Comparing Apples and Oranges

THERE SHOULD BE, and quite possibly is, a website, floating in the vast wasteland of cyberspace, called the "Idiotic Facebook Post of the Day",(IFPD). Consider this one, which actually appeared: "If you can get arrested for fishing without without a license, but not for entering the country illegally, you are living in a country run by idiots." Fishing licenses, of course, are required partly to regulate and keep fishing organized, by ensuring that people don't abuse the privilege of fishing by over fishing and depleting available stocks, and also to raise revenue for valuable public services such as forest, wildlife, and wilderness management. Arresting people for fishing without a license is merely an expedient for maintaining the licensing requirement, not to ensure that fisherman are competent fishermen. Those arrested usually pay a small fine, and that's the end of it. Using the term "arrested" is a bit of an overstatement of this process, in that it cannotes a more dire outcome than is usually the case. A better comparison would be to receiving a traffic ticket for speeding, or following too closely. Illegal entrants into the country are actually arrested, and usually deported. During the Obama administration, two and a half million illegal aliens were deported, and, since World War two, many millions more have met the same fate. t The term "arrest" is a bit misleading here too, since those apprehended usually are sent back across the border without any of the procedures commonly associated with arrest for criminal activity; indictment, jury trial, conviction, monetary penalty, or incarceration for more than a short period of time, with the resulting criminal record. Violators of fishing license laws and immigration and naturalization laws are both subject to unpleasant consequences to be sure, but to say that people cannot be arrested for entering the country illegally ignore the reality that even for those who get by with it, life is made difficult by having to live with the constant fear of being eventually caught and deported. for thsoe who are apprehended and deported, this in itself is a devastating, life changing consequence, certainly far more devastating than receiving a ticket for fishing without a license. that said, there is one contention contained in this otherwise inane Facebook post which bears legitimate scrutiny and possible agreement; that we live in a country run by idiots. The sacred spirit of accountability, however, requires the qualification that this unfortunate state of affairs could not possibly exist without the country being, alas, inhabited by them.