Flaflyer

When they wrote the Constitution, the only state with a southern border was Georgia, and there were only a few thousand people and a few trillion mosquitoes living in the Spanish owned Florida Territory.

The majority of the US border was the western side adjoining Indian Territory, and at the time the US European settlers were the ones crossing the borders and encroaching with settlements in territory that did not belong to them.

In 1790, US citizens were the North American “Central Americans” of their day, jumping the border into someone else’s territory. Of course the founding fathers were not going to outlaw that activity in the Constitution. They approved and encouraged westward settlement and added new states as they became populated with white folks.

COSPILOT

We are losing site that she was asked a simple question and she refused to answer. I don't see how responding is a violation of privacy or civil rights. Are you a United States Citizen? Yes or no.

I see a person looking for 15 minutes of fame, much like every person with a beef toward United Airlines since the Dao incident.

COSPILOT

In 1790, we didn't have a drug problem...

So what is the answer? Open the border to anyone with a pulse, stop the war on drugs? I don't know of many countries with such a policy, but I'm happy to be corrected. Come here legally or don't come at all.

FlyingUnderTheRadar

I do not think the UCLU quick fact sheet is correct ... and plan to send them a question about it.

Carl Johnson

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, there are illegal drugs streaming into Colorado Springs (and every US city of any size) all day and all night every day. Except (in Colorado Springs and other cities in Colorado, and more and more cities in the US) marijuana. I also don't want marijuana to be brought into Colorado because I want Coloradans to have to come HERE to get it so that WE can get the taxes. I thought we were going to be able to pave our streets with gold with the revenue from marijuana taxes. It was not to be...

<redacted>


And the lady in San Diego had a choice to make and she made it according to her own views of justice. If I had been her father or mother I would have desperately tried to argue her out of it because of the risk of lawless violence by the CPB, but that's a situation where I estimate the risk as pretty low and might have done it myself. I would have valued her safety more than I valued justice, but might have valued justice more than my own safety.

America ran on opium through much of the 1800s. There was something called Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup which was sold to relieve teething pains. It did too.


Lots of countries pretty do much less immigration control than we do, but it's hard to get services or documents - opening a bank account, for example. The drug war? Ummmm, COLORADO has taken a big step toward ending the war on drugs...Portugal has decriminalized possession of drugs for personal use. They push social services on users of hard drugs. I was in Portugal in March, I didn't see a lot of evidence of drug problems.

COSPILOT

So what is your solution? Do nothing?

catocony

Ok, these are not checkpoints at the Mexican border. These are checkpoints set up 50 miles or so within the United States. As in, north of San Diego, El Paso, Laredo. IE, where locals drive every day. Within the US.

Would the apologists for these checkpoints be ok if they were set up in Iowa? Alabama? At the end of whatever street you live on or on the highway into the town you live in?

Loren Pechtel

I'm upset with the trashing of the 4th amendment inherent in such checkpoints.

leungy18

Congress can pass a law, or the Prez can sign an EO, that bans checkpoints beyond, say, 10 miles of the border.

Flaflyer

Yes, because in 1790 marijuana was legal and George Washington grew it. Opium was also legal. Essentially everything was legal until 1905.

The government had not yet entered into the “prohibit everything and fund the police/judicial/prison/private for profit prison” system we have today.

Your last statement shows you think the drug problem and immigration problem are the same. They are not. The drug problem will be solved by ending prohibition. The immigration problem will be solved by enforcing prohibition.

Carl Johnson

What on EARTH kind of argument is that? It's not even an argument. The point you originally made was, you would have made choice B; Ms. Parmely made choice A and therefore made the wrong choice.

Then some of us, including me, piled in on that, and you radically overgeneralized my argument and then brought up drugs and crime and open borders and things, and I expanded my argument and gave more details about Sophie Scholl and Traudl Junge and reiterated my point, which was that Ms. Parmely acted according to her own conception of justice and her own obligation to her fellow human beings and the concept of liberty in the United States, and I contrasted that with what I would have done in Sophie Scholl's place and in Ms. Parmely's place (acted less bravely in each instance, but might have stepped up in the same situation as Ms. Parmely, although with more hesitation).

My point was, Ms. Parmely is entitled to make her own choice, no matter what any of us says about it.

And NOW, you present this irrelevant false dichotomy. We are not faced with a choice of [null] or [roving bands of border patrol agents swarming around the countryside]. And I have already SAID what I'd do. I'd very much reduce hunting for undocumented entrants, and overstays, and I'd police employers - and when I found an undocumented worker, I'd process that person for a portable work permit. Drugs, I'd do what Portugal is doing.

But that is NOT in any way relevant to whether or not Ms. Parmely should be free to make her own choices and live according to her own values.

ginmqi

My bad.

I thought they were right at the border. If its 50 miles inside the USA...then it is suspect. I will retract my post with this new found information.

I thought it was right at the border crossing....

freeflyer

I usually have the same response in these types of situations:

Smile, and simply say, "I don't answer personal questions like that." It sometimes throws them for a loop, but they usually back down when they realize that I am aware of my rights to not have to answer law enforcement questions.

COSPILOT

We can disagree, which is fine. I have no problem with a border patrol, be it at the actual border or inland. I have no knowledge of what Portugal does, as my only concern is the impact in the United States.

She is free to make her own voice known, and I'm free to call her a moron.

PTravel

It's up to 100 miles inside the US.