I’ve been thinking about Big Uncle. Actually I’ve been thinking about immigration, Arizona, the Courts, profiling, technology, data/ information collection, and a National ID. George Orwell published his dystopian novel 1984 some 60 years ago. Since that time, we have watched so many of the horrific predictions come to be. There have been some modifications to the Orwellian premises and predictions over the years, but so many of the negative items have been welcomed into our lives --- marketed to us as positives. This slick technique where Peace is War, Love is Hate, and Truth is… well, whatever our government chooses to tell us regardless of what the reality is. Reality comes from repetition -- if we hear it enough times, it must be true, right? We accept so many of these -isms and “bon mots” from Uncle without question. Down the primrose path we go a smiling and a skipping all the way.
You see, I’ve been amazed by the rapidity of the American transition downward since I first read 1984 in Rosie Stotmeister’s English class in high school in the late 1960s. While in 1984 everything was done in the name of “THE Party,” I’ve noted that regardless of whether the Dems or the Repubes had the majority in Washington DC, we have continued to move toward the mindless stupor of Orwell’s land under both. How conveeenient!!! Neither party wants the public to have “the true” facts and understand the rationale and forces behind what transpires in our government and drives/ defines our nation in challenge to their growing power over us. To quote that great philosopher Dan Conner (from Roseanne): “they want to keep us fat and stupid.” I can’t TH*NK of two better words to describe US/ us in 2010.
It has been only rarely that the courts and our justice system demanded a time out, and defended the original thoughts, wisdom, and logic behind the US Constitution. How often have the strict constructionalists (those who believe if the Constitution doesn’t say you can… you can’t) prevailed over the loose constructionalists (those who believe if the Constitution doesn’t say you can’t… you can)? Throw in the ambiguity of the tenth amendment (from the Bill of Rights): "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people" and the stage is set for another giant leap down the Orwell road to 1984.
Last week saw the onset of “a majority” of the newly passed Arizona “immigration fix it bill.” Those who opposed it got a court injunction on only part of the act. I fully expected this, what I didn’t expect was what the judge left intact and temporarily in effect! I thought we fought the Civil War to trump state actions over the Federal Government? Protection/ preservation of our borders is one of the items specifically delegated to Uncle $ugar in the Constitution. Well, Uncle has done squat and we now have at least between 20 and 30 MILLION illegal aliens in the US. The absence of immigration enforcement has taken (and is taking) a huge toll on the entire country and particularly on the border states of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California. Arizona took the lead in passing a new legal package that has the teeth of a school of piranhas. I knew there would be immediate court challenges to the law, but now I am not so sure that the judge’s restraints and dicta will hold up on appeal. Why only the limited actions, and not disavow the full blown state legislation in total --- which I expected?
Reading last week’s court decision and commentary you find that we have the whimpering of political correctness on steroids and vulgar whining of (gasp) “racial” profiling. This was expected, yet the right of a state to pick up the ball when Uncle is asleep on the bench really was NOT thrown out! This got me TH*NK*NG when the justice department came down as they did in this early stage challenge to the Arizona law, something is going on here that I did not fully understand, or like.
How could the Arizona law morph into an effective national policy that would categorically answer the issues of political correctness, “fairness,” and profiling? Then it hit me… if everyone had to carry an ID and were required to show it to authorities on request in a multitude of situations… humm??? Is this hot button election year issue of immigration going to get us to adopt a National ID for everyone without getting the mass screaming about 666 and the mark of the beast from the Book of Revelations? Would Uncle $ugar be THAT devious? And TH*NK*NG ahead that far? Double humm!
Technology has given “the powers that be” capabilities of tracking us within 50 to 100 feet literally anywhere on the planet. Computer memory has become dirt cheap. With a National ID there is a greatly improved means to catalogue our movements via our cell phones, our credit cards, our GPS devices, our toll road I-passes, and the locations of any RIFD chips in our clothing and shoes --- hence our locations are constantly and instantaneously known. It is sad, so very sad. In the past 30 to 40 years, we have witnessed the death of privacy, the death of outrage, and the death of individuality. Walden Pond has become such a toxic cesspool that even a "BP" can't restore it.
“Would you show me your papers, now???”
I’m Fred Cederholm and I’ve been thinking. You should be thinking, too.
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