HSA License Proposal Gives One Pause To Look At The Big Brother Issues Arising In A Single Week

While Homeland Security officials pushing a long-expected new driver's license measure say these changes won't affect me personally (because of my birth year), it in fact DOES affect me and all U.S. citizens.

So far, five states are refusing to go along with the new standards put in place by the federal government, and privacy advocates are justifiably concerned, as well. To give their order to move to the new system some teeth, federal regulators announced today that residents from states that do not agree to the new drivers' license standards WILL NOT be permitted to use their drivers licenses to board airline flights in the U.S. after May of this year. They will need to use a U.S. passport, instead.

I am not opposed to new security standards in order to prevent terrorist attacks upon my country. I do have issues with the PATRIOT Act. But at the same time, I concede that there have been a great number of potential terrorist incidents planned for this nation that have been broken up in advance of their execution. Many people miss that.

But there are differences between reasonable (there's that word again) efforts to secure our nation's borders, prevent terrorist attacks, and reduce street crime (let's call it drug violence), and a full-out assault on rights or routines based on the "we know whats best for you" formula right out of the Nanny State handbook.

Consider the following:

This week alone we have seen -- the federal government plan to create a national ID card; a California plan to require installation of electronic thermostats in private homes that can only be controlled by utility companies, proposed legislation in New York requiring background checks for the sale of black powder firearms; new policies from Citibank and First Data policies whereby the companies refuse to process electronic payments for firearms between manufacturers and dealers/retailers, or between dealers; reports that the NBA and NFL are telling their respective players not to keep firearms in their homes; Virginia renewing efforts to ban private firearms transactions at gun shows (but saying nothing about private transactions in general); the district attorney in San Francisco announcing she plans to join with other urban DAs in the U.S. to file a brief opposing the Supreme Court overturning the District of Columbia's antiquated handgun ban; the mayor of Cleveland predicting increased violence and bloodshed in the streets of his city as police target "gun crime" (instead of targeting the real problem -- drug crime -- which is breeding the so-called "gun crime"); President George W. Bush sign the NICS Improvement Act of 2007, which among other things, may well prohibit U.S. veterans, who even once spent time with a mental health professional, from legally owning a firearm; a Cook County, Ill. proposal that would effectively ban possession of pretty much every type of firearm; more evidence that incremental gun prohibition is coming in the form of a number of offenses being turned into felonies across the U.S.; Boston school officials outraged to learn a JROTC program has been teaching marksmanship using with air rifles in the basement of a local school, and trying to end this well-respected training in leadership and responsibility; a handful of Washington state citizens demanding promotional banners in Yakima be taken down because they think the banners include stylized rifle art; and the New York Times attacking a proposal by several U.S. senators to overturn the antiquated ban on firearm possession in U.S. national parks.

Whew!

The Party has taken early 20th century totalitarianism to new depths, with each person subjected to 24 hour surveillance and where people's very thoughts are controlled to ensure purity of the oligarchial system in place. Figurehead of the system is the omnipresent and omnipotent Big Brother. -- the plot of George Orwell's novel 1984

I've never been a big conspiracy guy. And I don't see black helicopters behind every building, tree and rock. I just don't.

But cumulatively, it all makes you think. The Nanny State is alive and well in the United States.