Mark Steyn (at SteynOnline) has thoughts about fingerprinting and other fun topics:
The southern border of the United
States is wide open to millions of persons per year, equivalent to the entire
population of Northern New England annually, for those of you excited about
abolishing the electoral college and having a straight up-or-down vote for
president.
However, if you like selective
application of the law, you'll be thrilled to hear that in recent days two
foreign visitors headed to Steyn HQ to tape a couple of interviews were both
fingerprinted by the crazed fanatics of US Immigration.
Fingerprinting is something you do
to criminals. My guests were traveling for business on passports of two
prosperous western nations that happen to be, both formally and more broadly,
"allies" of the United States. But, in the crapped-out Oppositeland
that is today's America, the southern border is open 24/7 to human traffickers,
drug cartels, child sex-slavers, terrorists, bearers of viruses, and illegal
immigrants with no verifiable identity, while respectable travelers without
criminal records are treated as low-life scum by the perverts of US
officialdom. Neither of my guests enjoyed the experience, and, notwithstanding
the efforts of my hospitality to compensate, neither has any desire to set foot
in the United States ever again.
I can't say I blame them. It was a
condition of my own admission to this once great republic that I not foment the
overthrow of the United States government. I have not combed the fine print to
see whether I'm permitted to foment the overthrow of individual agencies within
it. But we are definitely at the stage where natural-born Americans might
usefully show a few signs of inclining to foment. Because this is your problem
too. The bifurcation of our society is accelerating: the more the criminal
classes are given the run of the land in New York, Portland, [Your City Here],
the more the law-abiding are crimped and restrained and micro-regulated into
compliance. This will not end well.
~As Neil Oliver and I discussed on a recent Mark Steyn Show, all this is happening because
the people who run the world want it to happen. Pre-Covid freedom of movement
with respect to international travel is never coming back. You might think,
"No big deal, I'm perfectly content where I am" - but the local
diner's only open Thursday-to-Sunday now and the general store closes at five
because they can't get the staff and the big-box KrappiMart has closed its
outdoor garden center because there's no one to man it. As Neil's missus puts
it, it's not about going green, it's about going without. Less travel, fewer
restaurants, smaller homes poorly heated, less individual-car ownership ...and
for those willing to expend huge effort to wiggle through the cracks, more
fingerprinting and iris scans and digital ID. . . .
Read the full column here.
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