Here's to the US of A

I've been listening to Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's First Minister, talking at Stanford University today. She talked about nationalism and internationalism, and also about independence and interdependence.

Whoever wrote the speech for her did a great job. Yes, I'm sure Nicola made a contribution but some bright spark of a civil servant put together all her ideas and condensed the whole thing into a 30 minute talk. Kudos to him or her.

I thought about Nicola's invitation to everyone in the room to come to Scotland: to work, to study or just to visit. Will this be possible in the future? I ask because there's some pretty weird stuff going on these days. Brexit for one thing. We already have in Scotland about 120,000 EU citizens seriously worried about their status. Some have already been refused 'permission to remain' and some have even been told to make arrangements to go 'home' even though they've lived, worked and paid taxes in Scotland for 20 years. I've already seen one American friend sent back to Louisiana after spending 5 years and who knows how much of her own money getting a Scottish education. (In other words, just as she was getting to be useful to the Scottish economy, she was kicked out).

And then there's the USA's paranoia about foreigners (especially Muslims). This despite the fact that the USA's terrorists are as likely to come from - where else? - the USA as any other country.

I have visited New York, California, Kentucky, Georgia and Tennessee. At some point in the future, I would like to see Washington DC and maybe New England. But I doubt if it's going to happen. The USA is just too hostile to tourists these days. The USA immigration authorities were always over-zealous, even before 9/11. Now I think they're out of control. 'Profiling,' that cute American word for racial stereotyping is now being used on all visitors. I refuse to play that game. When I hear that Canadian schools which usually take kids to the USA on school trips are cancelling their visits, it's a wake-up call for me.

Maybe the USA doesn't need tourists. Maybe the USA just doesn't know it needs tourists.

Either way, for me it's going to be Canada, Iceland, Mexico - in fact, just about anywhere. Just not the USA.