Concentration camps and migrants

So the Hungarian government has decided to set up guarded camps for asylum seekers until their application is processed, housing them in containers. This, obviously, set off a hysterical outburst from a lot of western newspapers, and the comment section of the NYT's facebook page filled up with Americans drawing parallels to cattle wagons and containers, and also brought up extermination camps.

Well, putting aside the lack of historical knowledge, and the fact that these containers are the very same ones workers use as temporary housing at building sites (and nobody complains about exterminating them, or keeping them in inhumane conditions), and the fact that the present clusterfuck in the Middle East is principally the US' fault (Americans don't like to clean up their own mess, but are quite judgemental of people who are left with it), let's look at this issue, shall we?

First issue. A large portion of these migrants are not war refugees; this has been established over and over and over. Bangladesh, Morocco, Pakistan, and Tunis (among others) are NOT war-torn countries.

Second issue (which ties in with the whole "closing the borders" thing): Hungary is on the Schengen border. (Well, Greece is too, but nobody expects them to be able to close it.) Hence it is duty bound to protect the border. Even Merkel is talking about protecting the borders, and stopping the influx of undesirable elements, even though she also screamed murder when this protection actually was taking place. Just to recap: the borders are not closed. Anyone can go through the border control points, and apply for asylum. The illegal border crossing was stopped by erecting a fence. You come in, you apply for asylum, you wait. Whereas the 1.5 million people ending up in Germany came through the fields, and did not stop until Germany to apply for asylum. Which is not according to the rules. In fact, it's highly illegal.

Third issue: terrorism and other shenanigans. The Germans lost about 130 000 people. They don't know where they are. They can't be reached after they submitted their paperwork. A lot of rejected asylum seekers -no surprise- also disappeared. A sexual predator or two, a couple of terrorists also have known to disappear until they surfaced with their dicks in some poor kid, or behind the wheels of a high-jacked truck. So, with the knowledge that there is free movement within the Schengen zone I really, really would like to ask anyone who's complaining how they envision trying to keep the undesirables under control. Ahmed the terrorist can come in, claim asylum, and then disappear if you don't keep him in one place. During the process you might find out that he was sucking some ISIS boss' dick, or cutting heads off in his free time, it's too late; he is already in Germany or wherever, planning to do what terrorists do.

So I would genuinely be curious how you guys expect to screen hundreds of thousands of people and how you think you can deport them in case their application is rejected, if they are free to bum around the whole of EU.

We want your data. Or else

This has been a law a long time: Border Control has a right to search any and all electronic device you bring into the USA, 4th Amendment be damned. Obviously the Founding Fathers felt that laptops don't fall into the same category as sealed letters. Obviously. And it happens in Canada, too.


So this happens, and then the whole of Western world applauds US politicians expressing concern about data privacy laws in China and Russia without any obvious discomfort from cognitive dissonance. Where is this concern when it comes to the USA?

The latest furore in certain parts of the media when it actually happened to a real person (meaning: American) is quite loud nevertheless.

Let's stop for a second and think about this, shall we? Aside from the strange legal twisting of the Constitution so that you can claim that it is legal to essentially seize anyone's most private information at the border, there are things to consider here. One thing particularly.

The US is claiming it can do legally what even the Stazi, the KGB and the Gestapo could not really hope to achieve: get everything, every single piece of data you own. You have to give them access to all your files, all your information, otherwise you are either denied entry and/or arrested. It claims powers that the only the most autocratic regimes have ever claimed: an absolute right to every single piece of your private life. (The US also claims it has an absolute right over your life -namely it can end it without any legal processes, but it's also something we should not discuss at this present junction.)

Because let's face it: nothing can be hidden, unless you are content living in the Virginia mountains along with the rest of the nutjobs who are stockpiling canned food and ammunition before the inevitable FEMA crackdown on freedom (sorry, Freedom) comes. We all have our lives encoded in bits and bytes; it's a fact of life. Regardless how it's stored, you should still should have right to privacy. The US can just force anyone to give it up (the parts they have not already captured through the NSA) and -aside from some "fringe" lefties, like Chomsky- nobody is raising an eyebrow.

So where was the furore from these very same media outlets over these years? A couple of feeble articles on how to deal with the situation were all I could find from the "mainstream"; some reports on the CIA's capacity to hack into anything, and use cars to kill people; it's hardly the angry media response on an unprecedented infringement on personal privacy by the torch-bearer of freedom.

Despite of this we still claim the US is a liberal democracy. All this after the NSA, illegal wars and torture. Weird, isn't it?

Solution for America's gun problems? MORE guns!

Last year there were more mass shootings than days in the US... which kind of sucks. It's a really horrible situation, to be honest, and interestingly, a lot of the suggested solutions are absolutely, utterly idiotic. (The more sane ones are dismissed as stupid, on the other hand; it's a kind of bizarro world there.)

Let's take one argument for having more people with concealed weapons. The argument goes that if someone starts shooting, the concerned citizenry can draw their own guns, and take care of the perpetrator for good, before the SWAT and the National Guard arrives. Kind of a "Citizen Rambo" scenario.

Now, let's just think about this. A couple of years ago there was a shooting in New York: an armed person was gunned down by the police. There were several collateral victims of the shooting, and all of them were hit by bullets fired by the police. So in broad daylight, even trained professionals do shoot innocent bystanders by accident.

Now imagine the following scenario: you are watching the next Die Hard movie (title: Die Hard with a Hard-on), and you hear shots fired in the dark... obviously you pull your piece, and start shooting back - I guess aiming for the muzzle flash. So do other people, who, until that point were munching on popcorn, and slurping beverages. (In other words: they were not in the mindset for a gun battle, even if they are Navy Seals in their day job.) Who will they shoot at? You or the original shooter?

Can you imagine the carnage? Just seriously: how do you make sure the Citizen Rambos don't shoot each other? How do you make sure someone does not start shooting because he/she mistakes a sound (like a gunshot in the movie, or a backfiring engine) for an actual gunshot, and then triggers a massive free-for-all deathmatch between the moviegoers, or shoppers?

On the other hand, it'd be amusing to watch the security footage afterwards.

I guess.