Saturday, January 22, 2011
Identification? You are known!
The Perils of Today's Government
Perhaps it is simply too late to turn back the thrust for accurate and complete identification, credit worthiness, a drug free body, and income security available to far too many people.
We have a Social Security Number. We have a Driver's License Number. We have Credit information filed in at least three major national organizations with file numbers. We have our income information filed in at least two or three government organizations--federal (IRS), state, and local governments--using the SSN, or something equivalent. We have one or more credit cards with substantial information filed at the card's organization number, which can be used to assess your purchases and gas buying habits. We have our property ownership filed at the courthouse and available to all.
We have a passport with a full docket on us filed at the State Department, including where we have traveled over the years. If you work for the government or are in the military, or are a contractor that requires a security clearance on you, the intelligence agencies have your fingerprints, picture, and history of addresses you have lived in, as well as commentary from investigators that have interviewed your neighbors, as well as all of the above imformation as they feel is needed.
Any private investigator worth his pay can compile a very substantial dossier on you without leaving his office desk, and so can any government agency that decides to take an interest in you.
The very last step is a national identification card that can be correlated with any of the above files on you, thus allowing for a much easier access to the sum of your dossiers by anyone with a modicrum of authority to do so, of whom there are legions.
The clock will not be turned back, unfortunately, so we must find the methods and practices that preserve our lives and our freedoms despite this massive amount of personal information available to these legions of curious people. Just how we do this is not clear to me. Any ideas?
Crossposted at American Thinker
Labels: Freedom, Identity Card
Thursday, September 02, 2010
Illegal Immigration
A quest for the right solution
For me, the starting point is the 11 million or so illegal immigrants now in the nation. They are human beings that were driven to breaking our laws simply to feed, clothe, and house their families back home. While we could organize a mass deportation over a few years, the human suffering and the dislocation of the Mexican economy–and our own economy–by such an act needs to be taken fully into account.
There are few answers that satisfy all comers to this issue. It seems to me that we need itenerant workers, and we need skilled workers, yet the quotas for them are not sufficiently high to allow for sufficient numbers of itenerants. Creating an effective itenerant worker program should be very high on the to-do list. Despite a number of difficulties, I believe that the US can solve this IW problem.
Good fences make good neighbors. We should complete the border fences and any other necessary additions to shut down illegal entry insofar as possible, while at the same time allowing legal entry to many more migrant workers under suitable controls. Employer sponsorship should be made more stringent and costly, and the migrants themselves should be monitored far more closely. The basic premise is that a migrant is not a candidate for citizenship here; he is expected to return home once his job is ended. Illegal hiring of migrants by employers should be penalized heavily.
Amnesty is another “third rail” issue. I believe it is not fair to those who have tried for years to emigrate legally to wipe the slate clean for the illegals that have managed to survive here—and to prosper in many cases. If we gave amnesty to all 11 million illegals today, we would in effect saying that the doors are open for all to come, and wait out the next round of amnesty here, instead of waiting for legal emigration at home.
This brings our current emigration policy into play. We have gone from Y’all come, to a strict quota system, and then to a looser system now in vogue that I cannot describe. I suppose the question is, how many emigrees per year in total should we allow in the US from now on? a million? Ten million? What? Should we require that emigrees be able to earn a living by way of their skills, or by sponsorship? Recognize too that by allowing many unskilled people into the nation during boom times, inevitably results in having them here without jobs during downtimes, when they may leave on their own, or may not.
I have not seen much cogent analysis of these issues by commentors here in blogs, but a lot of posturing for effect or beating of sour drums, when these and more issues cry for intelligent responses.
Labels: Identity Card, Illegals, Immigration
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Healthcare
Things that should be done now:
1. Ensure financial security for Medicare and Medicaid
2. Ensue financial security of Social Security
3. Reform the tort system to eliminate abuses
4. Reform the administration of Medicare and Medicaid
5. Allow health insurance to be portable across state lines and from company to company
6. Eliminate the “doughnut hole” in prescription insurance
7. Eliminate the mandatory ER treatment for scofflaws
8. Eliminate the mandatory hospitalization of all comers
9. Ensure no free coverage for aliens
10. Require immigrants and visitors to take out adequate health insurance in advance of entry into the US
11. Require employers of aliens to take out health insurance on their employees and families.
12. Require proper ID for all persons in the nation.
13. No refusal by insurance companies because of preexisting conditions, but allow them to set premiums to balance the risk.
14. No limits on maximum coverage in a lifetime
15. No cancellation of policies that are kept current in payments.
16. No increase in the national debt--pay as you go!
17. No establishment of a government bureaucracy or increased government employment for health reasons.
Labels: Health Debate, Identity Card, Illegals
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
A National Identification Card
What, pray tell, is wrong with having a high tech national identification card?
When this subject first came up, I took out my wallet and examined the cards I currently carry around. A driver's license with my SS number on it and my address and picture; my Medicare card and alternate insurance card; my honorable discharge card; three credit cards; my voter card; and sundry others, all painting a picture of my existence in the US. Through access to my credit reports, many companies and their employees can find out in great detail what I have been buying, how well I pay my bills, and on and on. If stopped by the police, I must show them my identification. If I want to fly overseas, I must show not only my driver's license, but also my passport, so airlines have a record of my flights too. TSA looks for my name on their no-fly list, which isn't there, so far! A number of services on line will research my background, the property I own, and many other facts recorded in databanks. The IRS can access my financial records , and the FBI or DOD can access my clearance records dating back to 1952 or 53, everywhere I have worked, and what I was paid.
So why would I object to being issued an identity card expressly for myself? The answer is I would not object at all. The government already has all the access they need about me if they are going rogue with the people, which I say is ridiculous. So it isn't a problem of lessened degrees of freedom.
But, it seems to me that it is a problem for those who want the US to have open borders and a flood of illegal immigrants coming into the nation and wandering all over the place. A really good ID card would be a great stopper to the illegals, so long as they cannot forge it adequately! That seems to be a technical problem we could solve.
Labels: Identity Card, Illegals
