Bruce Sterling requests assistance proving the validity of his marriage | Hacker News Reader

Bruce Sterling requests assistance proving the validity of his marriage

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38 pointshaasted13 comments

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

If you are dealing with the INS, chances are you are not a citizen. Therefore, congressmen and senators are much less likely to be concerned about your welfare.

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.

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

> The US is one of those most xenophobic first world Western nations I know of

Are you fucking kidding me? You have national front and neo-nazis sitting in european parliaments and councils.

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.

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

Wrong Bruce.

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