As we come in to Thanksgiving, Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek is nice enough to illuminate us on what ***holes Americans are
As an immigrant, I’ve always loved Thanksgiving for all the corniest reasons. It’s a distinctly American holiday, secular and inclusive, focused on food, family and gratitude. But the one Thanksgiving tradition I try strenuously to avoid is travel. For those of you who must do it—and that’s 27 million people this year—brace yourselves for massive delays and frayed tempers. President Bush announced a few measures to ease congestion, describing this week as “a season of dread for too many Americans.” I only wish he would keep in mind that for foreigners now traveling to America, the dread is far more acute, and it’s lasted far longer than a few days in November.
Every American who has a friend abroad has heard some story about the absurd hassle and humiliation of entering or exiting the United States. But these pale in comparison to the experience of foreigners who commit minor infractions. A tourist from New Zealand, Rick Giles, mistakenly overstayed his visa in America by a few days and found himself summarily arrested for six weeks earlier this fall. Treaty obligations say his country’s embassy should have been informed of the arrest, but it wasn’t. A German visitor, Valeria Vinnikova, overstayed her visa by a couple of days and tried to remedy the situation—so that she could spend more time with her fianc?, the Dartmouth College squash coach. Instead she was handcuffed and had her feet shackled, then was carted off to be imprisoned. She now faces deportation and a 10-year ban on entering the United States. (Thanks to AndrewSullivan .com for drawing attention to these.)
Well, gee, sorry, Fareed, but, you know, there are people who overdo their jobs in every country. Sometimes, mistakes happen. But, as a good liberal, it must be all of America to blame. It can’t be a few bad apples who go too far. Or, something else at work?
If you want to point the blame finger. Fareed, why not point it where it mostly belongs: on the PC crowd who make us treat all coming visitors to this country the same, rather then allowing us to profile the people who will be the real trouble makers and dangers. Granted President Bush feels no need to try to implement that type of security on airports, but, even if he were, the liberal PC crowd would go pink monkey sh*t over it.
And, why not tell said visitors to obey the damn laws, and not do things like overstay their visa’s?
The funny thing is, Fareed says the visitor rates started going down in 2000. Hmm, who was president then? Perhaps someones ultra-pc policies from the previous 7 years started annoying travelers from around the world. Of course, Fareed seems to want to blame Bush, and, in the last paragraph, seems to want to say “just get over 9/11 already.” Decide for yourself if I am right.
At least we do not deny fat people entry to our country, like New Zealand.
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