| | I've been seriously thinking about this... The U.S. is becoming more and more a police state. Now we have to pay money for the privilege of leaving the country - if we ever want to come back, anyway. I used to be able to compare the U.S. with Cuba or any of the old soviet bloc, as in, which nations have to build walls to keep people IN? Which have to build them to keep people OUT?
Now the Mexicans are leaving in droves because there are no jobs anymore, and, for reasons really having little to do with terrorism, now we have, in effect, a national ID card in the form of the mandatory Passport or Passport Card.
Europeans may be used to demands for "papers,"* but it is startling to see Americans just rolling over on this. I wonder on what grounds they can refuse one a passport, thereby trapping someone in the U.S.? Or revoke the passport while one is abroad, thereby making existence rather precarious.
*XLNT novel by B. Traven, author of the "Treasure of the Sierra Madre," is "The Death Ship," telling the tale of an American sailer who got drunk in Amsterdam in the 1920's, lost his papers, and was then bumped from country to country to country, until he was offered a too-good-to-be-true job on a ship that was programmed to die for the insurance money.
If I could count on good medical access, I've been thinking maybe India. Or Germany. Someplace where there are lots of smart people to meet over coffee. Germany certainly needs people, altho probably not so much in my age range... ;->
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