In July my wife and I spent two weeks in Europe. We visited four countries - Sweden, Denmark, Holland, and Germany, and, we didn't show our passports again until we were in the airport on the way back out. Nobody was worried about us or tracked our movements.
In the States, you can't cross the border to or from harmless old Canada without an inquisition.
We crossed the strait between Denmark and Germany on a ferry that (in addition to three decks of cars and one for trucks) carried our train across! They drove the train right onto the ferry, and drove it off the other side. As a guy who was involved in transportation for many years, I found it exhilarating and amazing. I've never seen anything like that. Washington State DOT brags about their ferry system - it's a crude joke compared to what I saw.
I think there is still room for American innovation and ingenuity, but it's being crushed by our political leadership, and our own apathetic acceptance of the dismantling of everything that makes the US worthwhile. It's time to get out of our hole where the only way we interact with the rest of the world is to bomb them, and learn a few things from parts of the world that have passed us by while we were busy patting ourselves on the back for being so wonderful.
The reason the European Union is working and the North American Union isn't, is because of the incredibly short-sighted fiscal policies of the 800-pound gorilla of the union. The US economy is no longer based on long-term development, but rather on short-term speculation. It is not surprising that smaller economies like Canada and Mexico are drawn into the vortex, and swamped.
The answer isn't a fence on the border, it's social and economic justice, and it has to start where the criminals are active – in Washington DC
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