My daughter has a hard time accepting why I won't visit her: as she lives in the USA, I would have to deposit my fingerprints with that regime of crooks - which I refuse to.

So I've got the choice between convenient and wrong, or inconvenient and right (according to my personal universe of values).

Simply caving in and being suitably cowed to let Them do whatever They want would, of course, make my daughter and hence me happier - but only for about 2 seconds:

I am neither a criminal nor a shipping container!

and I refuse to be treated and tracked that way. Nobody and nothing has the right to do that to me, neither my 'own' country nor anybody else.

I cannot accept this kind of demands, and so I don't visit the US or the UK anymore (apart from lots of other Garden Spots I never wanted to see anyway).

So, will I personally make a difference? bwuahaha Not bloody likely.
Does that deter me? No.
Does my insigificance suggest conformance as an acceptable solution? Hell no!
Am I a fool? Likely, but no bunch of governmental thugs deserves my blind obedience and I'm very much in agreement with H.D. Thoreau in this matter.

But of course trying to be steadfast and true to my personal values feels to Conny not much different from me not wanting her or finding her unimportant. Neither of which is the case.

But what is more important, my universe of values or her happiness? Damned if I do, damned if I don't.

I choose my values. Sorry, Conny: you can be happy without me visiting you in your place, but I can't be content with serving as a silent, conformist gear wheel.

So far we've managed to soften the sting of this conviction of mine by my sponsoring her to visit me instead. So far this has worked out ok. But will she ever understand me making my stand in this?

Nevertheless I see less and less travel ahead of me, and/or extensive sanding paper sessions when I have to renew my current passport.

Governments and human nature suck. If only humanity was evolved enough for anarchy to work...