I didn't say I like the State. I said that there isn't, relatively speaking, much *political* content to the police-state that is the border. Remember when those Sandanista sympathizers made the news, quite a number of years ago, for getting detained /FBI-interogated/harrassed when they crossed back into the USA? It made the news because that sort of thing *is out of the ordinary* for the USA. And, while I will certainly entertain the suggestion that their actions had a political underpinning, the Feds didn't lack for allegations of violation of United States Statutes to justify the harrasment. If these do-gooders had been doing something that comported with the sympathys of the (then) Administration, if they were in step with the Emperor's current "party line", then any such criminal violations would have been ignored. We all know that. So what? Welcome to realpolitic. Alan Horowitz alanh@norfolk.infi.net