, no, let ME apologize. I apologize for the climate of insane paranoia that has allowed this government to impose this 'policy.' I apologize for not having been able to unseat this asshole, and for belonging to a so-called opposition policy that signed off on the USA PATRIOT act like a bunch of sheep without even reading the whole thing first. I apologize for the fact that our country is run by xenophobic war monkeys who actually like knowing that they have made intellectual and cultural exchange between the US and other countries nigh unto fucking impossible.

Well. I didn't really say all that, but I was thinking it.

ARGH!

The Plaid Adder

[primavera]

1. Yep, it's across the board

Scholarly exchange, scientific collaboration, business travel, tourism, foreign student enrollments at US universities, everything's been pretty much decimated. And it's all so pointless. The people we're preventing from entering the country are not the terrorists, who have ample access to all the fraudulent documents necessary to get in and who don't mind the hassle no matter how much we tighten the net, rather it's everyone else who don't appreciate being treated like criminals when they've done nothing wrong and don't need the headache. Can you blame them? But Homeland Security needs to look busy and, since they're unwilling to go after terrorists, they figure arresting and deporting little old ladies who have overstayed their tourist visas is a close runner-up. Yep, that's using the old noodle. :eyes: