Fingerprinting Foreigners Is Evil?

by John Hawkins | January 6, 2004 8:59 pm

I think this piece entitled ‘Dark passage for America’[1] is well worth reading because it illustrates why the left is so incapable of defending our country from the terrorists who want to kill us. Just look at how hysterical and overwrought Jimmy Breslin’s reaction is to our new policy of fingerprinting and photographing visitors to the US from certain countries is and you’ll see what I mean.

Breslin’s article starts out talking about a Brit named Lisa Virtue…

“Arriving from London at Kennedy Airport last night was Ms. Lisa Virtue on Virgin Airlines flight 003. Certainly, there could be no way to bar her entry on grounds of moral turpitude.

But the new American government did find a way to humiliate her. They took her fingerprints and picture.

…”Why did they fingerprint you?” she was asked.

“I didn’t like it,” she said. “I told that to the man. He said because I had a visa I had to be fingerprinted.”

“Then what did you say?”

“I told him I still didn’t like it. He said, ‘I don’t like it, but it’s my job.'”

“Was it because you’re a suspected terrorist?”

“No.”

“Are any of your family terrorists? Is your father a suspected terrorist?”

“No. No.”

“Do you have a dangerous uncle?”

She laughed. Which she shouldn’t have, for this was a major part of a new American life in which we have been living without realizing it: the first prints leading to a microchip in your head so they’ll know what you’re thinking.”

This is how many people on the left think folks; today they’re fingerprinting foreigners to stop terrorists and tomorrow government goons will be surgically inserting a “Big Brother verison 1.0” microchip into your head at gunpoint.

Now, I suspect that most people, even if they’re quite justifiably concerned about the government impinging on our freedoms, would have to consider this a bit over the top. But, I think once you read the next line, you’ll understand why Breslin comes across as so paranoid…

“This is all because of this nice, new, clean shaven, Bible quoting, psalm singing Ashcroft and his people. He is a walking symbol of the banality of evil.”

Once you come to believe that Republicans aren’t just people with good intentions who look at things differently than you do, once you conclude they’re eeeeeevvvvvviiiiilllllllll, then of course you’re terrified of every security measure. It can’t be that this is really about protecting Americans from terrorism, no, because evil people wouldn’t care about that. So actually, it’s about hurting people, especially liberals. That’s the mentality these people have.

Then Breslin goes on to talk about 9/11 and ends with this paragraph,

“I knew after these sirens would come rules. You can’t go here, you can’t go there. This location is frozen. And it took a while, much longer than I thought it would, but finally last night, here was Ms. Lisa Virtue being fingerprinted and now the whole thing was in front of you: the placing of this beautiful country into a cage.”

So there you go, now that we’re fingerprinting foreigners — America is one like big prison camp run by the Bushhitler and that eeeeeevvvvvviiiiilllllllll Ashcroft.

But you know, if there’s another terrorist attack, Jimmy Breslin and the people just like him, will be the very first people to complain that Bush should have protected us. Well, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. How can you have any credibility if you’re going to fight every security measure tooth and nail and then turn around and complain when someone takes advantage of our weak security to pull off another 9/11? You can’t, but that won’t stop a lot of people on the left from trying it.

Personally, I’m glad that we’re fingerprinting and photographing at least some of the foreigners coming into our country. It’s a very, small inconvenience that will help keep us safer without infringing on American liberties one whit. As far as I’m concerned, we should have done it a long time ago.