If you feel unsafe or threatened by the current political climate, or if you wish to avoid controversial or disturbing subjects for your own personal mental health, then please do NOT read this post.
All those CAUTION tags are there for a reason.
During the last few days I came across two different reports from the United States of America which showcase the very horrible double standards regarding the so-called “rule of law” and “due process”.
The first is titled American Students Locked Up in Denmark on Spring Break. Here some legal reporter (and/or lawyer) touts the “rule of law”, “due process” and “fast acting judicial system” that is supposedly protecting the innocent in the “good old USA”, while at the same time accusing Denmark (and by extension most European countries) of kidnapping foreign citizens.
A few days later this report from a different legal reporter/commentator was published: Trump Admin Deports German Tourists For Not Booking A Hotel. This is just the latest report of how the USA treats tourists like hardened criminals. All without probable cause and without due process, not to mention the violation of basic human dignity.
I fear for all of you living in the United States of America and who still believe that the rule of law will prevail and prevent the USA from turning into a dictatorship and police surveillance state where random people just get disappeared. This is not only happening at the federal level, but also at the state level in many states. When the Executive Branch blatantly ignores Court Orders, even Orders from the Supreme Court, and the Legislative Branch, including the House of Representatives and the Senate, refuses to enact limiting legislation and/or even impeach the traitors running the Executive Branch, then the Constitution of the United States of America as amended is not worth the paper or parchment it is written on!
And with the various reports that came out over the Easter weekend that an ever increasing number of countries are revoking the visa free travel rules in reciprocity and response to long standing visa abuse of the USA based on racial profiling. It is now becoming ever more difficult for the working class population to find a safe haven abroad. Several countries have started issuing notices of impending deportation. And [re-]applications for residency and work are starting to become stricter, resulting in an increasing number of rejections.
Unfortunately it appears that the situation will have to become much worse before it can start to improve again. I am very sorry to dump all this doom and gloom on you all. But I just needed to release some pressure before suffering a catastrophical failure.
Comments
Pulled Over Didn't Do Anything Wrong
If one drives it has happened to all of us. One employed by government, anyone, and they may and can make one's life miserable. Read about the two school girls on vacation to Hawaii and the U.S. This is total FUBAR. They were deported for NOT making a reservation in a hotel in advance.
I've made my fair share of road trips and NEVER booked in advance. I stop, if they have a room I want. If they don't there is another motel down the road. Our system is so messed up now I can't truly believe in living in the U.S. any more.
Hugs Jessica
Barb
Ladies, guard your passports and driver's license. Any excuse, no excuse they will confiscate them.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
That's exactly what we did ...
... when we toured New Hampshire on our tandem back in 1994. We had really no idea where we were going nor how far we wanted to ride each day so we did what we did in Europe - take pot luck. We ended up meeting some great people and staying in some interesting places (one B&B was like staying in an art gallery and the owner drove us to a restaurant for a meal and picked us up afterwards).
At our age I don't think we could afford the health insurance to travel to the USA now but even if that wasn't an issue we'd certainly give it a miss. I know from experience that there's a lot of very friendly, helpful people on your side of the 'pond' (the vast majority) but I would feel very unsafe.
Statistics show that travel to the U.S. is rapidly dropping…..
The first place it was noticeable was travel from Canada - Florida, especially Disney, is a very popular destination for Canadians. As are other places in the United States. I live in upstate New York, specifically in Saratoga County, which places me just about midway between New York City and Montreal. We usually see a lot of Canadian tourists during the summer months.
Lake George, which is about a 40 minute drive north of me, depends so heavily on Canadian tourists that most of the hotels in the area will actually fly both an American flag and a Canadian flag in front of their building. They have already seen a significant loss in Canadian tourism, and based on bookings it is projected to only get worse as we move into the spring and summer months. The last numbers I saw indicated that travel from Canada to the US is already down over 20%, and expected to get worse.
New York City is the number one tourist destination in this country, and is also reporting a drop in visitors.
This trend is spreading to other countries as the Orange Baboon and his administration continue to piss off more of the world. Not to mention all of the horror stories that we continue to hear happening to those who travel here. Tourism is a significant income in many areas of this country, and the obvious indicator that tourism revenues are down is that airlines are already talking about volumes being down, companies like Southwest Airlines (which is doing away with their policy of two bags flying free), as well as others, are continuing to offer deeply discounted air fares in specific lanes, and even Disney is advertising huge deals for travelers from outside of the United States.
Companies only offer these types of discounts when they are having trouble with bookings.
The average American is only now starting to understand the widespread impact of the idiotic policies being pushed by Trump and his cronies. It will take even longer for the average MAGA moron to understand the full impact.
The obvious double standard that you have demonstrated with your post and the attached links doesn’t surprise me. It is just another example of the arrogance and stupidity that is rampant in many corners of this country. The Ugly American lives. Many of the citizens of this country don’t understand that the laws of this country are not the laws in other countries. And to make it worse, they act like spoiled children, believing that being born in this country affords them some special privilege when traveling abroad.
The ignorance that runs rampant in certain corners of this country is disappointing, but doesn’t really surprise me. The simple fact of the matter is that ICE is detaining people without due process of law, and without a justifiable reason. Yet when a U.S. citizen is detained for assaulting a man, for putting him in the hospital, his family (and others) are outraged because he is arrested, detained, and prevented from leaving the country as a flight risk - which he obviously was as he was arrested at the airport trying to board a flight out of the country! Which by the way, is exactly what the authorities in this country do to foreign citizens - and U.S. citizens! It is even a cliché commonly used in movies where the police advise a suspect not to leave town! It is also a common reason used to either deny or revoke bond for those who have been arrested.
The entire concept of detaining and eventually deporting someone because they don’t have a hotel reservation for their entire stay boggles the mind. Do I normally make a reservation for the full extent of a trip before I take it? Yes. Have I always done so? No! When I was younger, and traveled without a family, it was not unusual for me to not make reservations in advance - because I wasn’t sure where I was going to end up each night! The whole concept of doing so is even more common in Europe than it is in the U.S., especially with students taking a gap year.
Hell, on multiple trips I backpacked across parts of both the U.S. and Europe. Carrying everything in a backpack, and either renting a campsite for the night and sleeping in a sleeping bag, or finding a hotel for the night if there was one available. The whole point of the trip being to see as much as you could, without a fixed itinerary; the only fixed portion being an end date and a place to be on that date. When I was in high school, three friends of mine and I bicycled from upstate NY to Orlando, and back, carrying everything in backpacks or saddle bags on our bicycles, and camping out every night. How is that different than what the two German girls had planned, other than the fact it was 1977 and we were U.S. citizens? And we were treated very, very well by everyone we met along the way!
When I backpacked across parts of Europe I was also treated very well, the only issue I ever had was people laughing at my accent when I spoke in German or Spanish - and most of them actually helped me to improve my language skills after we all had a good laugh, lol. On multiple occasions I actually stopped at the local police station to ask directions or information, and never had an issue. In fact, once they discovered I was in the U.S. Navy I was treated extremely well.
So what has changed? Simple, people in this country have lost their minds and are ignorantly following the clown in the White House.
D. Eden
“Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.”
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Smallest Minority
Watching a Trump speech, he singled out transgender as one of the many things wrong in the world. As he spoke he said the LGB was okay until they added the T, LGBT. I knew then and there this was going to be a long road for transgender to be accepted again.Such a bigot, he has no idea all the support transgender has made to the human population. One in particular, I wish I could take away his computers, cell phones, and all the electronics in all the military equipment.which is possible because of one transgender's work in that field.
Hate and blame is so easy to build and point at others.
Barb
John 15-18.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
At Age Sixteen
I travelled alone by train and thumb through France, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria and Germany. I had absolutely no trouble. Admittedly my French and German were better in those days after four years of schooling. Everybody was very kind although I always felt that speaking in their language definitely greased the wheels. The only problem that I encountered was having to demand that my passport was stamped at each border otherwise I would have no bragging rights when I got home.
I had no hotel bookings, sleeping most nights in Youth Hostels. Half the time I had no idea where I would end up. That depended on where the lifts took me.
I don't know if I could repeat the experience today and I certainly wouldn't try to do it in the USA.
Easy peasey
Increasing Xenophobia fueled by lies,
My father and his parents emigrated from Sicily in 1913. Both sets of Maternal great-grandparents emigrated from Europe in the late 1800s. I'm an Euro-ethnic mutt with a teeny smattering of native American and African genes thrown in for good measure. I should just go ahead and deport myself, like the ICE folks suggested to an American-born legislator. Holy FUCK!
Love, Andrea Lena