By some divine providence, the same week the world lost its collective mind over one nation's decision to exercise its sovereign authority regarding who can and who cannot enter its borders is the same week I've reapplied for my passport.
As such, I have just re-familiarized myself with the process of gaining the privilege to leave our shores and go on excursions elsewhere.
As an aside, it ought to be noted that I let my passport expire in 2014 and did not renew it for so long that I am now having to reapply.
It didn't seem like a relevant document to have while the world went to hell in a handbasket and Europe in particular became a living re-enactment of the Mine Sweeper game.
But now that a new global consensus is coming together around national sovereignty and citizen security, I am beginning to reconsider international travel.
As one works his way through the document, it becomes clear that this is a rather serious intrusion into your private affairs.
You must replicate your face to exact specifications, detail your work and/or educational history, find references willing to vouch for you, as well as another passport holder to vouch specifically for your photograph and existence - which means that this last person is a double fail-safe as they have cleared the process as well.
For the sake of clarity, let me put this another way: whenever I'm traveling from Canada to anywhere else in the world, Her Majesty's Government here at home is promising that I have been weighed, measured and found to be a low to zero risk visitor during my stay abroad.
In fact, if that turns out not to be the case, after I am detained by local authorities, the first phone call they will make will be to our nearest consulate.
Thus, when traveling, we are wards of the state.
Having demonstrably obliterated 90 per cent of the incredulous ravings currently circulating at leftist publications and interwebs boards alike, let me now dispense with the last 10 per cent that barely achieve coherence by simply citing which countries have had their passport holders banned from traveling to the United States of America: Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia and Libya.
I can't imagine a single one of those countries achieving anyone's "orderly and trustworthy" list.
And here we come to the crux of the argument.
I'm sorry to burst the collective bubble of cosmopolitans everywhere, but you actually don't have a right to go into any country you bloody well please.
In fact, as an ironic twist, if you believe rules around international travel and foreign nationals are some outdated notion, then let us recall that certain whistleblowers are themselves only alive and free because of these sames rules in the reverse - see extradition treaties.
The fact is, our global system is precluded by the nearly four centuries old idea of nation-states, and that citizens must belong to a given geographical area with a stable system of government.
These governments bargain for their citizens to be allowed to do business outside their borders - from tourism to trade - and even to get their citizens back and put them on trial at home if they commit crimes overseas. This is the classical system of international relations.
What has happened in the recent past is that failing states and rogue states have continued to give out documentation indiscriminately to people who may or may not be citizens and thus the vetting system is flawed.
The immigration and refugee ban is a direct response to this lack of vetting and the ban is not indefinite - there are already numerous caveats and ongoing policy changes to address the inherent issues of the blanket ban.
My advice is be patient.
But more importantly, it is a sad day when literally thousands of people have so forgotten basic facts about international relations that they lose their minds.
Please, study up soon.
