When people think of international travel or just plain travel, so the conventional traveling by airplane etc., both from an individual and commercial perspective, people think of nothing but good things – a beautiful pamphlet or a postcard showcasing the nice places within a country; the typical tourist hotspots and so on. People in actuality have no idea that there is a very, very dark side to traveling that I shall break down below in a summarized manner.
- The simplicity of border guards; people that work in this profession (not a secret really to observant people) are not exactly the most well-developed, well-trained people and as a result there is a relatively strong/high tendency to become an “authority creep”. And for the people that were wondering what that is, that is someone that regularly pushes the envelope in regards to what they can legally do, e.g. ask borderline invasive questions among other things (the next point highlights why it is so problematic).
- Border patrol officers / customs etc. have a very high level of authoritarian autonomy versus you as a traveler; they can do a host of things such as comb through your cell phone (yes, you heard that right, so go through your messages, pictures etc.) and are shielded by their country’s laws (and can do a bunch of other things as well) in what is known as the border search exception.
- The pilot of the aircraft has, once in the air, “absolute leverage” – meaning, they can order you be restrained in a seat and then loosely put dropped off somewhere at the airline’s expense etc. Not so much a problem? All the pilot needs is “reasonable grounds to believe” you’re a threat to the safety of the plane & staff etc.
- If gate agents, when you’re at the gate, deem you “unfit” to board, your ticket will be canceled right on the spot and all the expenses that you incur are on you and you need to sue the airline later for a breach of contract, not to mention coming up with the proof that you were wrongfully left out and so on.
- Border officers can detain you without any charge; yes, you heard that correctly – if someone “doesn’t like your face” or whatever, you can be detained without any charge and all the negativity that follows falls on your shoulders. Trying to undertake any legal action afterward is possible, but you are at a disadvantage because the law heavily favors the officer, since the act was in “national interest”. This includes x-ray scans or body searches, and if you refuse or similar it is instant grounds for deportation for refusing to cooperate.
And it just goes on like that; an additional example is that money that you brought along with you, for example a sizable sum ranging in the thousands of any major international currency such as the euro or the US dollar can be confiscated, and the legal cost of getting it back can outweigh the actual money you “lost” to the authorities – for example $5,000 being confiscated and then hiring a lawyer and going through the process costs $7,000. So yes, you heard that correctly – in such a situation the state is allowed to legally take your money.
There is more, but I think that’s enough – the message is quite clear: when traveling, as aforementionedly described, understand one thing very clearly – you are a puppet, at the mercy of the authoritarian machine/powers that be.
Now, I am not saying that this should prompt you to never travel again because after all – the chances of this happening are quite rare, like 1 in 10,000 or something. But still, there is a realistic chance of it happening and all it takes is one time and that’s it; one time is all it takes to traumatize you and for you to develop a seething hatred of travel. It is the realistic version of playing Russian roulette, even if the amount of chambers in the revolver are a thousand instead of 10 (or whatever).
– Let all of that sink in the next time you think about traveling –
PS. For people that are wondering why you don’t hear any of this stuff, isn’t it obvious? The system is designed to sell you a delusion or an illusion, not reality that includes both benefits and drawbacks – airlines, travel companies etc. only care about one thing, which is selling you stuff and getting your money. The system knows very well that if it told you the truth in the way of negativity, a lot – and when I say a lot, I mean a lot of people would simply opt out of traveling. This is taking the fact that the world’s population as a whole does not travel to begin with. Roughly estimated, I would say that easily well below 1% of people globally travel or will ever travel internationally to a location that is far enough away for it to count, so to speak (any information you’ll find online that contradicts what I said is simply heavily skewed to paint an inaccurate and wrong picture; these so-called sources more often than not are written by the perpetrators themselves).
