Power
"I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the other oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" -- O'Brien, Orwell's 1984
# whitehouse.gov - Statement on H.R. 1268, the "Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, 2005 - Bush wasted no time. He signed REAL ID into law on Wednesday, though this statement says nothing whatsoever about that part of H.R. 1268. Figures.
# Bill St. Clair - Open Letter To President Bush on the Signing of the REAL ID Act - a little satire for your Friday the 13th.
# Claire Wolfe - Stay Angry about the National ID. [claire]
Now, I'm aware that our drivers licenses have effectively functioned as national ID cards since the late 1990s. Heck, I even wrote a book about that, and if you haven't read it, now might be the time. The moment SSNs became linked with drivers licenses was a bad moment, and if you've given an SSN to obtain the "privilege" of driving, you've alread submitted to the federalization of ID. So perhaps Real ID looks like just one more incremental change. (It could be argued that the moment our grandparents like the state control their right to travel was a bad moment, too; I won't disagree.)
But the Real ID act takes the gloves off, even while its promoters tell us to believe otherwise. It gives control of driving -- and data -- to the Homeland "Achtung!" Security Department. Go ahead and consider it another incremental change, if you wish. But if so, please consider it incremental in the same way that one more straw on the camel's back is incremental. National ID is here. In May 2008, America -- which has been headed that way for a long time -- becomes a nation of serfs and subjects.
# L. Neil Smith - Books Banned like Guns Banned - suppose books were "regulated" the same way that guns are "regulated". An absurd idea, you say? No more absurd than Federal Firearms Licenses, carry permits, and handgun purchase waiting periods. An oldie but goodie. [smith2004]
