Posted on 03/05/2006 6:44:19 AM PST by Pokey78
I had to sign a tedious business contract the other day. They wanted my corporation number -- fair enough -- plus my Social Security number -- well, if you insist -- and also my driver's license number -- hang on, what's the deal with that?
Well, we e-mailed over a query and they e-mailed back that it was a requirement of the Patriot Act. So we asked where exactly in the Patriot Act could this particular requirement be found and, after a bit of a delay, we got an answer.
And on discovering that there was no mention of driver's licenses in that particular subsection, I wrote back that we have a policy of reporting all erroneous invocations of the Patriot Act to the Department of Homeland Security on the grounds that such invocations weaken the rationale for the act, and thereby undermine public support for genuine anti-terrorism measures and thus constitute a threat to America's national security.
And about 10 minutes after that the guy sent back an e-mail saying he didn't need the driver's license number after all.
I'd be interested to know how much of this bureaucratic opportunism is going on. A couple of weeks earlier, I went to the bank to deposit a U.S. dollar check drawn on a Canadian financial institution, and the clerk announced that for security reasons checks drawn on Canadian banks now had to be sent away for collection and I'd have access to the funds in a couple of weeks. This was, she explained, a requirement of -- ta-da -- the Patriot Act. And, amazingly, that turned out not to be anywhere in the act either.
Any day now, my little girl will wake up, look under the pillow and find a note from the Tooth Fairy explaining that before processing of financial remuneration for said tooth can commence, the Patriot Act requires the petitioning child to supply a federal taxpayer identification number and computer-readable photo card with retinal scan.
I don't have a problem with the Patriot Act per se, so much as the awesome powers claimed on its behalf by everybody from car salesmen to the agriculture official who demanded proof from my maple-sugaring neighbor that his sap lines were secure against terrorism. Which is a hard thing to prove. You may think you've secured them against terrorism, and one morning you wake up to a loud explosion and the TV's showing breaking news of people howling in agony as boiling syrup rains down from the skies. Apparently, there's a big problem with al-Qaida putting anthrax in the maple supply. You don't notice it on your pancake because it blends in with the confectioners' sugar.
My worry is that on the home front the war is falling prey to lack-of-mission creep -- that, in the absence of any real urgency and direction, the "long war" (to use the administration's new and unsatisfactory term) is degenerating into nothing but bureaucratic tedium, media doom-mongering and erratic ad hoc oppositionism. To be sure, all these have been present since Day One: The press have been insisting Iraq is teetering on the brink of civil war for three years and yet, despite the urgings of CNN and the BBC, those layabout Iraqis stubbornly refuse to get on with it. They're happy to teeter for another three years, no matter how many "experts" stamp their foot and pout their lips and say "I want my civil war now." The New York Times ran a headline after the big bombing: "More Clashes Shake Iraq; Political Talks Are In Ruins." The "political talks" resumed the day after publication. The "ruins" were rebuilt after 48 hours.
The quagmire isn't in Iraq but at home. For five years, beginning with the designation of "war on terror," the president's public presentation has been consistent: Islam is a great religion, religion of peace, marvelous stuff, White House Ramadan Banquet the highlight of the calendar, but, sadly, every barrel has one or two bad apples, even Islam believe it or not, and once we've hunted those down we'll join the newly liberated peace-loving Muslim democracies in a global alliance of peace-loving peaceful persons. Most sentient beings have been aware that there is, to put it mildly, a large element of evasion about this basic narrative, but only now is it being explicitly rejected by all sides. William F. Buckley and George Will have more or less respectfully detached themselves from the insane idealism of shoving liberty and democracy down people's throats whether they want it or not. And, on the ports deal with Dubai, a number of other commentators I respect plus a stampede of largely ignorant weathervane pols have denounced the administration for endangering American security on the eastern seaboard. I can't see that: The only change is that instead of being American stevedores employed by a British company they'll now be American stevedores employed by a United Arab Emirates company.
But what I find interesting is the underlying argument: At heart, what Hillary Clinton and Co. are doing is dismissing as a Bush fiction the idea of "friendly" Arab "allies" in the war of terror. They're not necessarily wrong. Even the "friendliest" Arab regimes tend to be a bunch of duplicitous shysters: King Hussein sided with Saddam in the Gulf war, Mubarak and the House of Saud are the cause of much of our present woes. I would be perfectly prepared to consider a raft of measures insisting that, for the duration of the war, there'll be restrictions on access to the United States by certain countries. As I've argued for some years, it's absurd that the Saudis are allowed to continue with their financial and ideological subversion of everything from American think-tanks to mosques to prison chaplaincy programs (and, I'll bet, without providing driver's license numbers).
However, I think we should do that as a conscious policy decision, rather than as reflex piecemeal oppositionism. What Democrats seem to be doing with Dubai Ports World, whether they realize it or not, is tapping in to a general public skepticism (to put it politely) about the entire Muslim world. In that sense, the ports deal is the American equivalent of the Danish cartoon jihad: increasing numbers of Europeans -- if not yet their political class -- are fed up with switching on the TV and seeing Muslim men jumping up and down and threatening death followed by commentators patiently explaining that the "vast majority" of Muslims are, of course, impeccably "moderate." So what? There were millions of "moderate" Germans in the 1930s, and a fat lot of good they did us or them.
Despite being portrayed as a swaggering arrogant neocon warmongering cowboy, President Bush has, in fact, been circumspect to a fault for five years. But the equivocal constrained rhetoric is insufficient to a "long war." And from all sides, more and more people are calling its bluff.
Done.
Translation: When are people going to start acting like this is WAR??
Instead of relenting and putting her on a plane cross-country to their office (ha ha), I suggested that if they couldn't simply correct her address, they would then lose a number of accounts from my family and friends etc. Guess what, they corrected the account address and no mo' Patriot Act. Misuse of the Act has become a catchall for major invasions of privacy and mistakes by corporate and public bureaucrats alike
I'm not talking about the war he fantasizes about. I'm talking about the one actually being waged. I don't think I've missed a single Steyn column in two years, fwiw.
"I think Bush has been trying to give the Muslims one last chance, which they are consistently blowing."
Uh, I think you use sorta inconsistent terminology there--'consistently blowing' their last chance means they're getting multiple 'last chances,' and that's what pisses Americans off. We hand out to the Islamic nations BILLIONS in foreign aid and what do we get? Palestinians dancing over 9/11 and $2-a-gallon gas. Yet every time we see them dancing after another American death, we can expect the federal decisionmakers to shrug and say, well, they only killed 3,000 people, and a couple soldiers, after all, we should probably give them another few hundred chances. And maybe they're right. After all, they're thousands of miles away from our borders. It's not like they're running our ports or anything.
Bank told me they couldn't cash an out-of-state check without a ten-day-hold on it because of the Patriot Act.
I told them I would need that explanation in writing.
They backed down.
The Patriot Act is a great excuse for every f'in petty bureaucrat to stick his nose in your business and steal a little more of your money.
I still don't get your point, sorry. Steyn isn't arguing against the Patriot Act at all.
Annoy a nurse when asking about the condition of a close relative in hospital and you may get stiff-armed with patient confidentiality yada yada yada.
If that nurse told you that the "patient confidentiality" rules are a result of the Patriot Act, when there is no such thing in the Patriot Act, that's what Steyn is talking about. The Patriot Act (and the War on Terror itself) is being undermined by these lies.
Oh, I agree. The one last chance refers to the Iraq/Afghanistan democratization project as a whole, but Muslims worldwide seem unable to comprehend this and just keep popping up with one more violent act after another.
Personally, I think our tolerance for Muslim violence has gone way beyond what is reasonable. If anything, we have become even more tolerant of their violence and viciousness since 9/11, and even more willing to let them get away with it.
And this is not just the government: a liberal relative in California told me that 9/11 was "overrated." It was all just an excuse for Bush to attack those poor little dears in the ME, don't you know? So I think we have some serious problems in coming to grips with reality.
Yes, and certain transactions over 10K require more paperwork than before. We did get fingerprinted on one occassion and have since then avoided that scenario. The people in line were ready to riot because there was only two tellers that day. I had to perform an armed escort for my wife out of the bank. Fortunately the crowd picked up on the intent. Had it not been for the delay on behalf of the patriot act, this would have been a simple transaction concluded in 15 minutes.
There were millions of "moderate" Germans in the 1930s, and a fat lot of good they did us or them.
Now that would make a great tagline.
Please explain. I think it is an apt analogy.
Instead of focusing on the millions of "peaceful moderates" who are not eager for war, it is much wiser to focus on the millions who are actively killing others to further their agenda. Both are autocratic regimes demanding reflexive obedience. Both are ideologies that do not allow for "weaker" subgroups. Both use words of peace while preparing for battle. Heck, the Muslim nations fought on Hitler's side (and the 1% of Arab land lost as a "spoil of war" is at the heart of the majority of the Middle Eastern excuses for murderous acts)
So where are the distinctions?
Ping
What? R-I-N-G-O-F-F-I-R-E?
Whether you get R-I-N-G-O-F-F-I-R-E depends on how 382-5968 is dialed.
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