I Will Not Be Numbered

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Thu, 12 May 2005 12:00:00 GMT

From The Federalist:

"Democracy means that anyone can grow up to be president, and anyone who doesn't grow up can be vice president." -- Johnny Carson

# M.E. Cohen at Marc Brands Liberty - What it really really is - cartoon commentary on the REAL ID Act. Well, part of it.

# The new clip and screws for my CRKT Steve Ryan Model Seven arrived yesterday. Free of charge. CRKT has assured my purchase of their Slide Sharp knife sharpener, and my consideration of CRKT first, the next time I want to buy a knife. BTW, I found the Torx screwdriver at Sears.

# Liberty Round Table (LRT) - No NID! - Sunni Maravillosa created this page quite a while back. She intends to update it now that the National ID has become a reality. Note the new icon at the top of the left-hand column of this page. The icon links to the LRT page. The "I Will Not Be Numbered" text links to a relevant section of the audio of Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner (MP3, 23k).

# Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership - The End of America: May 10, 2005 - JPFO tells it like it is. The National ID is the end of the American experiment in individual liberty. Sic Semper Tyranis! [jpfo]

GUN OWNERS: PREPARE TO RESIST

Here's your future:

You walk into a gun store, fill out your 4473, and show your government ID just as you now do. But instead of looking at your license and taking down some information, the clerk runs the license (which is likely to contain a radio-frequency ID chip) through a scanner. Your purchase is instantly recorded in your state drivers license registry. The federal government isn't currently allowed to keep a gun registry. But no problem; the Real ID act gives them an open door into your state records.
Complete information on every firearm you buy will be instantly available to every police officer (and possibly every government employee, store clerk, or computer hacker) you ever encounter. You'll be an instant criminal suspect every time you deal with someone who has access to the database.
Just as travelers are encouraged to get background checks and give fingerprints to avoid some of the worst excesses of TSA screening, gun owners will be encouraged to get background checks and give whatever biometric ID the Department of Homeland Security requires. This will be sold as a "benefit," ensuring you'll never again experience an "instant-check" delay. In fact, Congress, the ATF, or the FBI might even "mandate" 5-day or 15-day delays for anyone not enrolled in the "Trusted Firearms Buyer" program.
The private purchase "loophole" will be closed, so that all gun buyers must make trackable purchases. (The ultimate goal is for every purchase of every kind to be trackable.)
Buying ammo? The store scans your national ID card and -- bingo! -- your purchase is registered in the state database.
The federal government or state governments can now also effectively legislate limits on the amount or kind of ammunition you're "allowed" to purchase. Try to buy more and the database instantly rejects you.
The federal government or state governments can now also effectively legislate limits on the number of guns you may own. Try to buy more, and the database rejects you.
Eventually -- after the federal government "discovers" the obvious, that national ID won't stop either illegal immigration or terrorism -- the old attack on "evil guns" will resume. When they want your .50 BMG they'll know just where to find it (because the Real ID act says your home address must be revealed). When they want your evil "scoped sniper rifle" (you know, the one you hunt deer with), they'll know just how to get it. Ditto with you "Saturday Night Special" or your "assault weapon."
If you don't surrender your guns, well, then the Department of Homeland Security will cut off your driving "privilege," as well as your right to escape the growing police state via plane. You'll be a prisoner in your own home, in your own country. Or you'll be forced to function as an outlaw, operating and living a precarious existence beneath the government radar.

# Molly Bingham at The Louisville, Kentucky Courier-Journal - Home from Iraq - incredible article from a journalist who worked in Iraq on the story of the Iraqi freedom fighters (called "terrorists" or "insurgents" by the Busheviks). Copies of the article are also at Common Dreams and Information Clearing House.

As terrifying as that was to manage and work through, there was another fear that was just as bad. What if the American military or intelligence found out what we were working on? Would they tail us and round up the people we met? Would they kick down our door late one night, rifle through all our stuff and arrest us for "collaborating with the enemy?" Bear in mind that there are no real laws in Iraq. At the time that we were working, the American military was the law, and it seemed to me that they were pretty much making it up as they went along. I was pretty sure that if they wanted to "disappear" us, rough us up or even send us for an all expenses paid vacation in Guantanamo for suspected al-Qaida connections, they could do so with very little, or even no recourse on our part.

I could go into a long litany of the ways in which the American military has treated journalists in Iraq. Recent actions indicate that the U.S. military will detain and/or kill any journalist who happens to be caught covering the Iraqi side of the militant resistance, and indeed a number of journalists have been killed by U.S. troops while working in Iraq. This behavior at the moment seems to be limited to journalists who also happen to be Arabs, or Arab-looking, but that is only a tangential story to what I'm telling you about here.

...

Recall Patrick Henry's famous speech encouraging the Second Virginia Convention, gathered on March 20, 1775, to fight the British, "Give me liberty or give me death!" Why is it that we, as Americans, presume that any Iraqi would feel any differently? If the roles were reversed, do you think for a moment that our men wouldn't be stockpiling arms and attacking any foreign invader with the temerity to set foot on our soil, occupy our buildings of government and write us a new constitution?

Wouldn't we as women be joining with them in any way we could? Wouldn't the divisions between us -- how we feel about President Bush, whether we're Republican or Democrat -- be put aside as we resisted a common enemy?

Then why is it that this story of human effort for self-determination by violent means cannot be told in America? Are we so small, so confused by our own values that we cannot recognize when someone emulates our own struggle? Even if it is the U.S. that they are struggling against? I want to be careful to explain that I am not saying that the Iraqis fighting against us are necessarily fighting for democracy, but they are fighting for their right to decide for themselves what their nation looks like politically.

# Michael Crook - Forsake The Troops - this web site reads like a joke, but Mr. Crook swears he's serious. He wants to severely cut military compensation. Unusual perspective. Not conducive to long life in the current political climate. [federalist]

Our underlying problem is this: the military is a lifestyle these morons chose. What idiot risks their life for a country? It's what they chose. Hopefully, they knew in their hearts this is abusing taxpayers' money, and they enlisted anyway. So...Forsake our Troops! Th Let 'em die in combat-- we don't need their ilk in this country!

# Carl Watner with Wendy McElroy - National Identification Systems: Essays in Opposition - link contains the contents of a book edited by Mr. Watner and Ms. McElroy. It also links to two articles by Mr. Watner, and contains an address from which you can order the book ($33.95 postpaid). [sunni]

This is more than a book about national ID. It is about all forms of government enumeration, from the census of antiquity, to government naming practices, fingerprinting, social security numbers, and drivers licenses, to cutting-edge biometric technologies such as DNA, iris scans, or subcutaneous microchips capable of allowing those in charge to know where we are twenty-four hours a day via global positioning satellites. This book looks at the big picture of national ID: what it is, how it has developed, and how it might potentially change our society. It is also about those who have chosen to resist or oppose national ID schemes - from Gandhi's satyagraha campaign in South Africa in 1906 to those Americans who refuse to be counted or carry a government number. These "Essays in Opposition" are intended to honor those whose consciences and principles do not allow them to "roll over and acquiesce.

# Joel on Software Making Wrong Code Look Wrong - on the difference between Apps Hungarian (good) and Systems Hungarian (bad) and why Joel doesn't like exceptions. I agree with him on the Hungarian, but I love exceptions.

# Rolling Stone - In Brief: Wonder, Foos - June 14 is the new release date for Stevie Wonder's new album, A Time 2 Love. [google]

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair