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Comment by stronglikedan | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand why they would even bother asking a US citizen who is returning home these questions: Where are you going? Where will you be staying? What do you intend to do?

Wouldn't everyone just answer, "home", "home", and "go home"? What would even be the point?

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>>I don't understand why they would even bother asking a US citizen who is returning home these questions...

Racial profiling for one. Also "citizen" and "natural born citizen" getting treated differently for another.

I've had border agents repeatedly ask me my citizenship and where I was born at

> I've had border agents repeatedly ask me my citizenship and where I was born at

Why? Your passport is literally proof of both those things.

There may be a difference between the passport you are presenting, and your passport. Until the border agent determines that those are equivalent, you are not necessarily who you say you are.

> What would even be the point?

The point is harassment, and trying to trick you into some perceived lie so they can detain you. The US is friendly like that.

They ask because people are dumb and say stupid incriminating shit

Even though the law says they have to let you in eventually, it doesn't say they can't harass you just in case you fall for it. They can also offer you a reward like less harassment if you just comply.

The law also says that a cop can't arrest you for no reason but every lawyer will tell you that only means you get a check after the court battle, not that you won't get arrested.

"They have to let you in" means that they don't let you in and you might be able to get a payout in court.

Nobody at the border has the job of "Force the border agent to let in anyone who is an actual American because they have that right", and nobody holds a gun to the border agent's head if he does not let you in.

A society is fundamentally broken if people need to get held a gun to their head, to make them do, what the society has commonly decided they should do. That simply doesn't scale. You might be able to do that for a few fallen individuals, but not for load bearing ones.

Every society - like any other sufficiently complex system - is operating in a constant state of brokenness. Societies are dynamic, with components (organizational, human, technical) failing and being replaced continuously.

All are broken, some are more broken than others.

Broken in the sense of not sustainable, faulty in principle, might lead to further demise, or failure. Not as in there are issues, not everything is optimal.

On a long enough timeline nothing is sustainable; it just depends on when it breaks down. I think society can go on like this for a long long time

When I come home I don't even talk to anyone...

I just walk through the global entry gate without interacting with anyone...

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