If wee Kal-El came to Earth today the way he did back in the late 1930s, he would be arrested on arrival as an illegal immigrant and disappear into an ICE detention camp for decades… assuming that the SuperToddler wasn’t just blown out of the sky by the US Air Force.

From ComicsAlliance:

The key scene takes place in “The Incident,” a short story in Action Comics #900 written by David S. Goyer with art by Miguel Sepulveda. In it, Superman consults with the President’s national security advisor, who is incensed that Superman appeared in Tehran to non-violently support the protesters demonstrating against the Iranian regime, no doubt an analogue for the recent real-life protests in the Middle East. However, since Superman is viewed as an American icon in the DC Universe as well as our own, the Iranian government has construed his actions as the will of the American President, and indeed, an act of war.

Superman replies that it was foolish to think that his actions would not reflect politically on the American government, and that he therefore plans to renounce his American citizenship at the United Nations the next day — and to continue working as a superhero from a more global than national perspective. From a “realistic” standpoint it makes sense; it would indeed be impossible for a nigh-omnipotent being ideologically aligned with America to intercede against injustice beyond American borders without creating enormous political fallout for the U.S. government.

The events, over some 36 minutes, range from terrifying to comical. Particularly interesting to me is how the guy calls the FBI in the first video, and is initially told things completely out of concord with local US law. But hey, the poor boy’s got faith, right?

Got there via Checkpoint USA, via CopBlock.

Remember, part 1 of 4:

Click here to view the embedded video.

– Brad Spangler, on Facebook

I agree completely.

The American Heritage Dictionary, among other definitions, suggests that a border is “The line or frontier area separating political divisions or geographic regions; a boundary.”

"Warning! State border!" -- sign at Devín, on the Slovak side of what was once the officially-impassible border between Republik Österreich and Československá socialistická republika

I’ve heard about these border things, but I’ve never actually seen one.

I got to thinking about this because the Motorhome Diaries crew (agorist comrades Jason Talley and Pete Eyre) just got stopped and searched and denied passage across one of these “border” things. From the reports, it sounds like the “border” in question was one dividing two political entities which call themselves “United States of America” and “Canada”.

Huh. These borders things sound a bit dangerous.

I offer a few alternate definitions for your consideration:

bor-der (bôr’dər) n.:

1. An imaginary line near which organized criminals in and out of uniform may stop, search, kidnap, cage, shoot, rob or otherwise harm peaceful people without consequence.
2. An imaginary line representing a place at which two or more tyrants agree to stop killing, raping, maiming and robbing each others’ slaves, the better to continue enslaving and stealing from their respective territorial thralls.
3. An imaginary line marking zones of exclusivity for legalized privilege in the forms of taxation, regulation, reporting duties, “law” enforcement, subsidy, etc.

Dangerous indeed. Stay away.

Anyone else have their own definition for “border”? Let’s hear ‘em in the comments!

So, what the heck, I joined the discussion. All that follows is copied from the forum thread, me quoting others indented:

Done that…

Whose is it, then?

A crime? Who are the victims?

“The American worker” is an abstraction. Take “the American worker” into any court as plaintiff and be laughed out for lack of standing.

Which American worker(s)? And what ever happened to the homey American notion that economic competition is good?

Well now that’s exactly not the principle involved in taxation.

To my narrow perspective this suggests either a limited knowledge of history (Nagasaki? Tuskeegee? Guatemala? Abu Ghraib?) or a rather inhuman set of values.

Well that does save your masters the bother of sending heavily-armed enforcers after you. Did you kick in a bit extra, too, with the thought that something good might be done with it?

Of late? What, since, like, Shays’ Rebellion in 1786? The Whiskey Rebellion in 1791?

You are hereby invited to do so, which will save me the bother. If you’d care to provide copies of the correspondence with the SSA, I’d be grateful.

Actually I am sure that it did not happen. Citizenship has no bearing on SS numbering, contribution obligation or benefit entitlement.

Hiya.

My own ancestors “invaded” America just over a hundred years ago, coming from central Europe. Some of them came for economic opportunity, some came to escape religious persecution, some came in order to avoid having their children thrown into the bloody maw of war via conscription into one imperial army or another. Prior to that, other Europeans invaded, killing and robbing millions of the original inhabitants, and relegating the survivors to a second-class existence.

A lot of the frustrations I see vented on this forum are of the form:

“Illegal immigrants/immigration cause problem X”, therefore
“The government should do Y”

However, the vast bulk of these problems could in fact be mitigated by having the government STOP doing certain things, e.g.:

Immigrants are taking American jobs — abolish the minimum wage, abolish ridiculous licensing requirements for low-skilled jobs, stop rewarding idleness through compulsory unemployment “insurance” financed by the robbery that is taxation

Immigrants are filling the public schools — abolish public schooling

Immigrants are bringing in illegal drugs — abolish the drug laws

Immigrants are getting free health care while Americans who can’t afford insurance but don’t qualify for government entitlements suffer — abolish “must treat” legislation, abolish medicare, medicaid and all other socialized medicine, abolish the AMA licensing cartel that makes US medicine so bloody expensive through its guild protectionism, and on and on

Immigrants might be terrorists — abolish the American empire abroad, but expect change in world attitudes toward America to be slow

New World Order globalists are intent on using divide-and-conquer strategies to reduce national sovereignty and institute one-world government — abolish all the taxes and privileges that fund, protect and support those monsters

Pointing to problems demonstrably caused by the American state, and then asking the American state to do more in order to fix them is somehow not consonant with ALIPAC’s support for the “tax day tea parties”.

The list of immigrant “problems” which could be eliminated completely by having government quit doing things it shouldn’t be doing anyway goes on and on and on.

Then there are two remaining issues I see a lot:

Immigrants are poisoning/diluting/changing “our” culture — in the final analysis, tough luck. Adapt. Change. Deal with it. This position amounts to racism, cultural bigotry and American exceptionalism anyway. Evolve, or show the courage of your convictions by going out and threatening peaceful, migrating people with kidnapping, imprisonment and even death yourself, instead of trying to delegate the task to government, and see how that goes for you.

Immigrants ought to get in line and go through the “legal” process — there are many, many moral objections to this idea, but I’ll leave you with this thought: If immigration is morally legitimated today via legal process, how, then, could any of the original settlers and colonists who went to the Americas from Europe achieve any moral claim to their presence on the territory?

As far as my personal history… well, I guess I took the red pill.

Issuance went without problems; see image at right. I’m now once again fully in compliance with all laws of the Slovak Republic regarding legal stays of foreigners. Hooray!

Especially fun is the comparison of this Most Holy Document to the one it was issued to replace. Where my old visa (the image I posted of which, unfortunately, has the relevant bit blacked out) had “USA”, my new one displays “BEZ”, with bez being the Slovak word for “without”, presumably with reference to an implied field label of “citizenship”.

My substitute Slovak temporary residence permit sticker, as affixed to my Stateless Person's Travel Document. I can has traveling paprz, plz?

An interesting bit. My visa is a “temporary residence”. I asked the cops there when I could apply for permanent residence. “After 5 years of legal residency,” they told me. Huh, I thought it had been 3 years… now I have to do some reading of obsolete versions of the Act on Foreigners’ Stays in the Slovak Republic, or whatever it’s called, along with inquiring as to which version of the law will apply to me. Whatever. The only real difference between temporary and permanent residence here is that the permanent resident only has to turn up at the Aliens’ police once every 5 or 10 years, as opposed to every 12-18 months, for a new grant of permission to draw breath, metabolize, excrete and procreate on the territory of the Slovak Republic. I asked, then, when can I apply for Slovak citizenship — not, necessarily, that I plan to, but that I should at least have information of that sort at my fingertips. After a bit of back-room talking with higher-ups, the young officer who I’ve been interacting with there since I first presented myself for issuance of a stateless person’s travel document returned to tell me that I really ought to inquire at a different office, the obvodný úrad (the “District Office”, or something to that effect), since it’s the good folks there, rather than the Aliens’ Police, who deal with citizenship issues.

While he was away from the front desk, I chatted with the other cop-lady there who had attended me originally, stickered my traveling papers, canceled my stamps, solicited my signatures, and so on. I mentioned to her the fact that, which the Slovak legislation on foreigners’ stays refers two two different types of ordinary stay with varied timing characteristics — prechodný pobyt, temporary residence, and trvalý pobyt, permanent residence — the legislation on citizenship, as it pertains to stateless persons living legally in the territory, provides that a stateless person legally resident in the Slovak Republic can apply for citizenship after 3 years of nepretržitý pobyt (continuous residence).

“Huh, that’s interesting,” she said. “Well, go on and ask them folks at the obvodný úrad, and they’ll get you sorted out.”

I don’t know how many of the security cameras disguised as birdhouses around Hviezdoslav Square catch sight of me. Doesn’t matter, really. I also don’t bother with my usual survey of the people around, looking for the undercover secret police and intelligence agents who can sometimes be spotted in the vicinity through careful observation.

Hviezdoslav the bollard, via bratislava-photo.com

I haven’t been to the Embassy since its renovations were completed over a year ago. The visible signs of that renovation included moving the security perimeter of the compound outside the building proper into a small, newly-constructed building dedicated to being an access control choke point. A metal detector was added, supplementing the X-ray machine for visitor baggage. Perimiter fencing was extended to encompass the new man-trap building, and new vehicular denial devices installed at a couple of points. Modifications to the underground parking garage connected with the adjacent Carlton Hotel were performed in order to prevent close access to the Embassy premises by unapproved vehicles. Additionally, a passive cordon consisting of a series of bollards linking areas bounded by long fountains was added to prevent vehicular access from all but approved directions. One of the ironic features of this cordon is that the monumental statue of famed Slovak poet and parliamentarian Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav, the square’s namesake, has been incorporated into the bollard lines, thus making a symbol of Slovak cultural identity part of the American Imperium’s local outpost.

A small line of people wait outside the man-trap security building to speak with the woman behind the bulletproof glass. They are all hoping to pick up visas. They present their paper receipts, the woman looks through a box of documents, and to each one says to come back on Friday. A woman next to me asks me, in Slovak, something about Friday. “Sorry?” I say. “Oh, I mean…” she fumbles, switching to English. “Aj po slovensky,” I tell her, indicating that she can continue in Slovak. She asks me what the woman behind the bulletproof glass was telling the others, and I say that I don’t know, but that it appears the folks here must come back for their business on Friday because the Embassy is closing for the day in a few minutes and tomorrow, Thursday, is Thanksgiving, an American holiday.

I’m at the front of the line in about a minute, show my passport and tell the bulletproof lady I’m here to renounce my citizenship. “Okay,” she says, “but very quickly; we are closing.” She tells me to go to Window 5, and confirms that I know where that is.

At right, US Embassy in Bratislava. At left, the man-trap.

I shuffle around and enter the adjacent door as I am buzzed in, passing inside the man-trap. Backpack off and into the X-ray machine, pocket contents into the plastic tray for X-ray as well, and I pass through the metal detector — much less sensitive than those at airports, as my belt buckle and the studs in my shoes fail to set it off. One of the four guards in the room hands me a visitor’s badge and a receipt token for my mobile phone, which must remain at the security checkpoint until I am ready to leave the premises. I reclaim my backpack and pocket contents.

Through another door and out into the small parking area in front of the embassy, surrounded by high metal hurricane fencing. I enter the first door, turn, and find myself in an unfamiliar place. I take a few steps in, up a couple of stairs, and find myself in a small room with another bulletproof box containing a young United States Marine Corps junior officer. “Your badge, sir?” I show my badge, and he tells me I’m in the wrong place. Go to the next door down. Ah, right, the proles’ entrance. This door for ruling class tools only.

Back outside, and through the door that was always the entrance before. The security checkpoint used to be here, but now I just breeze in, turn right, through the door, up a few steps into a waiting room, turn left and into the sound-muffling, heavily camera-monitored room which is the place where petitioners to the almighty American State come to present their pleas, again to women safely ensconced behind bulletproof windows.

I approach Window 5, pull out my passport and all the documents I’ve brought with me, all pre-filled-in and ready for execution. After a few minutes’ wait, a Slovak woman employed by the Embassy comes to the window and asks how she can be of assistance. “Hello, I’m here to file these documents and take the oath to renounce my citizenship.” She pauses a moment, frozen, and then a sly smile steals across her face. “Are you sure?” she asks. “Yes, quite sure.” “And may I ask why?” she inquires. “Political reasons.” “And have you spoken about this with anyone?” Yes, I tell her, I’ve spoken with a great many people about it. “Ah, but anyone here?” she insists. “No, not yet.” “Very well,” she says, and invites me to pass my passport and documents to her through the narrow slot which presents the only opportunity for contact between the two worlds separated by the bulletproof glass. “Please take a seat in the waiting room, and I will call your name.”

I go back into the waiting room, plop my backpack on a chair and head over to a wall to examine a large poster with attached paper addendum laying out the fee schedule for the various “services” performed by the Embassy. A quick scan of the lists shows that there are no fees given for renouncing one’s citizenship. I sit down and pick up a week-old copy of Nový Čas, a trashy daily tabloid paper, and settle in to read a short editorial celebrating the fact that Slovaks no longer require a pre-arranged visa to visit the US as tourists, but doubting that the young people taking the most advantage of the “privilege” of visa-free travel reciprocity today really have any appreciation of how much the world has changed since the 1988 Candle Demonstration, which took place right outside where I am sitting now on Hviezdoslav Square and which was an important event toward the fall of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia.

“Mister Gogulski,” comes the woman’s voice over the loudspeaker. I shuffle back into the petitioning chamber.

“So,” the woman behind the translucent barrier tells me, “if you really want to do this, we need you to fill out this form, and contact us to make an appointment to speak to the Consul.” Again, the wry smile: in her eyes, perhaps, I am either insane or stupid — or both.

Form? What form? Oh, damnit. It’s the Questionnaire: Information for Determining Possible Loss of U.S. Citizenship. I forgot about that one. Nuts. Oh well, another day.

“One more thing,” I ask, packing up my things, “are there any fees for this?” “No,” she tells me.

“Thanks. See you on Friday,” I tell the woman, and leave for home.

The visa (pictured) is affixed as a sticker inside the US passport that I will soon surrender.

My permission to draw breath and metabolize on the territory of the Slovak Republic

Next steps:

• Obtain notarized, certified copies of my passport and visa, for use in lieu of the real things during the period prior to obtaining a stateless person’s travel document, or having my passport sent back to be with a rejection of my renunciation (early next week)
• Execute and have notarized a blanket power of attorney authorizing a friend to perform all legal acts in my name (early next, same visit to the same notary)
• Visit the US Embassy here in Bratislava, sign and swear to the various documents renouncing my US citizenship (mid- to late next week)
• Wait for the US State Department to respond, either with a rejection notice or with a Certificate of Loss of Nationality of the United States, US State Dept. DS-4083
• Assuming I receive the certificate, apply at the same Slovak police agency that issued my new visa for the Travel Document and for a replacement visa sticker

And I’ll keep y’all posted…

It seems the prosecution brought a rather flimsy case. Whatever happened that night, there really wasn’t enough to link Bubaris to the killing. That’s what the defense argued, and that’s how the jury decided. Having read all the trial coverage, I would have voted to acquit as well.

George Bubaris

The Newsday piece repeats what made this look so damning:

The Westchester County Court jurors heard a fellow officer testify that Bubaris told him — on the night Perez died — that he’d gone out “hunting” or “looking” for the immigrant. And when word of the death spread, the officer testified, Bubaris told him, “You’re the only one that knows, bro.”

Still seems a rather odd thing to say if the man really had no part in the death, but we can’t know. Flawed though the state’s criminal justice system is, the rules against hearsay and circumstantial evidence are important protections.

It’s likely we’ll never know, now, what happened to Rene Perez that night after making the increasingly-fatal mistake of calling 911 when in need of help. If George Bubaris knows, he’s certainly not saying. And dead men tell no tales.

Related: Cops on the hunt: Do you know where your children are?

From The Globe and Mail:

No charges called for in report on taser death

17 June 2008

Vancouver — Police have finished their investigation into the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski and forwarded a report to the Crown that does not call for any criminal charges in the matter, said a spokesman for the integrated homicide investigation team that conducted the probe.

Mr. Dziekanski died last October after being tasered by Mounties when he began acting erratically in the international arrivals area of Vancouver airport. Corporal Dale Carr said it will be up to the Crown to decide whether charges are warranted. Such charges might be laid against the officers involved in the confrontation, police have suggested.

“It’s the full, entire investigation. It’s completed, done,” said Cpl. Carr. A Crown spokesman said the office is reviewing the report.

Related, with video: Justice, truth and accountability for Robert Dziekański