My Thoughts on Freedom on Independance Day

Visa Updates

Ahh Freedom. Yesterday on July 3 an amazing thing happened to me. There was an email from the US Embassy in Bangkok saying that my I-864 joint sponsorship documents had been approved. I’m unsure what happens next.

It’s been a very long 3 1/2 year journey on trying to secure a visa for my husband Ka to come to America with me. It’s been interrupted by Covid shutdowns two times and backlogs from Covid shutdowns played a large part also. I’d guess they combined to add a little more than two years to the process thus far.

I’m not going to explain all of the myriad difficulties in securing family based visas to come to America. This class has no lobbyists in Congress advocating for them, so they are actually put on the lowest rung, have the longest waits and pay the highest costs. The 10 year green card fee, for example, was just raised to $3640 on spouse visas. That’s just for that. I do believe that the various conditions making legal immigration impossible serve to make illegal immigration and the associated sex trafficking pipeline all the more likely. Let’s just say that it’s not for the children.

I don’t actually know what happens next. All of our documents were approved before, but then the US Embassy came back last year and said they needed updated taxes from me. These had to be sent by mail to the IRS, which also had its own backlog due to Covid shutdowns, so the taxes were not processed for about eight months. My income had dropped precipitously due to the effects of the pandemic, so they came back months later by rescinding my already approved I-864 and requesting that I get a joint sponsor. I asked them questions about this and was met with stonewalling silence.

My mother came forward to be a joint sponsor, and after some back and forth where I had to perform some stupid human tricks (getting her to find her passport, compressing file sizes down to 2 MB) that has now been approved. So now what? All documents are approved again. When can we schedule an interview? Do we have to wait some weeks or months for some bureaucrat to review the documents, at which point we can be timed out again with a new requirement, like updated taxes again or a new police clearance certificate?

I mean in this day and age of mass surveillance, most of it amounts to performance theater. The US Embassy would probably know if my husband got arrested here in Thailand for anything before I would. I would still be sitting at the bungalow going gee Ka’s been gone a long time and the US Embassy has already got some automatic beep in their AI system with an associated red flag crossed to his Thai ID number. Meanwhile Hunter Biden speeds through the desert at 172 miles per hour while smoking crack and heading to an orgy in Las Vegas. No satellites are watching him. We’re all good here!

Of course the US Embassy could just come back with a sure, you can schedule an interview, but due to Covid backlogs, yada yada, the closest appointment date that can be set is August 25, 2028. I understand that if my husband was a healthcare worker who was willing to take or fake the damned jabs he could get an interview in there like, tomorrow. I understand the whole why do you want to go to America thing too. But he’s my husband and I have an interest in him being in bed with me at night and my kids, right now, aren’t willing or able to be here. That’s my motivation. On family based visas they already know that motivation is a big one that you’re willing to pay top dollar for.

One thing that is obvious to me is that AI could probably best be directed to eliminate the jobs of a bunch of government employees. I can’t really see the need for us to travel to Bangkok for an interview at all. In this Zoom obsessed Covid backlog culture, why can’t they just virtually ID him from a video call and do the interview that way? Of course his real body has to be put on the line for the medical check, where the Embassy approved doctor will likely encourage, nah, coerce him into getting every vaccine they think is necessary (including Covid jabs, of course). I already gave at the office on that campaign with my late first husband:

So this concept of freedom on American Independance Day has had me contemplating how unfree things have felt to me for a very long time. I have read many substacker’s posts regarding the 4th of July, from acclaim and support for the movie “Sound of Freedom” (it’s not available to me here, but I applaud any and all efforts to bring the very huge problem of sexual trafficking to the forefront), to restatements of the US Constitution, to Biblical quotes to personal pictures and memes. Of course some in the more international crowd have not really noted it, as it is just another day to them, as it is here in Thailand. I grew up in Ohio with Independance Day as my personal favorite holiday. I do think about it.

A Lily Bit wins my award for the best 4th of July post. Her sweeping reasoning won all others out:

Happy 4th of July!

In it she writes:

It may spark wonder, then, how those in power sustain their hold, persuading the populace to surrender their painstakingly earned freedoms in exchange for an ever-expanding grasp of governmental control. It's a confounding paradox that ought to set off alarm bells for any advocate of liberty. The machinations of persuasion, whether subtle or blatant, can be alarmingly complex, but their impact is plainly visible in the degradation of civil liberties and individual rights. This is a discourse we must unflinchingly perpetuate if we aspire to shield the essence of democracy and freedom that numerous societies cherish intensely.

Observers are left bewildered and deeply stirred by the seemingly enigmatic stratagems politicians deploy to beguile ordinary citizens into relinquishing their personal freedoms, cheerfully embracing a severe degree of state domination as an acceptable trade-off.

Moreover, there is an unsettling perplexity and profound worry surrounding the relatively lackluster resistance to this encroachment on liberty. History's recurring narrative resoundingly warns us that without freedom, universal despair inevitably ensues. It raises an existential question: why isn't there a louder chorus of voices ardently advocating for freedom when its void manifests in a dystopian world rife with intense suffering and adversity?…

The illusion of freedom serves as one of the most potent shackles of servitude. As echoed in the insightful words of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “Numerous individuals remain blissfully under the impression that they are residing in freedom.” Yet, his deeply resonant observation bears an unshakeable truth, “None are ensnared in a more hopeless form of bondage than those who labor under the delusion that they are, indeed, free.”

Those who fancy themselves as unquestionably free are often myopic to the stark truths of contemporary governance. The very act of being governed in the present world carries a spectrum of implications that are frequently ignored or overlooked. It implies an existence where one is ceaselessly “watched, analyzed, surveilled, guided, and confined by law.” It entails being “numerically tagged, regulated, logged, indoctrinated, and preached to.” It denotes living beneath the stern hand of control, being “constrained, evaluated, judged, censored, and dictated to.”…

Within the covers of his influential work, “The Law of Freedom,” Albert Camus highlighted that the pervasive unawareness of the vanishing of freedom isn't the lone rationale behind its alarming regression in our world today.

Indeed, there exists another potent idea that has seeped into the collective psyche of many, an idea that, if left uncontradicted, could tragically signal the end of freedom for our generation.

This belief is ardently promulgated by a substantial cadre of politicians, methodically instilled in burgeoning minds via educational apparatuses and popular culture, and passionately endorsed by a significant segment of mainstream media tastemakers. The ideology being examined under the microscope here is none other than collectivism…

The doctrine of collectivism forms the bedrock of political ideologies such as communism, fascism, and socialism. As vocalized by one of the most infamous advocates of collectivism, the collective welfare must invariably supersede individual well-being.

The edicts of collectivism have been executed by a litany of historical despots, including figures like Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao. The aftermath in each instance has, tragically, been marred by mass fatalities, destruction, and pervasive suffering.

This subsequently gives rise to an intriguing query: how does privileging the welfare of the collective over the individual breed such catastrophic repercussions? Isn't it a virtuous and empathetic endeavor to relinquish personal interests for the enhancement of society at large?

Upon initial observation, collectivism might appear as a beacon of virtuosity. Yet, upon delving deeper, we uncover a fundamental philosophical blunder known as the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness eroding the pragmatic enactment of this ideology.

This fallacy arises when an abstract idea is erroneously treated as if it were a concrete entity manifesting in reality. Collectivism, by positing that an individual ought to relinquish personal ambitions for the betterment of society, endows the abstract notion of "society" with the status of tangible existence…

A concept, inherently, cannot sustain life. In contrast to an individual, who occupies a palpable presence in the world, society is a conceptual abstraction utilized to signify a dynamic conglomerate of individuals cohabitating and interacting within a communal expanse.

In short there is no conscious individual reading this substack who is named “Democracy,” “The Greater Good,” or “Public Health.” That is, of course, unless somebody decided to name their child or change their name to one of those things. A long time ago I read a list of The Craziest names that people have legally named their child. Elon Musk’s son was not on the list. Bus Stop 29 was my personal favorite, but nowhere did I see an indivdual named Public Health.

Ahh yes, even the very abstract notions of “democracy” and “freedom” can obviously be wielded against individual conscious human beings. Or “public safety” or “common decency” or, heck, let’s just live sacrifice to the Gods to make the harvest better, already. I mean the people in power really can’t lose in that situation. A bad harvest means more sacrifice is needed and a good harvest means the Gods are pleased and it’s working!

A Lily Bit continues (the entire article is highly recommended):

Since 'society' is merely a concept, void of capability to think, act, articulate, or choose, it becomes imperative to vest certain individuals or factions with the authority to delineate this so-called larger societal good. Subsequently, these entities are also endowed with the power to mandate individuals to conform to this defined 'good'.

Historically, tracing back to the dawn of civilization, it has predominantly been the governing elites who have self-anointed themselves as arbiters of this larger good. Hence, it's hardly startling that this alleged 'larger good' often conveniently dovetails with the interests of those wielding power.

Reflecting on such collectivist structures, 20th-century psychologist Nathaniel Brandon penned, “Within such frameworks, the individual has perennially been the casualty, twisted against their own self-interest and enjoined to practice altruism. They are counseled to forsake their personal aspirations in service to some purportedly superior value, which has been variously termed as God, Pharaoh, Emperor, King, Society, State, Race, Proletariat, or the Cosmos.”

In a perplexing paradox of human chronicle, the doctrine that fundamentally compels us to see ourselves as beings ordained for sacrifice has been broadly accepted as an emblem of kindness and love for humankind.

From the earliest individual who was offered up on a tribal altar for the collective prosperity, to the nonconformists and dissenters immolated at the stake for the betterment of the multitudes or the glory of God, to the millions exterminated in labor camps for the alleged advantage of the race or the proletariat, or the millions inoculated with experimental substances to bolster public health, this morality grounded in collectivism has provided the rationale for every despotism and atrocity, both past and present.

Wishing you all a wonderful Independance Day. May we all break the shckles of the chains that bind us…

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