I rooted around looking for more reactions on Keller and found:
- None was quicker to respond than Evan McMurry at PoliticOlogy. He dissected Keller's marginalization arguments as if Keller were in his own living room.
"Ah, yes, pulling people over demanding their papers. And how do they know from whom to ask for those papers? If you put Bill Keller in an old GMC and had him drive around in the Arizona desert with 1,000 pounds of cocaine in the back, would he ever once be stopped and asked for his biometric social security card? Nope. It doesn't matter what kind of identification BK has, because no AZ cop will ever require it of him."
- ‘Thank God I’m not Bill Keller’s type of journalist' - A fair charachter assault from J. Assange
- David Frum at the Daily Beast didn't even analyze it at all. He he threw the news to a pack of wolves in the comments section who tore it apart.
- An affirmation from a Francophile statist who prefers the socialized everything category, featuring a French passport to illustrate an American identity article.
- A few words from the LBZ, "When Facism comes to America, The Moderates Will Be the First to Welcome It.
~***~
Why Bill Keller should stick to Democratic politics vs. Stasi tools of political control
BTC - The NYTimes collected their altar of media faithful and recommended ...a national ID, in an article called Show Me Your Papers featured here at BeatTheChip.
First, Keller said nothing of the States who passed laws against the Real ID Act.
Keller made his case for national ID alluding to the order that it would provide to humanize the problems in Arizona presented by State approved racial profiling. Unfortunately, the Orwellian manifest destiny of an American nationalized identity system has already shown its hand. There is no real precedent for America to move ahead the "humane" or "democratic" version of a national ID system because we already have the "humane and democratic" militarized American police. We already have 737 "humanitarian and democratic" military bases all over the world. American "democracy" has lost whatever integrity it had when it allowed neo-liberals to start shot calling to keep the war debt high, stoke globalism, the WTO and the tax cannibalism of things Americans *really* can do themselves.
I don't believe Democrats and their politicians are inherently more humane or moral. Their plan for healthcare includes, not just a national ID card, but finance plan is based on adjusting Student Loan interest rates to pay for nationalized healthcare and an individual mandate. Their version of dealing with humanitarian interests of immigrants in their country and violence at the borders is to deny the ATF was walking guns over, US engineering of the entire drug war/trade or shelving immigration reform until it's politically expedient. The Dream Act, a moderate proposal, isn't making it in our Congress because our "democracy" only has one real economic priority: war and export of the national security State. Real ID and national ID cards fall under Homeland Security, so it will get a hearing.
When Keller says "democracy" it's the totalitarian democracy of empire because that's the only one we have. It's not the one where you are permitted to hang onto basic freedom of movement without checking in directly with Big Brother. The unfortunate truth is that our nation state has gone far out of their way on "democratic" auspices to bring us drone warfare, suppression of speech by threatening Wikileaks with death, and international trade meddling to escalate handpicked winners vs. consumer demand for what I want to buy.
As data and identity continue to be a secondary form of currency in the shell game of trade we have in the United States, a national ID would be screwed down to mean less and worth less to maximize the squeeze of economic control by the State.
Keller's systemic proposals seem kind and genuine, but again this is all being done, naturally, on the backs of taxpayers. It always makes more sense when you are not paying for it. Non-profit tax shelters work for elitist democrats just as well as greedy Libertarians.
The NYTimes has closed comments for Keller's article at this time, but I didn't trust their paper enough to post responsible dissent in the first place. The State of New York issues Real ID certified license every day. Their journalists, if they drive to work, get to thank Governor Spitzer for that. However, they can thank people at Cato, the ACLU, EPIC, EFF and maybe even little BeatTheChip, in part, for the fact that it's not a national ID card.
No comments:
Post a Comment