 | The US Is Fast Becoming a Third World Police State |
As a P.T. (often referred to as perpetual traveller, permanent tourist or prior taxpayer), I have travelled to nearly 100 countries. During those travels there has always been one defining moment, upon entry into a country, which shows that the country is what is generally thought of as a “third world country”.
It is the moment when, upon arrival, you are charged a fee to enter the country. The reason generally being that the government of the country has so destroyed the economy and/or they have so little understanding of what creates wealth that they think that the way to make their country prosperous is to charge a fee upon entry rather than allowing people to enter freely and transact, trade and spend their money in the economy. Either that or the government is so desperate for money that it uses this as a significant source of revenue.
They have this in Cambodia, Indonesia, Bolivia and numerous other similar countries. And now, they have it in the US.
The US has long-used “visa application fees” to bilk money from people in countries like Thailand as a way to raise money but now the US has announced that they are going to charge a $5.50 fee to Canadians upon entering the US.
The fee is ludicrous and counterproductive for many reasons. Not least of which is making it five dollars and fifty cents, ensuring that payment of the transaction will take twice as long as normal to make the extra change. Canadians who are one of the only large groups of people still bringing some economic activity into the US will both be turned off by having to pay to enter the US but also by the extra long lines to enter as they make change for this fee.
Not to mention the hilarity of calling it an “inspection fee”. Does this mean that if we would not like to be inspected then we don’t have to pay?
CHECKPOINTS POPPING UP EVERYWHERE IN THE US
Checkpoints have recently gone up in Flint, Michigan and TSA VIPR (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response) teams have spread our across Tennessee to stop drivers and “check their documents”.
As well, at the recent Libertopia conference I attended in San Diego I met three young freedom-lovers who told me that on their drive from Phoenix to San Diego they encountered three different checkpoints.
HARD TO GET IN – EVEN HARDER TO GET OUT
I have just returned from the US and, as usual, I had to make it through a plethora of government people to get out.
Luckily, I didn’t try to leave via one of the airports, like Boston Logan where the TSA has begun to conduct “chat-downs” where TSA goons will slime their way through crowds in the airport and chat with you! Should you refuse to chat with them you will be taken away for extra-screening!
However, I did go for my standard TSA patdown and, as is becoming more and more common, when you walk down the gangplank to the airplane there are a number of other government people hiding around the corner who stop you and ask if you are taking more than $10,000 with you. I snapped a photo of them on my way down.
As I walked down the runway, one of the men with guns told me, “go to the third man down, he can take care of you there.” Oh, is that what they are doing, taking care of us? It doesn’t feel that way.
CHRONIC NERVOUS SYSTEM DISORDER INJECTIONS ALSO NOW AVAILABLE
Things in the US just get more and more bizarre.
As though all the government harassing isn’t enough, as I was about to leave the San Diego airport I spotted this “H1N1 vaccination station”.
H1N1 (remember the Swine Flu hoax?) has been shown to be nearly harmless yet still to this day, in the USA, there are places offering to give you H1N1 vaccinations. Those vaccinations, by the way, have been proven to cause chronic nervous system disorders. I, tragically, had this hit very close to home last year when my mother, unbeknownst to me, got talked into taking a Swine Flu vaccine shot. A few days later and she couldn’t walk anymore. She still, to this day, cannot walk.
THE POLICE STATE CONTINUES
The photos coming out of the US continue to look like something you’d see in a country like North Korea or in the old Soviet Bloc.
This photo, from a small gathering of Occupy Wall Street protesters in Phoenix, shows that not only the police outnumbered the protesters but showed the level of intimidation and force used against just a few people sitting in a park. Their crime? They were there after “curfew”. I’ve been searching my copy of the US Constitution for any reference to curfew but have yet to find anything.
MY DAYS VISITING THE US ARE NUMBERED
I have already stated that I will never bring my family to the US until I see major changes and the TSA stop their radiation baths and groping. However, it is now getting very close to the point where I will stop going altogether.
For anyone who has their eyes open and are paying attention, the writing is on the wall as to what is going to happen in the US. All it will take is another 9/11 event or for the US Government to default on its debts or for the dollar to enter hyperinflation and the US will be locked down like a prison.
In many ways, it already is.
For those who live in the US, it is imperative to begin making moves now to protect yourself. Action items like attaining a foreign passport, moving your assets outside of the country and owning precious metals are just some of the things that all rational people in the US should be doing now.
The Dollar Vigilante offers services to get a second, foreign passport easily and cheaply. As well, in the November issue of The Dollar Vigilante, coming out in less than a week, we will be interviewing Mark Nestmann a specialist in asset protection and privacy strategies. He will be offering a special deal to TDV subscribers to receive a free consultation at that time. Subscribe to The Dollar Vigilante today
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The Dollar Vigilante posted Tuesday, October 25th, 2011.
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@strangewalk
Thank you for your perspective. I can only go by my own experiences in China, which are as I have described. Perhaps the security paranoia of the Olympics was a factor in your experience; I don’t know…just guessing. I was in Atlanta for the US Olympics in 1996 and had similar experiences. In fact, I was at the scene of the bombing when it happened and got to see the ensuing chaos.
My point, however, is that people everywhere seem prepared to allow their freedoms to erode in the name of the perception of safety. And as a business man, I find an inordinate amount of my company’s time and energy is taken up in North America with useless government regulations and interference.
And before someone says I want a polluted country with slave labour (a typical response towards anyone asking for decreased regulation), please spend a day in a North American business man’s shoes and you will quickly see that 99% of the regulations that we spend our time on are either utterly useless or designed to appease a special interest group looking to escape economic reality.
Thanks again for your perspective. On my next trip to China, I will keep my eyes open for what you have described.
Cheers
I don’t get how moving my assets outside of the country will help? I’ve withdrawn from the stock market but where in all sincerity would I move my assets to? What countries would you say are stable for investment?
Excellent points.
When I began routinely travelling to China several years ago something struck me as I spent more and more time there: Chinese citizens enjoy more daily freedoms than North Americans! We have become so accustomed to the erosion of our freedoms that we scarcely give it a thought any more. Government is in our faces every day: Government agencies tell us what we can watch and listen to in the media; government tells us where we can go at airports; governments clamp down on any significant gathering of individuals in public — and occasionally private — places; language police tell us what we can read and write; human rights commissions ensure that we don’t say anything that might offend; government places tariffs on imports to cover up domestic manufacturing inefficiencies; and government even regulates the volume control of commercials on our televisions, to name a few. Yet, if the Chinese government shuts down their Internet for a day of mourning, as they did after the massacre of some Chinese tourists in the Philippines a couple years ago, pundits jump all over it, saying that’s typical of a police state.
Well, I’ve seen more demonstrations in China than I see in North America and there are no soldiers or police in the faces of the demonstrators. In fact, China has more demonstrations than any other country in the world. At one domonstration I watched in Tianjin, China, a government official spoke politely with the demonstrators and promised to address their issues. Has that ever happened in the U.S?
Don’t get me wrong…I’m not a naive defender of China. But if you travel there and interact daily with the people there, the degree to which the government is in your face in the US and Canada versus the degree to which they seem to be invisible in China is stunning. Oh, and as for those who will say, “China is an unregulated bastion of slave labour, pollution and human rights violations,” I have never…let me repeat…NEVER…seen a country clean up its air, water, and land as fast as China is right now. The air in metro Tianjin that was unbreathable just four years ago is now clear; hundreds of miles of canals polluted with chemicals after decades of Communism are now running clean; no country uses more solar energy than China; no country uses more nuclear energy. And no country in history has lifted more people out of poverty than China has over the last five years (See UN data). And as for slave labour…The Audi plants in China use the same safety standards, training programs, and employee benefits as its plants in Germany to build the same cars that are built in Europe. As Chinese workers are free to work where they can find employment, manufacturers are offering more and more incentives to their workers — such as housing, meal plans, vacations, and recreational facilities — to attract the best workers. It’s called capitalism, something that has been bastardized in North America, where socialist bailouts of financial institutions by government and subsequent economic failures have been attributed to capitalism when, in fact, they are the antithesis of capitalism..
Is China perfect. No, absolutely not. They have a lot of work to do on their human rights progress and their care of the poorest of the poor (but so do we!!). But it’s nice to see a country DOING something about the environment and its poor rather than runnning around making grand pronouncements about the audactiy of change while the only change people see is for the worse. Guess what?… the poor can’t eat words and the environment doesn’t get cleaned up with verbage…even verbage from billionaire Al Gore and the multi-million dollar Suzuki Foundation.
I live in China too and I disagree with the picture you paint and feel that you suffer from the typical naivete that so many foreigners here have. Special police officers come to my apartment every few months to check my papers, ask questions and sometimes inspect my dwelling. The police presence anywhere in China is much more visible and many times more pervasive than in the US. During the Beijing Olympics I was commanded military style to open my shoulder bag for inspection by an AK-47 weilding militia officer while I was walking on a pedestrian overpass. Once while in the lobby of a large office building, a government security officer interrupted the conversation I was having with a Chinese friend and demanded to know what we were discussing. In a public setting, Chinese people will only talk about politically sensitive issues and any subject relating to the government in a whisper, after checking to see if anyone is listening. Any private in-home gatherings among non-family members are restricted in numbers (enforcement changes depending on area), and church services are continuously monitored by government agents. Individuals seen as more than a casual threat to the status-quo are quickly dealt with in ways ranging from loss of employment or children being evicted from school, to ‘re-education’ coming in various forms of severity–to disappearance–and it happens everyday, in every city. By the way, have you ever once heard anyone in China openly disagree with any official postion of the government? From Taiwan to Tibet or anything in between, the answer is no. In China, your opinion is the opinion you are told to have.
You might want to re-read the article you’ve linked to.
“The U.S. will charge Canadian air and sea travellers $5.50 to enter the country even as the two governments have pledged to drop barriers to cross-border traffic.”
Repeat, “air and sea”. An obvious cash grab, but needs to be specified as there’s a big difference between paying this at a border checkpoint and something that will likely be added to the ticket total at the time of purchase, together with the other host of “security” fees.
Accurate reporting is credible reporting.
All great points. Also I’ve noticed how I have to tell lies or break laws just to get through the day. When a taxi showed up I pretended to be the person who ordered it because there were no other taxis in the area. Also I’ve found that jaywalking is safer because when the crosswalk lights change, cars can’t wait to get right in my face. Also a lot of times when doing business with the government you have to only give them the information they need and no more. If you provide too much info they make you fill out even more paperwork and charge additional processing fees. It also helps to practice lying so when you have to tell a lie just to survive, it will sound believable.