http://www.inlibertyandfreedom.com/amerika.htm
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
drivers 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 that surround 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 8/22196; 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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