I fail to understand American paranoia. While reading yet another news story about “security”, it occurred to me just how deeply rooted fear is in American culture and how completely moronic their reactionary paranoia is. The Ottawa Citizen reported this story: Canada rejects U.S. senator’s visa idea: Lieberman calls report on border security ‘alarming’.
In the story, an American senator, Joe Lieberman, the chairman of the U.S. Senate’s Homeland Security committee, gets all upset about Canada-US border security.
It’s 6,400 km long.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency provides an “acceptable level of security” along less than one per cent of America’s 6,400-kilometre border with Canada.
And then the topic of visas comes up…
Just how stupid do you have to be to suggest that? If it’s a matter of illegal activity, it’s much easier to cross the border somewhere in the middle of Saskatchewan or Lake Huron. There is simply no way to stop that. You cannot “adequately” defend 6,400 km of wilderness. It’s insane.
The cost to patrol and maintain that long of a border is simply immense. Who’s going to pay for it? Is it worth it?
Fact is that Canada poses no significant threat to the US. A few rogue elements here and there do not justify the cost that it would take to stop them.
I have a difficult time imagining that there’s not some kind of agenda there. Why would anyone consider such an insane undertaking otherwise? It would certainly be lucrative for whoever provided the border security or whoever supplied the border security with equipment and services.
Here’s an idea, instead of wasting money on “security”, why not waste money on education? I really can’t remember the last time I heard about some disenfranchised, well-educated, doctor of physics living in a million dollar home with 4 cars that decided to go out and start bombing people. Pretty much educated people don’t cause problems… Unless you count voicing an educated opinion as a problem… Which appears to be the case in some places that we shall not name.
