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Chris Christie Proposes Tracking Immigrants the Way FedEx Tracks Packages
PolygamousRanchKid submits the news that New Jersey governor (and Republican presidential candidate) Chris Christie said yesterday that he would, if elected president, create a system to track foreign visitors the way FedEx tracks packages. The NYT writes:
Mr. Christie, who is far back in the pack of candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, said at a campaign event in New Hampshire that he would ask the chief executive of FedEx, Frederick W. Smith, to devise the tracking system."At any moment, FedEx can tell you where that package is. It's on the truck. It's at the station. It's on the airplane," Mr. Christie told the crowd in Laconia, N.H. "Yet we let people come to this country with visas, and the minute they come in, we lose track of them." He added: "We need to have a system that tracks you from the moment you come in."
Adds the submitter: "I'm sure foreign tourist will be amused when getting a bar code sticker slapped on their arm."
I'm somewhat interested in visiting the US, but this kind of bullshit would absolutely kill any desire to go there.
It took this? Not our general policy of running around the world tampering with governments, murdering people, and blowing up cities for profit?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Christie would make the ideal VP for Trump. They're both ignorant bigots.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
It's not a barcode, it's a Star of David and it must always remain visible
FedEx packages are travelling through a confined system of checkpoints. Unless Christie wants to put checkpoints all around America and have everyone showing their papers to TSA agents on every public highway, it just won't work.
Sounds like Christie was inspired by last week's news from Austria.
Like so very many problems, this one becomes much simpler once you stop thinking of "them" as people.
Sure, FedEx can tell you exactly where a package is, until they can't anymore. It's not like they don't lose packages. The only reason they can track them as well as they do is because they are going to a limit number of areas where they are scanned going in and out of each. And they still lose them sometime. Unless we are going to have immigrant get scanned in everywhere they go, there isn't a way to track people the same way we track packages.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
The last thing I want to see is the travesty that is asset forfeiture expanded.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Even if we may be skeptical to or disagree with US policy, it doesn't mean that we dislike everyone who lives there or what is there.
So, anyone you don't like or who says things you don't like is an SJW...
Learn to love Alaska
And there are a lot of us out there who would vote Republican again if only they would lose that crazy shit, and get back to real conservative principles, like watch the money, but pay the bills, and to let people alone.
What is amazing though is that some of their base will go along with this, even though Christie's Star of David patch idea smacks a little of a mark of the beast as well. The amazing thing is that a mainstream candidate like Christie would not think twice about proposing this really bad idea with really bad precedents.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Also, what ever happened to:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
An idea like Mr. Christies' flies in the face of one of the things this country was supposed to be about in the first place. I know damned well that the United States I grew up believing in never really existed, but damnit, why can't we make it that? I want the Founding Fathers of this country to turn out to be right, not George Orwell!
Finally, what kind of an asshole do you have to be to come up with an idea like this? Fuck that, and fuck Christie sideways with a rusty chainsaw for even suggesting something like this.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
But it wouldn't work anyway.
I don't think he even understands FedEx. FedEx cannot tell you where a package is RIGHT NOW. They can only tell you where it was LAST SCANNED.
The reason this works well for packages is that packages don't move themselves. And even then it has failures. This will completely fail because HUMANS can wander around on their own.
Sounds more like Christie wants to associate his campaign with something that people have a mostly positive opinion of. But I'm pretty sure that FedEx will not want to be associated with a losing candidate OR the concept of tagging and tracking undesirable races/nationalities (shades of Nazi German there).
On second thought, as long as they do this to all our politicians when they visit the US, I might be OK with it....
You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
I think people are more upset at the perceived risk of getting a barcode tattoo reminiscent of what they used in concentration camps (yeah, I Godwin'ed the thread), or maybe getting pulled over and shot by a cop for having a broken tail light.
Such things really does count against visiting the US compared to taking a week on a beach somewhere else.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
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Now another Republican candidate wants to put bar codes on the people to track them.
Have the Republicans gone insane?
According to the article, 40% of illegals are visa overstayers. This breaks the syllogism you attempted to imply all asunder.
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I don't want to rule the world... I just want to be in charge of mayonnaise.
What's your definition of "peace"? There are always multiple wars going on in numerous places in the world, constantly. Many of these are being interfered with, instigated, or supported by the US and its allies. It's profitable to sell weapons to both sides, to keep the wars going. The only more profitable situation is when you get your puppet installed as leader, then you can just pilfer the public assets wholesale.
Just because it's peaceful in your little gated neighbourhood, doesn't mean the rest of the world is a-ok.
Unless you're in one of the many countries we invaded because we didn't like your government and/or wanted your resources.
... it's just a little code tattooed on your forearm. Oh, and we'd like you to sew this little gold star on your clothes.
Whenever a politician suggests something stupid like this then they have to apply it to themselves first to see how it works. Not when it passes, just when they bring the idea out in the public forum.
Why are people taking this raving by a candidate with not much chance of getting elected so seriously? Does anyone here really believe visitors are going to get imprinted with a bar code --- which is not even what Christie said?
If the US is so bad that you don't want to visit, go visit someplace nice, with a better attitude ... you know, like North Korea or Iran.
I work in the construction industry, an industry especially notorious for the employment of illegal immigrants, so I have some personal experience in regards to illegal immigration. First of all, this picture Donald Trump has been painting of violent criminals and Mexican citizens coming here in droves to live off government welfare programs is just not true. These are blue-collar, hard-working, decent people who have come here to escape ruthless violence (fueled by American demand for illegal drugs) and extensive poverty. They have become the foundation that several sectors of the US economy are built on. What people like Donald Trump and his ilk need to realize is that the violent criminals, for the most part, have no real inclination to pack up and move themselves across the Rio Grande. It's much easier for these drug gangs to operate on their side of the border, where widespread corruption has enabled them to operate with near impunity, than it is for them to "invade" America, where they have to deal with state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies that are more motivated by arrest and seizure statistics than a personal bribe. Speaking from my own experiences, the career criminals that do come across the border end up being arrested over here, which results in their deportation back across the border. 99% of Mexicans here illegally are ordinary people simply trying to support themselves and their families. As things are now, these people live in constant fear that any encounter or interaction with police or government officials will end up with them sitting in a holding cell, awaiting deportation, while their wife and children remain in America. These families are torn apart, with wives and mothers suddenly finding themselves with 3 children to support and no source of income. One woman I know of has resorted to collecting scrap metal to support a 5 year-old son and infant daughter. The sight of a 5 year-old kid helping his mother load an old water heater into a truck so that they might be able to keep a roof over their heads is something that those arguing for tougher immigration enforcement never have, and probably never will, experience. The truth of the matter is that those working here illegally are not much different from the people who comprise our own working-class. In fact, Mexican workers that are paid "under-the-table" (as in they don't have anything taxes taken out of their paycheck) are relatively rare. Meaning they financially contribute to a system under which they are considered as faceless statistics and under which they have no voice. This has gotten long enough, so I'll stop here. Just remember, that just because someone is labeled "illegal" does not make them a criminal. P.S.: Before somebody decides to get pedantic with that last statement, I am aware that being here illegally means they are in violation of the law, and technically a criminal. What I was trying to illustrate was the absurdity that people are criminalized for simply providing for themselves and their loved ones.
If you subtract the number of wars in which Muslims are involved, the world is nearly totally peaceful. Mod me down if you wish, but look and read and learn first. An easier way would be to name the wars NOT involving Muslims.
There can be no peace with a religion that insists on converting you or killing you.