Forwarded by The Word Warriorette
"Will forward - You decide"
07-23-99 06:33 PM
God save the Republic and the Constitution of the united States of America!
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<<Food for thought...
Amerika, Amerika
by Claire Wolfe
Let me run by you a brief list of items that are "the law" in America today.
As you read, consider what all these have in common.
1. A national database of employed people.
2. 100 pages of new "health care crimes," for which the penalty is (among
other things) seizure of assets from both doctors and patients.
3. Confiscation of assets from any American who establishes foreign
citizenship.
4. The largest gun confiscation act in U.S. history - which is also an
unconstitutional ex postfacto law and the first law ever to remove people's
constitutional rights for committing a misdemeanor.
5. A law banning guns in ill-defined school zones; random roadblocks may be
used for enforcement; gun-bearing residents could become federal criminals
just by stepping outside their doors or getting into vehicles.
6. Increased funding for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, an
agency infamous for its brutality, dishonesty and ineptitude.
7. A law enabling the executive branch to declare various groups "Terrorists"
- without stating any reason and without the possibility of appeal. Once a
group has been so declared, its mailing and membership lists must be turned
over to the government.
8. A law authorizing secret trials with secret evidence for certain classes
of people.
9. A law requiring that all states begin issuing drivers licenses carrying
Social Security numbers and "security features" (such as magnetically coded
fingerprints and personal records) by October 1, 2000. By October 1, 2006,
"Neither the Social Security Administration or the Passport Office or any
other Federal agency or any State or local government agency may accept for
any evidentiary purpose a State driver's license or identification document
in a form other than [one issued with a verified Social Security number and
'security features']."
10. And my personal favorite - a national database, now being constructed,
that will contain every exchange and observation that takes place in your
doctor's office. This includes records of your prescriptions, your
hemorrhoids and your mental illness. It also includes - by law - any
statements you make ("Doc, I'm worried my kid may be on drugs .... Doc, I've
been so stressed out lately I feel about ready to go postal.") and any
observations your doctor makes about your mental or physical condition,
whether accurate or not, whether made with your knowledge or not. For the
time being, there will be zero (count 'em, zero) privacy safeguards on this
data. But don't worry, your government will protect you with some undefined
"privacy standards" in a few years.
All of the above items are the law of the land. Federal law. What else do
they have in common?
Well, when I ask this question to audiences, I usually get the answer,
"They're all unconstitutional."
True.
My favorite answer came from an eloquent college student who blurted,
"They all SUUUCK!" Also true.
But the saddest and most telling answer is: They were all the product of the
104th Congress. Every one of the horrors above was imposed upon you by the
Congress of the Republican- Revolution -- the Congress that pledged to "get
government off your back."
BURYING TIME BOMBS
All of the above became law by being buried in larger bills. In many cases,
they are hidden sneak attacks upon individual liberties that were neither
debated on the floor of Congress nor reported in the media. For instance,
three of the most horrific items (the health care database, asset
confiscation for foreign residency and the 100 pages of health care crimes)
were hidden in the Kennedy-Kassebaum Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act of 1996 (HR 3103).
You didn't hear about them at the time because the media was too busy
celebrating this moderate, compromise bill that "simply" ensured that no
American would ever lose insurance coverage due to a job change or a
Pre-existing condition.
Your legislator may not have heard about them, either. Because he or she
didn't care enough to do so. The fact is, most legislators don't even read
the laws they inflict upon the public. They read the title of the bill
(which may be something like "The Save the Sweet Widdle Babies from Gun
Violence by Drooling Drug Fiends Act of 1984"). They read summaries, which
are often prepared by the very agencies or groups pushing the bill. And they
vote according to various deals or pressures.
It also sometimes happens that the most horrible provisions are sneaked into
bills during conference committee negotiations, after both House and
Senate have voted on their separate versions of the bills. The conference
committee
process is supposed simply to reconcile differences between two versions of a
bill. But power brokers use it for purposes of their own, adding what they
wish. Then members of the House and Senate vote on the final, unified
version of the bill, often in a great rush, and often without even having the
amended text available for review.
I have even heard (though I cannot verify) that stealth provisions were
written into some bills after all the voting has taken place. Someone with a
hidden agenda simply edits them in to suit his or her own purposes. So these
time bombs become "law" without ever having been voted on by anybody.
And who's to know? If congress people don't even read legislation before
they vote on it, why would they bother reading it afterward? Are power
brokers capable of such chicanery? Do we even need to ask? Is the computer
system in which bills are stored vulnerable to tampering by people within or
outside of Congress? We certainly should ask. Whether your legislators were
ignorant of the infamy they were perpetrating, or whether they knew, one
thing is absolutely certain:
The Constitution, your legislator's oath to it, and your inalienable rights
(which precede the Constitution) never entered into anyone's consideration.
Ironically, you may recall that one of the early pledges of Newt Gingrich and
Company was to stop these stealth attacks. Very early in the 104th Congress,
the Republican leadership declared that, henceforth, all bills would deal
only with the subject matter named in the title of the bill. When, at the
beginning of the first session of the 104th, pro-gun Republicans attempted to
attach a repeal of the "assault weapons" ban to another bill, House leaders
dismissed their amendment as not being "germane." After that self-righteous
and successful attempt to prevent pro-freedom stealth legislation, Congress
people turned right around and got back to the dirty old business of
practicing all the anti-freedom stealth they were capable of.
STEALTH ATTACKS IN BROAD DAYLIGHT
Three other items on my list (ATF funding, gun confiscation and school zone
roadblocks) were also buried in a big bill - HR 3610, the budget
appropriation passed near the end of the second session of the 104th
Congress. No legislator can claim to have been unaware of these three
because they were brought to public attention by gun-rights groups and hotly
debated in both Congress and the media. Yet some 90 percent of all congress
people voted for them including many who claim to be ardent protectors of the
rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment. Why?
Well, in the case of my wrapped-in-the-flag, allegedly pro- gun, Republican
congressperson: "Bill Clinton made me do it!"
Okay, I paraphrase. What she actually said was more like, "It was part of a
budget appropriations package. The public got mad at us for shutting the
government down in 1994. If we hadn't voted for this budget bill, they might
have elected a Democratic legislature in 1996 - and you wouldn't want THAT,
would you?" Oh heavens, no I'd much rather be enslaved by people who spell
their name with an R than people who spell their name with a D. Makes all the
difference in the world!
HOW SNEAK ATTACKS ARE JUSTIFIED
The Republicans are fond of claiming that Bill Clinton "forced" them to pass
certain legislation by threatening to veto anything they sent to the White
House that didn't meet his specs. In other cases (as with the
Kennedy-Kassebaum bill), they proudly proclaim their misdeeds in the name of
bipartisanship - while carefully forgetting to mention the true nature of
what they're doing. In still others, they trumpet their triumph over the
evil Democrats and claim the mantle of limited government while sticking it
to us and to the Constitution. The national database of workers was in the
welfare reform bill they "forced" Clinton to accept. The requirement for SS
numbers and ominous "security" devices on driver's licenses originated in
their very own Immigration Control and Financial Responsibility Act of 1996,
HR 2202. Another common trick, called to my attention by Redmon Barbry,
publisher of the electronic magazine Fratricide, is to hide duplicate or
near-duplicate provisions in several bills. Then, when the Supreme Court
declares Section A of Law Z to be -unconstitutional, its kissing cousin,
Section B of Law Y, remains to rule us.
Sometimes this particular form of trickery is done even more brazenly; when
the Supreme Court, in its Lopez decision, declared federal-level school zone
gun bans unconstitutional because Congress demonstrated no jurisdiction,
Congress brassily changed a few words. They claimed that school zones fell
under the heading of "interstate commerce." Then they sneaked the provision
into HR 3610, where it became "law" once again. When angry voters upbraid
congress people about some Big Brotherish horror they've inflicted upon the
country by stealth, they claim lack of knowledge, lack of time, party
pressure, public pressure, or they justify themselves by claiming that the
rest of the bill was "good".
The simple fact is that, regardless of what reasons legislators may claim,
the U.S. Congress has passed more Big Brother legislation in the last two
years - more laws to enable tracking, spying and controlling - than any
Democratic congress ever passed. And they have done it, in large part, in
secret. Redmon Barbry put it best: "We the people have the right to expect
our elected representatives to read, comprehend and master the bills they
vote on. If this means Congress passes only 50 bills per session instead of
5,000, so be it. As far as I am concerned, whoever subverts this process is
committing treason." By whatever means the deed is done, there is no
acceptable excuse for voting against the Constitution, voting for tyranny.
And I would add to Redmon's comments: Those who do read the bills, then
knowingly vote to ravage our liberties, are doubly guilty. But when do the
treason trials begin?
BILLS AS WINDOW DRESSING FOR AN UGLY AGENDA
The truth is that these tiny, buried provisions are often the real intent of
the law, and that the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pages thatsurround them
are sometimes nothing more than elaborate window dressing. These tiny
time bombs are placed there at the behest of federal police agencies or other
power groups whose agenda is not clearly visible to us. And their impact is
felt long after the outward intent of the bill has been forgotten.
Civil forfeiture - now one of the plagues of the nation was first introduced
in the 1970s as one of those buried, almost unnoticed provisions of a larger
law. One wonders why on earth a "health care bill" carried a provision to
confiscate the assets of people who become frightened or discouraged enough
to leave the country. (In fact, the entire bill was an amendment to the
Internal Revenue Code. Go figure.)
I think we all realize by now that that database of employed people will
still be around enabling government to track our locations (and heaven knows
what else. about us, as the database is enhanced and expanded) long after the
touted benefits of "welfare reform" have failed to materialize.
And most grimly of all, our drivers licenses will be our de facto national ID
card long after immigrants have ceased to want to come to this Land of the
Once Free.
CONTROL REIGNS
It matters not one whit whether the people controlling you call themselves
R's or D's, liberals or conservatives, socialists or even (I hate to admit
it) libertarians. It doesn't matter whether they vote for these horrors
because they're not paying attention or because they actually like such
things.
What matters is that the pace of totalitarianism is increasing. And it is
coming closer to our daily lives all the time. Once your state passes the
enabling legislation (under threat of losing "federal welfare dollars"), it
is YOUR name and Social Security number that will be entered in that employee
database the moment you go to work for a new employer. It is YOU who will be
unable to cash a check, board an airplane, get a passport or be allowed any
dealings with any government agency if you refuse to give your SS number to
the drivers license bureau. It is YOU who will be endangered by driving
"illegally" if you refuse to submit to Big Brother's procedures. It is YOU
whose psoriasis, manic depression or prostate troubles will soon be the
reading matter of any bureaucrat with a computer. It is YOU who could be
declared a member of a "foreign terrorist" organization just because you
bought a book or concert tickets from some group the government doesn't like.
It is YOU who could lose your home, bank account and reputation because you
made a mistake on a health insurance form. Finally, when you become truly
desperate for freedom, it is YOU whose assets will be seized if you try to
flee this increasingly insane country.
As Ayn Rand said in Atlas Shrugged, "There's no way to rule innocent men.
The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well,
when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many
things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without
breaking laws."
It's time to drop any pretense: We are no longer law- abiding citizens. We
have lost our law-abiding status. There are simply too many laws to abide.
And because of increasingly draconian penalties and electronic tracking
mechanisms, our "lawbreaking" places us and our families in greater jeopardy
every day.
STOPPING RUNAWAY GOVERNMENT
The question is: What are we going to do about it? Write a. nice, polite
letter to your congressperson? Hey, if you think that'll help, I've got a
bridge you might be interested in buying. (And it isn't your "bridge to the
future," either.)
Vote "better people, into office? Oh yeah, that's what we thought we were
doing in 1994. Work to fight one bad bill or another? Okay. What will you
do about the 10 or 20 or 100 equally horrible bills that will be passed
behind your back while you were fighting that little battle? And let's say
you defeat a nightmare bill this year. What, are you going to do when they
sneak it back in, at the very last minute, in some "omnibus legislation" next
year? And what about the horrors you don't even learn about until two or
three years after they become law? Should you try fighting these laws in the
courts? Where do you find the resources? Where do you find a judge who
doesn't have a vested interest in bigger, more powerful government? And
again, for every one case decided in favor of freedom, what do you do about
the 10, 20 or 100 in which the courts decide against the Bill of Rights?
Perhaps you'd consider trying to stop the onrush of these horrors with a
constitutional amendment - maybe one that bans "omnibus" bills, requires that
every law meet a constitutional test or requires all congress people to sign
statements that they've read and understood every aspect of every bill on
which they vote. Good luck! Good luck, first, on getting such an amendment
passed. Then good luck getting our Constitution-scorning "leaders" to obey
it. It is true that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, and part of
that vigilance has been, traditionally, keeping a watchful eye on laws and on
lawbreaking lawmakers.
But given the current pace of law spewing and unconstitutional
regulation-writing, you could watch, plead and struggle "within the system"
24 hours a day for your entire life and end up infinitely less free than when
you begin. Why throw your life away on a futile effort?
Face it. If "working within the system" could halt tyranny, the tyrants
would outlaw it. Why do you think they encourage you to vote, to write
letters, to talk to them in public forums? It's to divert your energies. To
keep you tame. 'The system" as it presently exists is nothing but a rat
maze. You run around thinking you're getting somewhere. Your masters
occasionally reward you with a little pellet that encourages you to believe
you're accomplishing something. And in the meantime, you are as much their
property and their pawn as if you were a slave. In the effort of fighting
them on their terms and with their authorized and approved tools, you have
given your life's energy to them as surely as if you were toiling in their
cotton fields, under the lash of their overseer. The only way we're going to
get off this road to Hell is if we jump off. If we, personally, as
individuals, refuse to cooperate with evil. How we do that is up to each of
us. I can't decide for you, nor you for me.
(Unlike congress people, who think they can decide for everybody.) But this
totalitarian runaway truck is never going to stop unless we stop it, in any
way we can Stopping it might include any number of things: tax resistance;
public civil disobedience; wide-scale, silent non-cooperation; highly noisy
non-cooperation; boycotts; secession efforts; monkey wrenching; computer
hacking; dirty tricks against government agents; public shunning of employees
of abusive government agencies; alternative, self-sufficient communities that
provide their own medical care and utilities.
There are thousands of avenues to take, and this is something most of us
still need to give more thought to before we can build an effective
resistance. We will each choose the courses that are right for our own
circumstances, personalities and beliefs.
Whatever we do, though, we must remember that we are all, already, outlaws.
Not one of us can be certain of going through a single day without violating
some law or regulation we've never even heard of. We are all guilty in the
eyes of today's law. If someone in power chooses to target us, we can all,
already, be prosecuted for something. And I'm sure you know that your claims
of "good intentions" won't protect you, as the similar claims of politicians
protect them. Politicians are above the law. YOU are under it. Crushed
under it. When you look at it that way, we have little left to lose by
breaking laws creatively and purposefully. Yes, some of us will suffer
horrible consequences for our lawbreaking. It is very risky to actively
resist unbridled power. It is especially risky to go public with resistance
(unless hundreds of thousands publicly join us), and it becomes riskier the
closer we get to tyranny. For that reason, among many others, I would never
recommend any particular course of action to anyone - and I hope you'll think
twice before taking "advice" from anybody about things that could jeopardize
your life or well-being. But if we don't resist in the best ways we know how
and if a good number of us don't resist loudly and publicly - all of us will
suffer the much worse consequences of living under total oppression. And
whatever courses of action we choose, we must remember that this legislative
"revolution" against We the People will not be stopped by politeness. It
will not be stopped by requests. It will not be stopped by "working within a
system" governed by those who regard us as nothing but cattle. It will not
be stopped by pleading for justice from those who will resort to any degree
of trickery or violence to rule us.
It will not be stopped unless we are willing to risk our lives, our fortunes
and our sacred honors to stop it. I think of the words of Winston Churchill:
"If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without
bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so
costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all
the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be
a
worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory,
because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
NOTES on the laws listed above:
1. (employee database) Welfare Reform Bill, HR 3734; became public law
104-193 on 8/221996; see section 453A.
2. (health care crimes) Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
of 1996, HR 3103; became public law 104-191 on 8/21/96.
3. (asset confiscation for citizenship change) Same law as #2; see sections
511-513.
4., 5., and 6. (anti-gun laws) Omnibus Appropriations Act, HR 3610; became
public law 104-208 on 9/30/96.
7. and 8. (terrorism & secret trials) Antiterrorism and Effective Death
Penalty Act of 1996; S 735; became public law 104-132 on 4/24/96; see all of
Title III, specifically sections 302 and 219; also see all of Tide IV,
specifically sections 401, 501, 502 and 503.
9. (de facto national ID card) Began life in the Immigration Control and
Financial Responsibility Act of 1996, sections III, II 8, 119, 127 and 133;
was eventually folded into the Omnibus Appropriations Act, HR 3610 (which was
itself formerly called the Defense Appropriations Act - but we wouldn't want
to confuse anyone, here, would we?); became public law 104-208 on 9/30/96;
see sections 656 and 657 among others.
10. (health care database) Health Insurance Portability and Accountability
Act of 1996, HR 3103; became public law 104-191 on 8/21/96; see sections 262,
263 and 264, among others. The various provisions that make up the full
horror of this database are scattered throughout the bill and may take hours
to track down; this one is stealth legislation at its utmost sneakiest. And
one final, final note: Although I spent aggravating hours verifying the
specifics of these bills (a task I swear I will never waste my life on
again!), the original list of bills at the top of this article was NOT the
result of extensive research. It was simply what came off the top of my head
when I thought of Big Brotherish bills from the 104th Congress. For all I
know, Congress has passed 10 times more of that sort of thing. In fact, the
worst "law" in the list -- #9, the de facto national ID card -- just came to
my attention as I was writing this essay, thanks to the enormous efforts of
Jackie Juntti and Ed Lyon and others, who researched the law. Think of it:
Thanks to congressional stealth tactics, we had the long-dreaded national ID
card legislation for five months, without a whisper of discussion, before
freedom activists began to find out about it. Makes you wonder what else
might be lurking out there, doesn't it? And on that cheery note - THE END
Copyrighted by Claire Wolfe. Permission to reprint freely granted, provided
the article is reprinted in full and that any reprint is accompanied by this
copyright statement
>>
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