The Age of Defectors

I'm not really that old, but I do realize there are huge numbers of people in this country who aren't old enough to recall the days when athletes, entertainers and pilots would seek political asylum in the USA. There were many from the USSR, and from Cuba. Just about all the communist regimes which had people locked in were greatly annoyed when citizens would escape, seeking freedom.

It has come full circle. This is no longer a place sought out on principle. It is becoming more difficult for us to leave the country now. We are slowly being locked in ourselves. In the name of security, if you want to travel abroad you are opening yourself up to a type of scrutiny which has nothing to do with whether you are a spy or a plane wrecker.

Immigrants don't stream across the border seeking freedom, dignity or because they believe in the sanctity of the individual. They come because they can get paid. They get more stuff for less work here. It is all money and often public services. How they get it does not matter. If the taxpayer covers it, fine, if it just means good jobs, fine. That is not political asylum. The main people who'd be after that are people like me, and there is nowhere that has the same guarantees against a heavy handed government we were supposed to have. It is not there.

How hard can it really be to trace almost every major problem back to government involvement, corruption, or program? It has never made sense as we watched one thing after another go from problem created by over reaching government to solution offered by even further over reaching.

If I knew of a place in the world that wasn't some insane feudal state, I'd go there. I have not found any place that sounds any freer over all. Some are free in ways we aren't but then they make up for it some other way. The least oppressive are impossible as far as relocating. Probably be a disappointment.

It just struck me that political asylum is probably a dead concept. We've got a lot of rather dim people in this country who would not know the difference if we suddenly found ourselves officially under a dictator. That leaves it wide open to any group in power who has the finesse to pull it off. All they have to do is grease the right skids. And they are.