

Bruce Sterling requests assistance proving the validity of his marriage - haasted
http://blog.wired.com/sterling/2009/04/bruce-sterling.html

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mahmud
Jasmina Tešanović is no goddman mail-order bride. On her own, without a USian
hubby, Tešanović is exactly the sort of person any healthy democratic society
needs and we should welcome her with open arms. Of course, I wouldn't put it
past Uncle Sam for targeting her because of her activism. Warlords have their
kids and trophy wives here, naturalized and all.

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abstractbill
The INS is despicable. I hope I never have to deal with them again.

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elai
Immigration & Customs in almost all countries tend to be despicable in
general. It's harder to get accountability from them, since the people they
lord over tend to have no voting powers.

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oyving
But they are also a very easy target. Immigration services do a job that is
never going to be popular, but in the end their actions and decisions are
mandated by a political leadership.

It's too easy to single out these agencies in a hatefest.

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tomjen
How cares if they are an easy target? They are still the ones who are
enforcing an unjust law against you.

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sho
It's unfair because they are only enforcing the law as written, and it's
written by representatives of the people of that country(1), and thus they are
only doing the will of the people. If you don't like it, be angry at the
people responsible for the law, not the agency.

It's like hating the policeman because they keep busting you for drugs. It's
not his fault they're illegal. In fact, many policemen feel the drug laws are
stupid. It's equally likely that many in the INS feel the law is unjust. What
are they going to do, though? Break it?

Responsibility flows upwards in such matters, especially where governmental
mandate is concerned. Blaming officers of the government for merely enforcing
the will of the people is misguided.

(1) Doesn't count for non-democracies, obviously, but even in those cases
they'd just be enforcing the law of the land, with little individual
perogative.

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dinkumthinkum
Doesn't the US government have more important matters to deal with? The US is
one of those most xenophobic first world Western nations I know of.

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rs
Exactly what I was thinking! Why in the world are they spending tax payers
money on 2 seemingly do-good-ers when there's a plethora of really important
stuff out there to fix ?

BTW, I'm not in the US, am in the UK at the moment, and even here, the same
bloody nonsense happens. Government spend scarce resource on really minor
matters

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rokhayakebe
Log into your Flickr account or your "My Pictures" and produce printed copies
of the hundreds of digital photos you took together. That is a solid place to
start.

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thras
I think that they should each use their private SSL keys to double-sign a
document stating that they're married.

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jerf
Wrong Bruce.

