No national ID card

Washington Times ^ | 7/20/02

[kattracks]

The fight against terrorism should not entail a police state, or even the precursors of one. That is the heartening message contained in Thursday's rejection by the House Select Committee on Homeland Security of proposals for a mandatory national ID "smart card"

[Michael O Mahony]

I love Big Brother.

[Vidalia]

We have plenty already, most know the list...

[First_Salute]

Bump.

[First_Salute]

A Paul Craig Roberts op-ed of July 17, 2002, Open Borders for Terrorists = Police State for Citizens, states:

During the Cold War, when the U.S. faced a really dangerous adversary capable of incinerating our entire country in 30 minutes, we kept to our principles, stressing the virtues of a free society over Soviet communism.

The Cold War must have sapped our strength. Now, faced with Muslim terrorists who are nothing in comparison to Soviet ICBMs, we have adopted the methods of our former communist adversaries. The Bush administration is putting in place the neighborhood informant system used by the infamous Stasi, the Communist East German secret police.

Bush's plan, known as TIPS, Terrorism Information and Prevention System, intends to turn one of out of every 24 Americans into a government spy, reporting on their fellow citizens.

The results in the U.S. will be the same as in East Germany. Jealousies, rivalries, misperceptions, and inflamed imaginations will result in the reporting of many innocent people, who will be investigated, questioned, detained, and, on occasion, framed.

Conservative gun owners will be likely targets of anti-gun liberals. Hunters will be reported by animal rights activists. Career rivals and rivals for the attention of a member of the opposite sex will be tempted to nudge each other out of contention with "suspicious activity" reports.

The irresponsible American media will make mountains out of molehills. As hysteria mounts, more people will feel a patriotic duty to report their neighbors. Jokes, protests, comparisons to the Stasi will all become evidence of disloyalty.

The war against terrorism has just begun, and already it has turned into a war against the American people. The U.S. government's fear of its own citizens first manifested itself in "airport security." Everyone is subject to warrantless and unreasonable searches. Regular air travelers observe that the vast majority of people searched could not possibly be terrorists, even if their lives depended upon it.

Yet, the mass insult of American citizens by their own government continues unabated. Millions of man-hours are wasted standing in lines while the moronic policy of searching feeble elderly couples, young mothers with babies, and U.S. mililtary officers wastes taxpayers' dollars.

The Bush administration's assumption is: every citizen is a potential terrorist. An entire new federal bureaucracy exists for the purpose of violating the Constitution's prohibition against unreasonable search.

The government's fear of the American people exceeds the ability of bureaucrats to control us. To make sure we are properly watched, the Bush administration is recruiting 12 million Americans to report on their fellows.

What's going on here? Why are 12 million Americans, in addition to thousands of government police agents with unprecedented eavesdropping powers, needed to ferret out the suspected 5,000 terrorists in the U.S.?

The best complexion that can be put on this is that the U.S. government has realized the insanity of the multicultural-diversity-open borders-visas to all-immigrants from everywhere-mindset that has turned the U.S. into a sanctuary for terrorists and illegal aliens. Too cowardly to deal with the immigration issue, the government instead has adopted police state methods to watch the population.

It is amazing to watch conservatives and patriots cheer on the advent of the Orwellian state. A new bureaucracy will be formed to record suspicious activity reports from the 12 million citizen informants. Once the police state bureaucracy is in place, it will never be dismantled. As Hoover Institution scholar Martin Anderson has pointed out, not even the fearsome Nixon White House was able to abolish a tiny bureaucracy of tea tasters.

Milton Friedman said that a country cannot have open borders and a welfare state. Even less can a country welcome multicultural immigrants whose loyalties reside elsewhere. Open borders for terrorists means a police state for citizens.

Rome fell when Romans came to view their government's predations as worse than those of the invaders. Will this be America's fate? Will our government do us more harm than the terrorists?

Paul Craig Roberts is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions: How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice.

Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence M. Stratton's book, available at Amazon.com ---

[Byron_the_Aussie]

...House Majority Leader Dick Armey, who is chairman of the committee, included language in the markup of homeland-security legislation to nix the so-called Terrorist Information and Prevention System (TIPS)....

God bless you, Mr Armey.

[Byron_the_Aussie]

Thanks for the link, friend. Looks like they've got a good two book discount going there, if you buy this one along with James Bovard's latest.

[snopercod]

Like I said last September:

Only Nixon could go to China. Only Bush could turn America into Amerika.

[brityank]

"The best complexion that can be put on this is that the U.S. government has realized the insanity of the multicultural-diversity-open borders-visas to all-immigrants from everywhere-mindset that has turned the U.S. into a sanctuary for terrorists and illegal aliens."

To Implement a Police State is where we are now at. Nothing I have seen of this government since 9-11 has shown me any different. Agenda 21 is on track for the subjugation of the Constitution.

[steve50]

Not sure they need the ID card. I believe they passed a national drivers license bill that acomplishes the same thing. They'll pat themselves on the back for defending our freedom while acomplishing the same thing thru the national drivers license base data linking. Mis-direction is not only a tool of magicians

[joyful1]

This will put a big smile on the face of the terrorists.

After their next attack on us, we will have these rejected programs and more....too bad so many will have to die first.

[HiTech RedNeck]

If a person sees something suspicious, he can contact the authorities

There was one good idea in the middle of this mess, which was to have a central reporting number that is guaranteed to be staffed. There still should be such a number, even though there will be no TIPS system. Something easy to remember like 1-800-CALL-FBI. I have seen posts on FR from people spotting something that for all they knew might be terrorist (like overflights in strange places) but they could find nobody to listen to their report.

[Zon]

  There is simply no need or justification for such an Orwellian program.

What reporters and journalists never tell their audience
 about crooks, criminals and frauds in government.

The Genie is Out of the Bottle

Congress has created so many laws that virtually every person is assured of breaking more than just traffic laws. Surely with all this supposed lawlessness people and society should have long ago run head long into destruction. But it has not.

Instead, people and society have progressively prospered. Doing so despite politicians creating on average, 3,000 new laws each year which self-serving alphabet-agency bureaucrats implement/utilize to justify their usurped power and unearned paychecks. They both proclaim from on high -- with complicit endorsement from the media and academia -- that all those laws are "must-have" laws to thwart people and society from running headlong into self-destruction.

Again, despite not having this year's 3,000 must-have laws people and society increased prosperity for years and decades prior. How can it be that suddenly the people and the society they form has managed to be so prosperous for so long but suddenly they will run such great risk of destroying their self-created prosperity?

The government is the all time champion of cooking the books and it has the gall to point fingers at the whole business community because of a few bad apples. The entire business community and employees that support it should stand tall against a government feigning to protect the little guy from organizations that cook their books.

If there was ever a prime example of the fox guarding the hen house it is the government claiming to protect the little guy from organizations that cook their books. President Bush will have to militarily smash down terrorism. For that is his job. It's not the President's, congress' or the government's job to manipulate the economy.

The business community with their employees will have to stand tall against the PC-status-quo fox -- self-proclaimed authorities claiming/feigning they'll use the government to protect the little guy and a complicit media and academia that supports them; for they are all the fox -- to regain their rightful place as the champions of honest business that has always increased the well-being of people.

The government, having already manipulated the economy to almost no-end, President Bush can play the unbeatable five-ace hand of replacing the threat-of-force IRS and graduated income tax with a don't-pay-the-tax-if-you-don't-want-to consumption tax. For example, implement the proposed national retail sales tax (NRST). Not only would that win votes for Bush and republicans in congress it would boom the economy.

Where will it lead?

War of Two Worlds
Value Creators versus Value Destroyers

Politics is not the solution. It's the problem!

The first thing civilization must have is business/science. It's what the family needs so that its members can live creative, productive, happy lives. Business/science can survive, even thrive without government/bureaucracy.

Government/bureaucracy cannot survive without business/science. In general, business/science and family is the host and government/bureaucracy is a parasite.

Aside from that, keep valid government services that protect individual rights and property. Military defense, FBI, CIA, police and courts. With the rest of government striped away those few valid services would be several fold more efficient and effective than they are today. 

Underwriters Laboratory is a private sector business that has to compete in a capitalist market. Underwriters laboratory is a good example of success where government fails.

Any government agency that is a value to the people and society -- which there are but a few -- could better serve the people by being in the private sector where competition demands maximum performance.

Wake up! They are the parasites. We are the host. We don't need them. They need us.

* * *

After all, in calling for the resignation of Securities and Exchange Commissioner Harvey Pitt, McCain declares, “Government’s demands for corporate accountability are only credible if government executives are held accountable as well." Does that mean U.S. senators? Congress, Accounting, and the Free Market (McCain is grandstanding again)

"Too often, we have cooked the books, exploited off-balance sheet accounting, fudged budget numbers and failed to disclose fully the nation's assets and liabilities. If we in Washington are to have credibility in the public eye as we address the corporate accounting mess, we must reform our own fiscal practices," said McCain. Social Security Called A Bigger Fraud Than Corporate Scandals

Prove it first. It's not like it's a new discovery or problem. It's a seventy-year-old problem. It's just that now politicians and bureaucrats have trapped themselves and the general public is becoming increasingly aware. They've been caught and McCain is getting interview time to peddle gussied-up compassionate government.

"Allowing Americans to invest responsibly a small part of their payroll taxes will not only save Social Security, but will provide them with greater retirement income than those who no or will soon depend on Social Security checks," said McCain. Social Security Called A Bigger Fraud Than Corporate Scandals

Notice McCain so readily self-proclaims himself and government the authority to allow Americans to invest part of their own money. But he has a condition; it most be done responsibly. And who decides what is responsible? Certainly not the all-time champion, cook-the-books bureaucrats and snake-oil-salesmen politicians.

They -- self-proclaimed authorities -- are running citizens and society headlong into destruction.

[steve50]

Many good points Zon. These voting and campaign "reforms" and our War on Terror seem to be more about protecting the established system than the American citizen.

[GailA]

btt

[First_Salute]

My reply 13 at Paul Craig Roberts op-ed of July 17, 2002, Open Borders for Terrorists = Police State for Citizens (which FR thread has been deleted, cause unknown, crimes unstated):

George W. Bush's T.I.P.S. is [tantamount to] a declaration of intent to destroy our Constitution by procedural civil war --- the only part of the Constitution which he has chosen to observe, is the structure of federalism; the remainder is invalid according to his demonstrations, so far.

The delegation of power, the retained powers, the individual rights of the people, the rights of the States, and especially the limit of government to only acts enumerated ... all these fundamentals of our Constitution are at least offended if not violated by him.

Strength through freedom, matters not, to him.

He's a corporate control freak; imaginative capacity escapes many such types.

"Think outside the box," said Corporate-Think as it inflated the "Internet / Hi-Tech Investment Bubble."

Then, along comes a surprise and ... POP!

Lesson:

Thinking outside the Constitution is not a requirement for achieving Different- and/or New- Think in pursuit of innovation in tough times.

Pointedly, imagination is not stifled by the Constitution, nor are personal initiative, forthrightness, honor, determination, self-determination ... and much more: the original intent of the Constitution is not a burden, nor is it a foe.

What is required, is to behold the tools which the Constitution affords.

The secret of Henry Ford's success, and of his mentor, Thomas Edison, was to take the imaginative capacity at their disposal (or go find more) and apply it to the tools and tool concepts which they could summon before them. The answers to many needs were right there in front of them. They assembled them; and then they figured out ways to improve the assembly.

Thus, we fashioned the solutions to our problems. We spent little or no time blowing bubbles; but now come the inventions of government and its agents who are Lost in Extra-Constitutional Space, which are always mere bubbles; no matter how enthralling, they all inevitably ... POP!

Such as President Bush's HomeLand Security Bubble.

[Age of Reason]

national ID "smart card"

Hey, how come nobody says such a card would bear a notice that it is to be used only to prevent terrorism?

[Elsie]

I believe they passed a national drivers license bill that acomplishes the same thing.

Not if you don't drive!!

---

(But, if you're not MOBILE, who gives a Rodent's Posterier about you anyway!!)

[Zon]

They're definitely  in it for themselves and maintaining their established government. I mean who would believe; would you believe three thousand new laws each year are actually to the citizens' benefit? No. Those laws are to enrich the politicians and bureaucrats job security. Albeit, their jobs are for the most part destructive to citizens and society.

It's really quite hideous. It's the unproductive, worthless parasites that have but self-proclaimed authority of the creative, valuable people -- the business owners and employees -- that have real/valid authority because they create the means for people and society to prosper.