Don’t Be Stupid (Rough Lessons)

I’m all for travel.
I’m all for adventure.
But there are third-world ****holes, never mind nations with zero respect for human rights, that are flatly unsafe to travel to. Some are unsafe for everyone. Some are unsafe for women (e.g. majority Muslim nations) traveling alone. Some are unsafe for particular religious or ethnic groups. Some are unsafe for certain nationalities and since your Passport bears your nationality prominently…..
Otto Warmbier violated rule #1 by taking such a trip — to North Korea. Then he did something even worse, apparently — he stole a political propaganda piece.
Look folks, even in non-third-world ****holes there is one way to get trounced and at best be seen as an “Ugly American” — inject yourself into the local political process. In many nations it’s actually illegal for you to do so. It should be illegal here too for someone who is not a citizen to do so, but heh, we seem to have this snowflake thing in that regard and what’s worse is that we think we can shove our particular bit of sensibility down other people’s throats.

This post was published at Market-Ticker on 2017-06-22.