First Steps Toward a Big Brother State
February 11, 2005
I have always believed that one of the great strengths of this country is the self-policing nature of our social character. Thus, policemen need only intervene when we are unable to police the problem ourselves through outmoded concepts like discipline and shame. I believe this applies to times when terrorists might seek to violently intervene in our way of life. Though surely helped by geography, the American people have done a wonderful job of protecting themselves with relatively sparse government control. Unfortunately, this Republican Congress doesn’t see it that way.
The U.S. House approved electronic ID card requirements today.
The measure, called the Real ID Act, says that driver’s licenses and other ID cards must include a digital photograph, anticounterfeiting features and undefined “machine-readable technology, with defined minimum data elements” that could include a magnetic strip or RFID tag. The Department of Homeland Security would be charged with drafting the details of the regulation.
This Act, by mandating state compliance, could easily lay the groundwork for a National ID Card. This is anathema to civil liberties. It is hard to imagine that our Founding Fathers could have countenanced such a thing had such technologies been available at the time, and more to the point; had they been available, they most certainly would have been employed by Great Britain to require compliance to, say, The Stamp Act and the regulation of importation of goods. Would it not also be evident that personal ID’s would have been employed after such dastardly acts as the Boston Tea Party?
A reality check on this issue came from an unlikely source as we read further:
Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat from Washington, D.C., charged that Republicans were becoming hypocrites by trampling on states’ rights. “I thought the other side of the aisle extols federalism at all times,” Norton said. “Yes, even in hard times, even when you’re dealing with terrorism. So what’s happening now? Why are those who speak up for states whenever it strikes their fancy doing this now?”
I frankly couldn’t agree more. This is certaily not Reaganesque Federalism. And the Republican Party doesn’t need to be exposing a weakness clearly evident to the left.
I will be publishing an analysis of the dangers RFID technology and it’s potential effects on personal freedom in an upcoming article.
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UPDATE: Poliblog references my article here. He wonders what relevance ID cards would have had around the time of the Revolution or specifically the Boston Tea Party. It is in the sense that certainly Great Britain would have greatly benefited by traking movement or communication between the colonies. This would likely have killed the Committees on Correspondence which was the main communication channel between representative bodies in the colonies (e.g. blogs!). Also, this technology could easily have been incorporated in the Stamp Act using RFID devices as we do for inventory items today. Much personal information can be kept in them, and because the “stamps” used then were placed on documents, they would have been more easily subject to review and censure while tracking tendencies of individuals with no political recourse to protect privacy or commerce.
The point is this. The Founding Fathers succeeded because before government coercion got out of hand, they took quick action. And after the situation became untenable, Great Britian did not have the technological means to clamp down which they certainly would have used. I believe our current technology does provide a way for government misdeeds against personal liberty. And I further maintain that no further use of ID technology are necessary to maintain the current order but are specifically troublesome to the concept of personal liberty.
Sphere: Related ContentBush Tells Pyongyang "We’ll Talk Any Time"
February 11, 2005
The Bush Administration hasn’t bit on North Korea’s gambit to force bi-lateral talks by means of their announced possession of nuclear weapons.
My Way News: “It’s not an issue between North Korea and the United States. It’s a regional issue,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. “And it’s an issue that impacts all of its neighbors.” North Korea has plenty of opportunity to talk to the United States within six-party talks, McClellan said.
This was the most wise course of action to take under the circumstances.
There is a real possibility that North Korea is lying about their nuclear capabilities as a way to derail regional talks. One cannot put it past a rogue nation to use a canard to see if their adversary will wink. Fortunately, George Bush is made of the same stuff as former Sen. Alan Simpson when he said, “I represent a state where gun control is how steady you hold your rifle.” In Bush’s case the answer is, “very steady, thank you.”
What’s at issue here, assuming North Korea has the goods, is the not-so-steady-on-foreign-policy Bill Clinton who made a deal with a country prone to lie to maintain a lie. His administration’s acquiesence to a despotic government was both foolish and bathed in an ignorance of history and the nature of man. The Bush Administration is working to reverse an inevitable outcome of wimpy, feel-good foreign policy.
Sphere: Related ContentFebruary 10, 2005
Al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda’s number two man, teaches us the true concepts of Liberty:
AFP: “An audiotape purportedly of Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri hit out at the US concept of freedom, saying it was a cloak for spreading corruption and injustice in the Islamic world.Liberty as construed by the Americans was based on ‘usurious banks, giant companies, misleading media outlets and the destruction of others for material gain,’ charged the voice in the recording aired by Arabic news channel Al-Jazeera.
Real freedom was ‘not the liberty of homosexual marriages and the abuse of women as a commodity to gain clients, win deals or attract tourists,’ said the voice.
‘It is not the freedom of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib,’ it said, referring to US-run prisons in Cuba and Iraq where serious allegations of torture have been levelled.”
Notwithstanding the fact that I agree liberty is not in and of itself a licence to homosexual promiscuity (John Adams said that the Constitution was designed for a “moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other”), this statement shows his ignorance of a basic reason people settled this country and founded this government: freedom of religion.
Though Zawahiri or anyone else who would impose beliefs on others through government institutions
Sphere: Related ContentHighlighting Social Security Reform
February 10, 2005
The CATO Institute has an excellent website called The Project for Social Security Choice which is an excellent resource for understanding the issue of Social Security Reform.
You should also check out the resources at the Heritage Foundation as well.
Sphere: Related Content"Draft Condi" Endorsed by Morris
February 9, 2005
Dick Morris is calling for a “Draft Condi” movement in the Republican party in this article.
I agree with is point about the mark her Presidency would make in erasing much of the lingering problem of racism (benign and malignant) in this country, and I hope and pray for the day that a qualified person of color would become President. But the jury is out as to the possibility or efficacy of a draft movement as Condi has made it clear to this point that she is not running.
This is a story to watch is it unfolds.
Sphere: Related ContentGOP Consultant Sentenced in Phone Jamming
February 8, 2005
Many politicoes may not be aware of this, but dirty tricks are not a good way to win a campaign.
Good campaigns win campaigns.
This article in Newsday highlights the imporper (and illegal) use of automated phone systems to generate voter turnout.
Sphere: Related ContentSocial Security Reform Ads
February 8, 2005
Progress for America is running ads in support of Social Security reform. You can read their press release here. You can also view the ad online at the links below.
It’s time to remove the power from the “third rail.”
Sphere: Related ContentFebruary 4, 2005
“If it be asked, ‘What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic?’ The answer would be, ‘An invoilable respect for the Constitution and Laws — the first growing out of the last.’ … A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.”
–Alexander Hamilton
The Founders Quote Daily is a service of The Federalist Patriot, the most widely read conservative e-journal on the Internet. If you would like to have this highly acclaimed Digest of news, policy and opinion, delivered FREE by e-mail to your inbox, link to: http://FederalistPatriot.US/subscribe/
Sphere: Related ContentPro-Life Advocate Arrested for Exposing Medical Negligence in Public Area
February 3, 2005
The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) is defending a pro-life advocate who was arrested by Cleveland police for playing a tape recording of a 911 call made by an abortion doctor in front of his clinic. The police cited a noise ordinance as the basis for the arrest. The ADF says this is a violation of free speech rights.
Alliance Defense Fund: “CLEVELAND: An attorney allied with the Alliance Defense Fund filed suit today in federal court to have the City of Cleveland’s sound device and noise ordinances declared unconstitutional on behalf of two pro-life advocates. The city used the ordinances as a basis to arrest one of the men outside of an abortion clinic for playing an audiotape of a 9-1-1 recording involving the clinic’s owner.The audiotape contains a recording of abortionist and clinic owner Martin Ruddock talking to a 9-1-1 operator during complications that occurred during an abortion procedure performed on a 30-year-old woman. I just cant stop the bleeding. I cant see what Im doing and I want her out of here, Ruddock says on the tape. “
The first impression one has coming away from this story is that the doctor shows a sterile disregard for the safety of the woman having the abortion and would rather see the problem removed from his premises. In fairness, it is problematic to evaluate 911 tapes on the surface. But the content is still compellingly eerie.
But as regards the arrested activist, it is totally appropriate on his part to point out the method and means by which abortions are performed in general and by this doctor specifically. The tape in question suggests a problem with the lack of medical standards in abortion clinics. They are run by nurses and doctors, but they are not held to the same governmental and professional scrutiny as other medical facilities. This protest appropriately points that out.
There is also the issue of respecting the life of the woman. This concern–as I pointed out yesterday–is not paramount to abortion providers. Seemingly, the money that can be made from the procedure is the top concern of abortionists and organizations like Planned Parenthood. Disrespect for life in the womb reaches levels of hatred which are shocking (as quoted yesterday in may article, “From the time [women seeking abortions] walk in to [clinics which provide alternatives to abortion], they are inundated with information that is propaganda and that has one goal in mind. And that is to have women continue with their pregnancies.” As if it is a horror to bring that innocent child to life.)
This protester has provided a meaningful, public insight into how women are viewed by the abortion industry. Though opponents to this view might find the situation anecdotal, others like myself see the logical conclusion of killing innocent babies in the womb to be to be a selfish disregard for the life and needs of others (e.g. the Terry Shaivo situation).
Sphere: Related ContentFebruary 3, 2005
“Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.”
–Thomas Jefferson
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