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The following is excerpted from an article published on The New American web site by William Norman Grigg.
“Proposals for national identification cards have always struck a raw nerve with Americans. Defenders of privacy and civil liberties are quick to invoke dystopian images of the dangers inherent in any system of national registration of citizens. They properly point out that any such system would be blatantly unconstitutional. Yet our nation is now dangerously close to just such a reality, with all of the implicit incentives for the further concentration and abuse of government power.
“But no matter how noble or politically attractive the cause, no federal law or regulation is justifiable on moral or other grounds if it is unconstitutional in the first place. Nor is an appeal to well-meaning but short-sighted leadership an adequate excuse. After all, as Friedrich A. von Hayek once observed, the problem with well-meaning rulers is that ‘they mean well, but they mean to rule.
“The more we allow government to grow, the more we increase the likelihood that, sooner or later, "benign" big government will be supplanted by totalitarian rule.... Americans ignore at their peril such matters as the promulgation of national IDs. For the day may come when markets will fail, confidence will falter, enemies will be arrayed against our nation, and technological innovation will be smothered under the stifling weight of big government. Then, if we allow potentially calamitous freedom-compromising legislation such as national IDs to pass unchallenged, we will find ourselves and our all-encompassing federal behemoth to be ripe for exploitation by totalitarian demagogues. Stopping the national ID card now will be a significant measure in preventing such an evil day.”
Read the entire article on www.thenewamerican.com.
Thanks to Phil Betz for bringing this article to our attention.
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