Eric Garris has a marvelous blog entry at antiwar.com about his return to the US following his recent trip to Malaysia. I, for one, have always dreaded coming back to the US — not because I don’t like coming home or being home — but because American security officials always seem to treat anyone who tries to come into the United States, even returning American citizens, as criminals.
The easiest time I had was coming back from Saudi Arabia. I was on a Saudi Arabia airlines flight full of people coming from the Kingdom, and we went through customs at JFK on our own. The most unpleasant experience I had was trying to come in to Maine from the Yarmouth ferry after spending a week wandering Atlantic Canada.
But what Garris describes most eerily is how personal the interviewing officer made it. Because he thought something was “anti-American,” that merited a conversation. And because the interviewer suddenly decided the Budhhist monk was swell, Garris could go on his way.
Limited government, with checks and balances, this ain’t.
4:35 pm on December 19, 2005
