BROADSIDES

July 19, 2002

ATTABOY, DICK! Three cheers for Dick Armey. The House majority leader nixed the national ID card provision from the House's version of the homeland security bill. President Bush is in favor of the national ID card, but that wasn't always the case.

In the days immediately following the September attacks, Oracle honcho and all-around creep Larry Ellison offered to "donate" national ID card software to the federal government. (Contrary to his claims, Larry's "donation" was more of a foot-in-the-door and wasn't motivated by love of country. When pressed to clarify his act of philanthropy, Larry admitted that he would have to charge the federal government to upgrade the big brother-ish software.) President Bush initially rejected hysterical calls for a national ID card; the president seemed to understand that the lack of a national ID card program had nothing to do with the attacks on America. So it looked like Larry Ellison would have to give up his fascist dreams of an Oracle/federal government partnership to profit from the loss of his fellow citizens' freedoms. Then, for reasons never explained, the president changed his mind, and a national ID card provision was added to the White House's homeland security proposal.

I hate to be picky, but the Constitution does not grant Congress the authority to require citizens to have congressionally-mandated identification (though a strong argument can be made that that is precisely what the Social Security number has become.) The 10th Amendment to the Constitution should make disposition of this issue simple: "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." This is an issue for each State and the citizens of each State to consider and, if deemed necessary, to enact. I'm glad that Dick Armey cited this very reason.

The September 11 attacks, the suicide attack at the Los Angeles airport's El Al counter, the Daniel Pearl murder, the bombing of the Christian church in Pakistan, the attack on the USS Cole, the bombing of our embassies in Africa, the bombing of our troop barracks in the Khobar Towers, the '93 World Trade Center bombing, and the attempted assassination of George H.W. Bush in Kuwait were not the result, even in part, of the lack of an American national ID card. They were wholly the result of other nations hiring mercenaries to make war on the United States. Requiring Auntie Em to have a national ID card when the threat we face is in the form of middle-eastern Muslim terrorists is beyond stupid and is yet another government proposal to sprout from the freedom-sapping roots of political correctness.

After September 11, I fully expected the opponents of freedom to play on people's fears to further the cause of big government. What I didn't expect is that when it came to their appallingly unconstitutional, Orwellian national ID card, they would find an ally in President Bush.

B. Sides @ 9:57 AM