Letters to the Editor
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"Is this a fake passport?"
Speaking of the rudeness of U.S. Customs Officers, on a recent return trip from Canada, one of them asked me the above question.
The deal is: my passport is getting close to expiration and never seems to work on the automatic scanning equipment that was installed after 9/11. It's that way every single time. I even tell them in advance that it won't work in an effort to prevent them from trying it 15 times (futilely) and staring with furrowed brow at the computer monitor.
Though tempted to answer "yes" sarcastically, I refrained and gave him a straight "no". But it gets better. Noticing my state of birth (in the South), he then told me, "You don't sound like someone from _____." I explained that I'd left at a rather young age and had lived in the North for all my adult life.
If I could've stayed and worked in Canada legally, I probably would've just turned around at that point and left the airport.
For the record, I'm a generic-looking white guy. I can only imagine the treatment I would've received if I'd truly looked foreign. Yes, Virginia, we are increasingly living in a police state. This is what Americans have voted for; I hope they're happy.
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All this over something that kills fewer people than lightning
According to published U.S Weather Service figures, lightning kills about 60 American civilians each year. According to published U.S. State Department figures, apart from Sept 11, 2001, the most American civilians killed by terrorist activity in recent years was 56 in 2005, all of them in Baghdad.
In other words, we have sacrificed over 4,000 lives to "protect" us from something that has killed fewer than 10% of that number since 2001.
And now we bottle up the borders, protecting us from... what, ourselves?
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Follow the money
It can't be overstated. Canada/US trade is a critical piece of the economy of both countries.
As Uncle Sam continues to tighten the rules, trade will likely decline. Tourism will be affected both ways. If you are in the business, count on negative growth in the coming years.
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What failed on 9/11
was not the border OR the intelligence, it was the deliberate duplicity of elements within our own government.
There is far too much evidence that the CIA let these perpetrators into the US to train them at airfields.
There is far too much evidence also, that the American people prefer to believe a fairy tale and are not willing to go look for themselves to satisfy their curiosity.
Hence, the current impasse and eventual destruction of our nation from within by inimical forces inside our government.
Just saying. There was quite a lot to be gained from US forces getting a free pass into the Middle East. Indeed, TENS OF TRILLIONS to those in power.
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And for all that, it's still ridiculously simple to enter the US illegally
Because of the Great Lakes. Take metro Detroit/Southeastern Michigan- huge numbers of recreational boaters (Michigan's normally in the top three states in terms of registered boaters and boats) and many, many private docks, canal communities, and small marinas. It's not like the Coasties can effectively cover all of Lake Huron or Lake Erie, especially during times of peak summer boat traffic. It just doesn't work.
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If we're really serious...
Having read several of the posts that point out the advantages of catching criminals and drug smugglers by making the Canadian border more hassle-full, I suggest the following if we're really serious about catching terrorists and other bad guys: a state-based ID card as well as a national ID card and something better than passports which are too easy to forge, retinal scans set up on interstate highways, border crossings at state boundaries to make sure illegal aliens don't make it from Kentucky to Illinois, for example, (cities would be better, let's keep those Chicagoans out of Des Moines), full searches of all vehicles traveling from one county to the next. Just thjink of the advantages: more prisons and border guards. Goodness, we'd have full employment in a week.
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"have we become what we once despised?" Uh....yeah
I think it's a tragedy -- OK, maybe a minor tragedy, but still. I live in Cleveland, on the south side of a lake whose north side (90 miles away) is in Canada. We've always visited Canada a couple times a year, but our last visit to Niagara Falls was so miserable in terms of HOURS spent (buring fuel!) in line to cross the border that we haven't been back since '06.
It's true that the crossing guards have a really unpleasant and surly attitude that seems justified by nothing (are they told to be especially unwelcoming? or is it just all the lines and waiting?). We weren't strip searched or anything, but there was a general attitude somehow that you are doing something suspicious, when you certainly are not.
Mostly though it's the TIME -- who has the time (or gas) to sit in a two-three hour line just to cross into Niagara Falls? And we were two adults! With a carfull of kids, this would have been a nightmare.
I have a girlfriend, with a toddler adopted from China, and she went to Toronto for a visit, and on the way back home, was grilled like a felon (despite having passports, years before required). They acted like she had kidnapped her child, based solely on the racial difference. They also grilled the four year old child, "is this really your mommy?", etc. As you can imagine, this ended up with crying and screaming, and it took HOURS.
Only a masochist would willingly repeat these experiences. It's a crying shame, too, because we love Canada, and really looked forward to our visits (even more so when the exchange rate was over 30%, LOL).
Canada and the US enjoyed an extraordinary friendship and peaceful border for many generations. NOTHING has happened in world events to justify what is happening now. NO Canadians are sneaking into our company to take low-paying jobs away from Americans...no major terrorist activities have been traced to crossing the border. This is paranoia about NOTHING.
If we took this money and energy being WASTED to destroy a wonderful and peaceful coexistence, and instead spent it on securing our really troubled SOUTHERN BORDER, we might actually make a dent in illegal immigration. But of course, that won't happen because it's logical and practical and desperately needed.
No, we'll slam the door on peaceful, economically valuable travel between the northern US and Canada and turn friends into suspicious strangers.
This is (yet another) example of the apalling tragedy of the Bush 43 administration, which has destroyed so much of what many of us love about our country in a mere 7.5 years of incompetence and corruption and bad management, on top of spending down our economy until it's nearly in recession and bankrupting us for at least a generation into the future. Oh, and a pointless, expensive war that shows no signs of ever winding down and 4000 dead young American soldiers.
Have I left anything out?