Editor's note: The following is one of our most popular commentaries. It has been published and republished many times over. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it and offering it for your perusal. ... J. D. Longstreet
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(March 2010)
National ID
Card Or A Number Tattooed On Your Arm?
By: J. D. Longstreet
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I read recently that
a proposal for a National I.D. card for American citizens may soon be back on
the table for consideration by US lawmakers. There are some who believe
approval for a National ID card is growing.
I have to ask: what
is wrong with Americans? Are we sheep to be herded by a National
Shepherd? Where is the individualism that won this country from the
British and then stretched it across the entire continent to the shores of the
Pacific? Even the oceans could not hold back our burning desire, our passion, for
FREEDOM! Yet, today, we are begging the federal government to take
our freedoms away! This is scandalous! This borders on cowardice of
the highest magnitude!
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Are we so quick to
give back the liberties bought with the precious blood of our forefathers, our
ancestors, and in many cases our immediate relatives? In
cemeteries all over the globe lie the bodies of American men and women who put
their lives on the line and shed their blood up to the "last full
measure" to ensure you and I the freedoms we are now begging the
Federal Government to take away!
Some example we are
setting for the rest of the world! Look at the cowardly Americans.
They talk a good game but when the going gets tough they run to hide under the
wings of the Federal Nanny!
Our national motto
is: "In God We Trust." Apparently it’s a
lie! If we truly placed our trust in God we would not be so
hasty to misplace it in a government, which is already too big and
intrusive.
There comes a time
when we have to stand on our own two feet. Sure there is risk
involved in living free! That's why it's called freedom.
It means, simply, that you (you and I) take responsibility for
ourselves! Example: If I'm afraid to get on a plane.... then
I WON'T get on a plane! We have
to understand, as did our forefathers, that living free does not mean,
necessarily, living secure! To live free, it is required that we
must live with certain insecurities, or risks.
There is also the
thing called “respect” and “self-respect.”
Respect is earned. You earn the
respect of your fellowman, and the respect of the world, by standing on your
own two feet as a man! You do not earn respect by leaning on others… and that
includes leaning on the government. Modern day Americans have forgotten that. I
am embarrassed, as an American, to find that I even feel I have to
explain that to my fellow Americans!
Something profound
has happened to Americans. That steel in
our character is gone. That “damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead”
characteristic of American manhood is not there anymore. As a result, our way
of life, our freedom, indeed, our nation is at risk. American used to be known for sticking their
finger in the eye of government.
I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me. I am proud of my ancestors who were
bootleggers and smugglers. They left me
more than fond memories. They left me
with a strong distrust of government. I
think that distrust is healthy.
They left me something else as well.
They made me understand that the government is not responsible for
me. They taught me that a
man is always responsible for himself.
They taught me that the more I depended on government the more dependence
government would require until I had nothing left to give and then I
would find that I was a slave to that government.
The historian Edward
Gibbon had it about right when he wrote of ancient Athens: "In the end, more than
freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life and they
lost it all… security, comfort, and freedom. When the
Athenians finally wanted NOT TO GIVE TO SOCIETY BUT FOR SOCIETY TO GIVE TO
THEM, when the freedom they wanted most was FREEDOM FROM
RESPONSIBILITY, then ATHENS CEASED TO BE FREE...AND NEVER WAS FREE AGAIN!
I agree that we need
some government. But, I believe, as did our forefathers, that the government, especially the federal
government, was, and is, intended to be an agent of the states,
and not the other way around! Our American Founders believed a federal
government was answerable to the states… not the states to the federal
government.
I believe the
government does some things well.... as it should. One such thing is
"provide for the common defense" with a well trained and
equipped military. I believe as did one of our founding fathers,
Thomas Paine, one of the early “pamphleteers” (Most likely a “Blogger” today!)
who said: "Government, even in its best state, is a necessary
evil; in it's worse state, and intolerable one." (From: Common
Sense).
In this Constitutional Republic we call America; it is up to us, the citizens, to keep
our government on a short rein. Indeed, it is our duty,
as citizens, to keep the tentacles of government out of our every day
existence. They have no business there. We must be wary of
"Knee-Jerk" responses to danger, real or imagined, such as I believe
the National I.D. Card to be. If the government wants to "Card"
somebody, why not make every one not a citizen of this country carry
one (an I.D. card) while inside our borders?
How dangerous is Big
Government? Well, I believe Alexis de Tocqueville summed it up
nicely when writing of the dangers of big government. Tocqueville said of big government:
"it covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated
rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds, and the most
energetic characters, cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will
of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, guided; men are seldom forced
by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a
power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize,
but it compresses, extinguishes, and stupefies people, 'til each
nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious
animals, of which the government is the shepherd." (Alexis de
Tocqueville on "Big Government".)
Well, there you have
it. Animals with a shepherd!
I don't know about
you, but I don't want to be counted among the animals that need
a shepherd. I, like millions of Americans before me, will
live free! I do not choose to beg the government to take
back the liberty my ancestors fought and died that I might have. It's
blasphemy!
I want my
grandchildren to live, and grow up, in a free country.
A country, which will allow them to be everything they are capable of
being. I don't want their prospects to be lessened by the intrusions of
government. I owe them
that. I owe them an America in which they can be FREE. Free to succeed and, yes, free
to fail! I owe them an America my father, and my forefathers, placed
in my safe keeping (as did yours) at my (our) birth. To
be worthy custodians of this nation’s freedom, we must insure that
we pass it along no less free that when we received it!
As I look about me
today, at modern day America, I have to conclude we have failed at
the
single most important task we have as adult Americans. That task is to preserve
freedom in this country… to guarantee a future for our children in a free
nation. A National ID card is much the same as a tattooed number on your
forearm. It is proof of ownership… by
someone other than you. Next
will come the National RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chip implanted at
birth. It will broadcast a radio signal all the days of your life telling the
government who you are, and where you are, at all times. National ID, of any
kind, takes away one of your basic rights, the right to privacy.
the
single most important task we have as adult Americans. That task is to preserve
freedom in this country… to guarantee a future for our children in a free
nation. A National ID card is much the same as a tattooed number on your
forearm. It is proof of ownership… by
someone other than you. Next
will come the National RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chip implanted at
birth. It will broadcast a radio signal all the days of your life telling the
government who you are, and where you are, at all times. National ID, of any
kind, takes away one of your basic rights, the right to privacy.
It is time to get a
grip, America! Our
National Anthem says: “…The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.” Well, don’t you think it is about time
we began to act like it? A National ID card would say to the world
just the opposite.
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