Monday, February 05, 2007
UND ZEN VE INVADE POLAND, YA?
Just 18 months to go until national ID cards begin to be issued. I still not clear on why this is necessary, although The Fearless Leader says it will help prevent terrorism. At the same time, however, we're told that the war in iraq is successful at preventing terrorism... So which one is the lie? Hmmmm. Maybe they're both lies. I mean, there's no foreign terrorism in the USA now, and we don't have national ID cards. So how is this mandatory policy going to help us and what is it going to cost us in terms of dollars, civil liberties and personal privacy. Will these cards have RFID chips embedded so our movements can be tracked constantly? .... Maybe it would be cheaper to just tattoo everyone's forearms' with a serial number, and just for the sake of decoration, a skull and crossbones.... strictly in the name of national security, of course.
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24 comments:
Sig Heil!
Nice picture dude...
I mean, there's no foreign terrorism in the USA now,
how do you know?
Well Dick, I've broken no laws.. not big ones, anyway. Just the same, what I do, where I go, who I talk to, what I read, which medicines I take, what products and services I purchase.... well, that's my business.... if the heat wants to know, let 'em find out the old fashioned way- go to the majistrate, present your evidence and maybe they can get a warrent.
I know, to the extant possible, Caughtit, because if there were, the DHS would be sure to tell us about it to demonstrate what heroic gods they are and as support for their argument that we have to give up our American liberties to keep America safe.
If it a peashooter, as you say, then they don't need it because the cost/benefit means it's not an effective tool for the money. .... fuck 'em (note to NSA: just a figure of speech.... no cops actually had sex with any human beings during the production of this response)
why should I have to burden myself with new regulations , restrictions, and another form of mandated id to maintain because SOMEONE else wants to break the law? What about criminals already in jail? Will they have to get hte id? What kind of data will this card collect? Where will it have to presented and why? If its not presented formally to anyone, why do we need it?
I have heard that Social Security Numbers were supposed to be just that- #s to help get benefits. The government promised that they wouldn’t be used to track and catalog Americans, as that was the fear at the time. Now hindsight is 20/20, but we can all see now how well that worked out for us.
But it is not the US government today would ever abuse our privacy and spy on us without sufficient proof and the proper authorization from the courts, right?
**I promise I am not living in a cabin writing manifestoes against the government when I am not posting on blogs.**
On the whole SSN thing, I do the Nancy Rayguns thing; I just say no. I do it at the bank, at the hospital and anywhere else I'm asked.... far as I'm concerned, unless you're going to employ me, or you're the SSA representative, you don't need to know and I can't trust you.... so, no.... just plain no.
"It is believed by credible sources that there are numerous "sleeper" terrorist cells in the U.S."....
So just who are these "credible sources?".... can you name them? ... and what makes them "credible?"
"but what about the destruction of many American's quality of life that has resulted from illegal immigration?"
.... But what about the destruction of many Americans'[note the punctuation, Dim Bulb] quality of life that has resulted from the illegal wiretapping of phones, opening of mail, unlawful detentions, torture and not-so-secret-anymore offshore gulags operated by the US government?.... shit..... a bunch of wetbacks is the least of this nation's problems.
"the handshake and "on my word" of long ago was taken advantage of, proof in the form of a document is needed."
Case in point: The Bush Administration. .... let THEM get a national ID... I don't lie.
I'm not enthused in the least with the latest developements in the push for a National ID card. I think it's absurd considering our borders are essentially unprotected. It amuses me to no end ( but doesn't suprise me) to see you, RT and of course Historical Wit using this issue to club George the 43d. This program was first proposed and welcomed back in the Clinton years. They wanted palm-imaging and retinal scanning as well. Funny I don't hear you guys pissin' and moanin' about how the Clinton administration abused rights. Hell, even the ACLU will tell you that Clinton eroded more of your rights than any previous prez. I will concede that Bush's Patriot Act sucks, I don't know if any of this is needed, but let's be fair (for once) and acknowledge that this issue didn't start with Bush. If you want to bash him fine have at it. Sometimes I wonder if you guys will never be content until the Gitmo' detainees get the right to vote. Well, I'd better go now, have to take cover, as I imagine there's a shitstorm coming.
heheheh.... Don't run away Swampy, stand up for what you believe.
RT, I saw my post as more of an observation. I deplore the idea of a National ID. But the idea ain't new. When this idea was being floated in the '90s I voiced my displeasure then, and not timidly I might add. I can recall calling my congressman's office and chafing at some of the more totalitarian aspects of a similiar piece of legislation. After I hung up the phone I fully expected to see an APC with a SWAT team pull up in my swamp. Since this idea isn't new, I don't necessarily view George Bush as any more of "Fascist" than Bill Clinton. After observing American Political History for nearly 40 some years I've concluded that anyone can cry fascist over nearly any percieved miscarriage of justice by government. It doesn't do much to advance the dialogue though. Maybe that's my point.
Thanks for putting words in my mouth swampy. Go back and reread the post, i never bashed bush.
I have never been a fan of a national id, who ever considered it. I don't think it is a neccesity. If you want security in an id, let the states deal with that. Here's an idea, instead of getting two id's to carry around, reorganize the dirvers licesnse numbers to be uniform. Then you have the performance of a national data base, uniformity in id, etc. etc. States would still be required to issue said id.
As for eroding civil liberties, Bush is up there. No doubt. But I'd put Nixon and Wilson before Clinton. And what about Ike? I like Ike, but he helped form much of the power structure that is in place today.
I disagree, Swampy. I think the vast majority of Americans are blissfully ignorant of what's going on day-to-day, and resolutely ignorant of history. Moreover, as we age and our ability to defend ourselves declines, we tend to get more fearful and so look to the government to protect us from real or imagined threats. And many are so fearful, they'll happily trade rights and liberties for physical security against these boogiemen.
When government officials have a hidden agenda whose implimentation coincides with the fears of an aging population, we see a rise in totalitarian governments.... Nowhere is there a more graphic example than in the decades following the close of the First World War in Europe, where part of the causes for the rise of Fascism and Nazism in Italy and Germany were fear on the part of an aging population that had lived through the great war and its aftermath of a crushing global economic depression where many were homeless and, in Germany, the inflation rates could and did rise hundreds of percentage points virtually overnight.
Now granted, this nation has not seen inflation even remotely close to that, but for the first time America has experienced a significant attack within its own borders. Although it is nothing like the devestation suffered by Germans during WWI, there are clear parallels in governmental response. Just like The Nazi's seizure (with tacit public support) of the Sudatenland and later Austria in order to increase its security buffer, so too is the USA even now in the process of forming what it calls the North American Alliance, which would effectively open the boarders seperating Mexico and Canada. At the same time, we are seeing a rise in totalitarianism through a marked decrease in civil rights and liberties, secret prisons (think concentration camps)unlawful detention, use of torture, and a growing fear and suspicion of a particular ethnic group.
While most of us are not presently affected by these policies, neither were most Germans or Europeans during the early 1930s. It was not until the NAzi and Fascist parties began to inflict "The New World Order" on those outside the particular ethnic group that popular resistance began to rise, and by then it was too late. Another global conflagration was inevitable.
Ratturd, Read Leonard Peikoff's book "The Ominous Paralels The End of Freedom in America." Peikoff is a great Libertarian writer and astute student of history. I can't believe that you'd disagree with me. I'm not so sure I agree with your take on the history of the rise in Fascism. De Gustibus non est disputandum.
Swampy:
Thousand of books have been written on the causes of war. No can be definative because the causes are too broad.... What I'm saying here is that is is certainly one of the contributing factors...... War are not faught simply for political reasons.... they undoubtedly have political agendas and ends, but there are many factors that come into play in fomenting a war. In effect, the population has to support a war if it is to be efective. That why war machines need propaganda program in order to succeed.
Welcome Jose.... I have no idea what you're talking about here.... I mean, obviously you're comparing cancer to terrorism and talking about "reasonable measures," but I don't know what that means..... If I get lung cancer, I don't want to have the doctors cure it by removing both my lungs - that wouldn't be reasonable. By the same token, our "leaders can't save America by destyroying the very things that make it a great country.
maybe so in the ID thing, Jose. But taken in totality with the other concurrent issues, the policy is way past "reasonable."
According to the 9/11 report recomendations, that by the way Liberals wanted (read screamed to the President) enacted was the following:
Recomendation:Secure identification should begin in he United States. The Federal Government should set standards for the insurance of birth certificates AND SOURCES OF IDENTIFICATION, such as drivers licenses. Fraud in identification documentsis no longer just a problem of theft.At many entry points to vunerable facilities,including gates for boarding aircraft,sources of identification are the last opportunity to ensure that people are who they say they are and to check whether they are a terrorist.
* the 9/11 Commission Report. Chapter 12 "What to Do? The Global Strategy" pg390.
Now, no ofense, but yall can't scream to enact the 9/11 report recomendations, then bitch because they are enacted.Doesn't work that way. You either pick to have the ID cards, and live with it....or you pick not to have the ID cards, and live with it. Personally? I don't want an ID card, but if it means staying alive??? Sure, sign me up. Oh and about that chip that could be put in it like the chip in passports?? Bang it with a hammer, that will take care of the chip.
caughtit:
The National ID thing was a done deal three and a half years ago.
what does that mean?
Well if your going to go to a national id, why can't it be like your Gull or Hawk card and be your license, your library card, medical card, bank card, and passport? Let make that crap convienent if its going to happen. Give in to the system and let it rock us asleep....
"So just who are these "credible sources?".... can you name them? ... and what makes them "credible?""
I pose this question again, Outbackshithouse, because you didn't fully answer it. So: What makes them credible? You cited several publications, but no sources. Nor did you rationalized their so-called credibility. Please do so now, so that you don't continue looking like a blowhard buffoon.
Secondly, you asked "Who has suffered a loss in their quality of life because of what you mentioned above?" To which you replied, "All of what you claim is happening is occurring on a very small scale and not at random or without good reason. These perceived invasions of privacy are largely directed at suspected terrorists."
We all suffer from a lack of justice when it is denied to even one person. Justice is defined, at its very core, through its equal application. When it become unequal, it ceases to be justice and instead becomes random retribution. Aslo to that point: It's easy and for some, comforting to point a finger at a particular group and say "yeah, all our problems can be blamed on the niggers, or the jews, or the spics," or whoever, and have them suffer become the public whipping boy to pay for your own sins and ignorance. But eventually it will be your turn. And if you won't stand up for those who suffer small and great injustices, then who do you expect to stand up for you?
"As far as the argument of Bush's violations of law, you have to remember that morality forms the basis of law and it is far better to do what is right then follow vague particulars of a dusty law book."
I mean, what the fuck are you trying to say, here?... That laws should be followed only if it's convenient to do so?... If, as you say, morality is the basis of law, then isn't lawlessness immoral. ... So would that mean you beloved Fearless Leader is immoral?
... You just totally skipped Sunday School, parental instruction and philisophy classes in college, Didn't you? Because what you've written here sure makes you seem like a sociopath. See somebody and get some medicine before you hurt yourself or somebody else.
Outbackshithouse:
Missed something? Are you freaking kidding us!?... More properly framed, the question should be one of whether you got anything right.
First, you made an absolute statement, to wit: "...that morality forms the basis of law..." Then when I shot down your conclusion, you changed it to "Laws, as specifically defined rules and regulations, are theoretically defined on the basis of morality."
You can't have it both ways, son. And even you could, your new conclusion is still wrong.
The next four grafs in your statement are totally irrelevant to the issue at hand... granted they may betray you as either a lawyer seeking to dazzle us with meaningless bullshit, or a university student used to padding his papers. Nevertheless, they are of no use here.
The fifth graf after the above quote is where you tear the wheels off your argument and begin to auger yourself into the dirt.
"...in theory, law is based on morality, but in actuality the moral belief system and law can be wrong as a result of human error."
This is where you begin to set yourself, or perhaps George Bush, up as the ultimate arbiter of which laws are (your words)"based properly on the correct moral belief system of moral universalism" and so are worthy of obedience. ... Um... Yikes. George Bush is not a lawyer. As a matter of fact, he's so stupid I don't think he could even grasp the meaning of this conversation. Moreover, if you are a lawyer, you must have slept though your torts and constitutional law classes. If it were not so, how could you suggest that someone guilty of a previous crime and suspected of another must be guilty in that instant too? High courts have held, time and again, that past criminal behavior cannot be used as evidence of guilt in a separate incident because past guilt is not evidence of present guilt. And that's not some piece of legal esoterica lawyers use to get guilty people off- It's simple, basic logic.
And that simple logic is apparently something that escapes you, as evidenced by your statement; "if only the red haired people in a community had been convicted (my emphasis) of spitting on the sidewalk, suspicion would isolate the red haired people more prominently by justice in regard to police patrols and other means, including wiretapping, to discover and prevent occurring or future planned attacks of spitting on the sidewalk."
While the statement may indeed be true, it does NOT speak to proving, or even evidence of guilt. Instead, it evidences racial profiling, unequal enforcement of the law, and judicial bias- seeing as only redheads are convicted.
Yet this is the logic to which you so whole-heartedly subscribe when you argue that these people being unlawfully held in secret prisons, tortured and denied the very human rights that this country claims to represent and protect.
So, what you're saying here is that it's okay for the president and government to suppress and destroy the constitutional protections and liberties that make America to country that it is, if that destruction is done in the name of saving those protections and liberties.... is that it?
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