Martin Luther King and the Passport problem.
17/05/07 11:23 AM
Big announcement this
week threatening to "fix" our passport problem. This
problem has come about because our American friends,
in response to very real threats to their security,
have been thrashing about looking for a "fix" to
their own problems and, as all bureaucrats do, they
have pounced on the easy stuff to make noise about
first. This habit of picking off the low hanging
fruit whenever you are challenged by the war cry of
"activists" of all stripes is all too pervasive in
our present day society and comes with enormous
hidden costs to us all.
Whenever you start hearing the bleating of the Chicken Littles that "SOMEBODY'S GOT TO DO SOMETHING" just hold on to your wallet and keep your head down. In this case, in knee jerk response to the wildly popular but totally untrue myth that an abundance of the 911 attackers, you remember, those Saudi Arabian guys, passed into the USA from Canada because of our lax border security and weak laws.
Notwithstanding the obvious problem with that statement which is that even if they had crossed into the USA from Canada, it was the lax US border security that let them in. Whether it was at the Rainbow Bridge or LAX or JFK or El Paso, these turkeys entered the USA under the eyes and guns of US Security Agents. NOT OUR FAULT.
So, the popular myth drives the populace to bleat at their politicos who raise their heads from grazing at the trough and pronounce that the problem has been identified and will be dealt with. Henceforth, all Canadian citizens will have to have a valid passport to enter the USA. Of course, our own politicos, in denial about whether or not this will really happen, do absolutely nothing to prepare for what a 6 year old could have told them was coming. A big rush on the passport office. Canada wide we supposedly have an ability to process 17,000 passport applications a day. We have been getting 20,000. We are way behind and gonna be that way for a long time.
One of the difficulties faced by our hard working civil service in attempting to speed up the process is that our current laws require you to reapply from scratch for a new passport every 5 years. New picture, new guarantors, new application, everything. Very time consuming, totally redundant, very much a system designed by committee.
However, a not so well remembered incident is at the root of our current inability to respond to the actions imposed on our borders by the unfounded rumors driving the political agenda of our American neighbors. It was, the assassination of Martin Luther King. You see, prior the the sudden demise of the Reverend, at the hands of Mr. James Earl Ray, our passports were good for 10 years, renewable and you could actually smile in the photo. After the Reverend passed on, rumor had it that Mr. James Earl Ray, (Assassins always have 3 names, have you noticed?) was traveling on a Canadian passport. Rumor further had it that Canadian passports were very easy to obtain, preferred by assassins world wide as the passport of choice for clandestine travel and that Canada had lax border security, and weak laws to boot.
A huge uproar ensued of course and we heard that magic sound, "Somebody ought'a do sumpin about dat" and the sheep in charge in Ottawa at the time, did. The brought in 5 year passports that needed to be completely renewed with new address, background checks, the works. The very same law that we now are going to have to change to respond to the new unfounded and totally bogus response to the new myth about Canada being the source of the security problem in the US.
Dizzy yet? Harry Chapin wrote and sang a wonderful song called The Circle Song. "All my life's a circle, sunrise to sundown....." , sometimes it seems just so.
God help us if anyone ever gets past Jack Bauer and actually does nuke Santa Monica. God help us all.
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Whenever you start hearing the bleating of the Chicken Littles that "SOMEBODY'S GOT TO DO SOMETHING" just hold on to your wallet and keep your head down. In this case, in knee jerk response to the wildly popular but totally untrue myth that an abundance of the 911 attackers, you remember, those Saudi Arabian guys, passed into the USA from Canada because of our lax border security and weak laws.
Notwithstanding the obvious problem with that statement which is that even if they had crossed into the USA from Canada, it was the lax US border security that let them in. Whether it was at the Rainbow Bridge or LAX or JFK or El Paso, these turkeys entered the USA under the eyes and guns of US Security Agents. NOT OUR FAULT.
So, the popular myth drives the populace to bleat at their politicos who raise their heads from grazing at the trough and pronounce that the problem has been identified and will be dealt with. Henceforth, all Canadian citizens will have to have a valid passport to enter the USA. Of course, our own politicos, in denial about whether or not this will really happen, do absolutely nothing to prepare for what a 6 year old could have told them was coming. A big rush on the passport office. Canada wide we supposedly have an ability to process 17,000 passport applications a day. We have been getting 20,000. We are way behind and gonna be that way for a long time.
One of the difficulties faced by our hard working civil service in attempting to speed up the process is that our current laws require you to reapply from scratch for a new passport every 5 years. New picture, new guarantors, new application, everything. Very time consuming, totally redundant, very much a system designed by committee.
However, a not so well remembered incident is at the root of our current inability to respond to the actions imposed on our borders by the unfounded rumors driving the political agenda of our American neighbors. It was, the assassination of Martin Luther King. You see, prior the the sudden demise of the Reverend, at the hands of Mr. James Earl Ray, our passports were good for 10 years, renewable and you could actually smile in the photo. After the Reverend passed on, rumor had it that Mr. James Earl Ray, (Assassins always have 3 names, have you noticed?) was traveling on a Canadian passport. Rumor further had it that Canadian passports were very easy to obtain, preferred by assassins world wide as the passport of choice for clandestine travel and that Canada had lax border security, and weak laws to boot.
A huge uproar ensued of course and we heard that magic sound, "Somebody ought'a do sumpin about dat" and the sheep in charge in Ottawa at the time, did. The brought in 5 year passports that needed to be completely renewed with new address, background checks, the works. The very same law that we now are going to have to change to respond to the new unfounded and totally bogus response to the new myth about Canada being the source of the security problem in the US.
Dizzy yet? Harry Chapin wrote and sang a wonderful song called The Circle Song. "All my life's a circle, sunrise to sundown....." , sometimes it seems just so.
God help us if anyone ever gets past Jack Bauer and actually does nuke Santa Monica. God help us all.
30
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