Get Over Yourselves...

I frequent a Southern California SCUBA diving bulletin board called Diver.Net. To my friends over there who don't really know me because I'm more of a lurker than a poster, get over yourselves.

One of the divers is on a dive trip that involved a departure from Mexico. She brought 7 cameras with her -- and is an AMAZING photographer -- but is pissed because Mexican customs gave her a hard time entering the country. Within 2 seconds of reading the post, I thought, "They don't want you selling the cameras. Or they don't want a tourist coming into to work without authority." Sure enough, later in the conversation someone points out that duties are high on electronics and the concern was probably that an amateur photographer has no need for 7 cameras so there must be a sinister plot to avoid tarriff afoot. However wrong that assumption may be, it's reasonable. And it's Mexico. They have every right to enforce their laws and rules no matter how dumb we think they are.

Conservatives complain about illegal immigrants -- most from Mexico -- say that they should respect the laws of our country if they want to come here. I say, ditto! This is an important point because the commenters on the post are chiming up to castigate Mexico. And 15 minutes on the Board will show you that its dominated by crusty, politically conservative SCUBA divers.

Posted by jlyle on April 09, 2007 at 07:07:49:

You must have met the same guy that stopped me from taking pictures of the terminal at San Juan del Cabo airport...

I didn't know gray-haired, old men with digital cameras were so dangerous.

There's no reasoning with these guys, you either buy them off or play by their rules, as unreasonable as they are.

This reminds me of a great Bill O'Reilly exchange post-9/11. He was advocating segregating the Arab / Middle Eastern / Muslim population and subjecting them to closer scrutiny as terrorists. The guest pointed out that you can't stop there. The Oklahoma City bombing was carried out by a white male, a former Army soldier. The target list grows. That the bombings of the Olympic Park in Atlanta, a lesbian bar, and a family planning clinic were carried out but a devout Christian. The target list grows. And that one of the most notorious terrorist organizations, which bloody campaign against a government had resulted in the deaths of over 4,000 people -- more than on Sept 11 -- was the Irish Republican Army, a group of Irish Catholic. A group which could describe Bill O'Reilly. The target list grows.

You needn't pay all of them off. All you should do is respect a country, its people, and its inherent authority. No more respect than you demand here.