theabortionatorVisiting family shouldn't be allowed but working in the oil business should? LOL? Fuck your family, you can't go see them but if you want to go there to work in oil we like oil so go for it. And nobody gives a fuck if you want to travel there or not. Don't be such a douche. "I don't want to go to the middle east so nobody should be able to".
Come on man.
FunkadelicSaying people can't visit their families is a little over the top, I'll admit, but I definitely think more strict measures need to be taken on travel to places like Syria. I mean the kid I posted in my previous post went to Syria, posted Islamic extremist ideas all over social media, came back to America, then went back to Syria as a suicide bomber. He went to Syria and posted his extremist views on social media and that flew under the radar of the U.S. government. If our government is going to restrict my liberties at the level they are with all of this wire-tapping crap they could at least get it right with these crazies.
I mean Al Qaeda receives half of its funding from kidnapping westerners and ransoming their home countries. The U.S. doesn't pay ransoms, but countries like France and Italy provide large amounts (tens of millions) of money annually to terrorist organizations. Shouldn't access to these countries be restricted for this reason alone? Or at least find a way to stop these countries from paying ransoms -- go to these places at your own risk. It's usually idiots that want to hike through the Sahara in Algeria...
The whole oil thing I completely agree with, but the reality is that at this very moment the U.S. gets something like 8% of its oil from the middle east. That's a lot of oil. Obviously people will need to travel back and forth to the middle east for these purposes at this moment in time. My statement wasn't a big fuck you to everyone but oil companies wanting to travel there, it was just one example of people that currently need to travel there for legitimate reasons. If it were up to me our country would be powered almost entirely by solar, wind, and tidal turbines with oil only being used as a lubricant for cars and other smaller necessities. But the reality is that we (right now) get a large amount of oil from the middle east, so at this time people need to travel there for that reason.
As far as your comments above about TSA... I was one of the most outspoken people against new TSA regulations. But I fly a lot and it's really not that bad. Most of the time I get thrown into the line where I don't even have to take my shoes off or take my computer out of my bag, and am in and out of security in 5 minutes. I was stopped for the "total check" one time and all the guy did was pull me aside, told me I was randomly selected, and opened my bag, looked in, and closed it and sent me on my way. I got selected for a total check in New Zealand and the guy actually removed each individual item from my bag, patted me down, and wanded me -- far more invasive. In the U.S. the TSA (save maybe a couple of power hungry individuals... a very small percentage) really don't give a shit. If you smile and are nice to them and don't make their day a hassle, they won't make your day a hassle. It's the people that get selected for a random check and start making a scene going "MY RIGHTS MY RIGHTS" that end up in the news. If you just smile and say "ok sounds good" it will take less than a minute.
