IS THIS TRIP REALLY NECESSARY?
HEY, PAPPY, IS THET THAR A "REVNOOER"?
NORTH WOODS SNOW SCENETuesday, 9:00 AM. 11 degrees, up from 8 earlier. Wind W, calm. The channel is frozen and I have not seen the ferry. We have gotten about six inches of snow in the last 36 ours, but the barometer predicts sunny skies.
Yesterday afternoon, while returning from a meeting in Washburn, I stopped to take a photo of the snow scene on Hwy. 13 and McCulloch Road. Just then a Border Patrol SUV came driving through the snowstorm from the west out of the boondocks, and as I snapped this photo I half expected it to stop and its occupants pop out and inquire as to what I was doing and why I had taken their picture. A Border Patrol office has been established in Ashland with several agents, and it is due to expand. Being the skeptic that I am, I cannot help wondering whether we really have significant numbers of illegal immigrants and terrorists skating across the frozen lake and skiing down the snowy forest trails, or that we have a drug smuggling problem big enough to warrant a federal patrol presence. In any case, I haven’t heard much justification for this expense, or what one might even consider, intrusion. I have to admit I I have a low tollerance for government snooping, whether in the form of the motorcycle cop hiding behind a billboard or the game warden spying on the lone fisherman waiting for him to put a badly hooked, slightly undersized trout in his creel. And when the spooks are from Washington I become even more leery. Are we going to become like the Appalachia of comic strip fame, with a “Revenooer” hiding behind every oak tree?
So, is this intrusion into our backwoods a boon or a boondoggle? What is their jurisdiction, and what are their enforcement powers? What is their relation to local law enforcement? Or are these just bored guys driving around the back roads because they have nothing else to do? Not to be unfriendly, but I think this federal presence bears scrutiny on a number of counts
Unreal isn't it. I read about it in the Ashland paper and there is the vehicle.
ReplyDeleteWhat on earth could they be doing other then running up the already 1.3 trillion dollar debt reported in the news this morning.
We are in real trouble when common sense is gone and you need a border patrol agent in Bayfield County. What a sad thing to see.