HEH! My "Conservative" Co-Worker Just Approached Me About National ID Card

[matcom]

don't jump on him TOO much. he is a REALLY nice guy (and intelligent enough to actually ASK my opinion on stuff)

Anyhoo..... we were out smoking and he asked me about National ID Cards. He wondered if I had heard.

Yeah, i've "heard"

He EXPLODED on Bush.

Went on for about 3 minutes at the top of his lungs. I smiled and told him they will have to take me away before they force me to use one.

I smiled wider and told him he better keep his voice down as "they" may be listening.

I smiled wider yet and told him "It's too late to start educating yourself now. You brought this on yourself. It is YOUR fault. I like you and respect you so it pains me to tell you this: sit.spin.enjoy your stay."

GAWDDAMN! that felt good

[NMDemDist2]

1. LOL Mat, did he respond?

some lame excuse no doubt?

[matcom]

3. nope. he is bullshit

"never thought it would happen here"

i reminded him of all my "conspiracy talk" over the last year.

nothing he could say to that.

nothing.

he is in a bad place tonight

[CatWoman]

9. Hey Sweetie

:hi:

did you ever touch base with Mike Malloy?

If you plan to call in tonite, let me know -- I'll TRY to stay up for ya :D

[matcom]

12. too late for me. may try and call him at home though

:loveya:

[xultar]

2. We need some W04 I Told you So Sit & Spin T-shirts cuz

I don't wanna lose my voice repeating I Told You So to ignorant W04 voters.

[pilgrimsoul]

6. Hehehe....what we need for the "Sit & Spin" t-shirts...

is that picture of Smirky McAsshat giving America the finger. Says it all, doesn't it?

[SemperEadem]

8. make the image spinning on *'s finger

that would be so apropo

[Quill Pen]

7. Little calling cards...

...we can keep in our wallets and just present as necessary. With an avatar-sized image of Chimpy McChimpster flipping off the camera.

"Government doing you in?
Well you wanted W to win,
So now you can just sit 'n' spin!"

[xultar]

21. That is some straight up schnazzy shit. I could leave them on cars

in parking lots with W04 stickers.

[LynnTheDem]

4. Rethugs = Party of BIG SPENDING, BIG UNEMPLOYMENT, BIG GOVT

BLEEDING-HEART nation-builders. And BIG BROTHER.

They're also BIG TAXES but like they do with the BACKDOOR DRAFT of our troops, they BACKDOOR TAX our poor & middle-class.

[Hobarticus]

5. This is the thing about these clowns...

In my experience, if you ask them about national ID cards, or portions of the Patriot Act such as "sneak and peek" they get their underwear in a bind and freak out...as long as you don't frame the discussion in terms of the Republicans or the POTUS.

As soon as you do THAT, though, it's all good.

Dumbasses, one and all.

[bush_is_wacko]

10. I'll bet that felt good!

Humpty Dumpty ain't looking so good about now! I've seen it here too! Rummy's little speech didn't go over so well yesterday. Can't wait until the next time one of them puts his/her foot in his/her mouth! He may have stolen the election, but w/ enough pissed off citizens he won't have much of that "mandate" he's so proud of referring to! I can hear the whiner's calling for IMPEACHMENT soon!

[yankeedem]

11. Excellent response

I don't listen to pukes complaints. If they complain about anything from National ID cards to high gas prices to long lines at the supermarket checkout counters, I put my hand up and say, In my best Furio Guinta (Sopranos) voice.

"DON'T BITCH TO ME- You voted for this"

[rodeodance]

13. Wasn't this provision dropped from the bill as it was part of Rep.

Stennsenbenners clause relating to the nationaal driving licences?
Or am I confused?

[Must_B_Free]

14. Can I ask an obvious question that noone seems to be asking?

How is this different than a social security card? Isn't that already a unique national ID? Does Matcom have an SSN?

[matcom]

15. yes i do

and it is the implication of the slope we (most of us know) are headed down.

let me ask you this:

WHY does a "free society" need a 'national ID card'?

on edit: i have a driver's license too. SSN card, passport, etc...

HOW is THIS 'new form' going to help me? my take.....

it will only hurt. otherwise it wouldn't be needed

[snippy]

16. Excellent story. However, I think it is important to connect

any buyer's remorse among Bush voters to the republican party rather than to Bush. I know republicans who dislike Bush but voted for him anyway who say that there will be a better republican as the GOP candidate next time. I want unhappy Bush voters to come to loathe the republican party. I don't care what they think about Bush.

Whenever any criticism of any government action comes up I have been telling republicans and independents that "This is what happens when people vote republican." It pisses off the republicans but the independents think about it.

[rodeodance]

17. found my answer--Looks like the devil will be in the details

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48824-2004Dec8.html

Transcript
Intelligence Bill Passage

Dr. James Jay Carafano
Heritage Foundation
Thursday, December 9, 2004; 10:00 AM


Congress easily passed legislation revamping the nation's intelligence community. The landmark legislation will significantly restructure the intelligence community -- creating the new position of director of national intelligence as well as a national counterterrorism center.
.........

Columbia, S.C.: As I understand it, the bill has provisions for setting national standards for forms of identification such as drivers licenses. Some civil rights groups oppose any steps to a possible national i.d. Do you think a national i.d. would be a good step in fighting terrorism?

Dr. James Jay Carafano: I don't support the idea of a national identity card. I don't think it would be dangerous for the federal government to have a single repository with all information on everyone. On the other hand, standards are important. Identity is the key linchpin to many security systems. As much as possible we need to be able to trust that they are valid and properly used. I think standards represent a bright line that separates the need for credible identity documents and the unnecessary and dangerous idea of national identity cards. We need to make sure that standards become a barrier against national identity cards, rather than a slippery slope towards embracing a national identity system.

more questions......

[democratic wing]

18. Obituary (break this gently to your co-worker)

America
1776-2004

Our republic passed into the annals of history yesterday,8 December 2004,at 3:13 p.m. Autopsy results showed that the country had been severely compromised by citizen apathy and ignorance for decades;however,the final death blow was administered in November 2000 by corporate felons and their camp followers.

The corpus delicti was contained in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004
(http://www.c-span.org/pdf/s2845confrept.pdf ) masquerading as a partial cure for the country's insecurity ills. A national identification card will now be required under Section 7212 of the act empowering the U.S. Secretary of Transportation and the Department of Homeland Security to adopt and impose "standards for common machine-readable identity information to be included on each driver's license or personal identification card,including defined minimum data elements",i.e.,a digital photograph or "other unique identifier" (read: fingerprint and possibly the DNA sample that can be obtained secretly during that procedure;iris scan,etc.).

The perpetrators hoped to inflict more pain on the nation by "the key reform that the Republicans want,which is we want to override the states on the whole issue of license procedures on automobiles." ( Senator Christopher Shays on Lou Dobbs, http://cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0411/30/ldt.01.html )

Fortunately the patient did not survive to suffer further abuse and succumbed quietly with little public notice.

Rest in peace,America. We loved you well.


"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." Abraham Lincoln

[TayTay]

19. Remember this one for 2006

Talk about giving people enough rope to hang themselves with. Just remember this talk, remember how it pissed off a voter and put it in the file. When it comes time to assemble a winning list of issues for the Congressional elections in 2006, dust this off and bring it out. It sounds like a foundation issue, for some people and can be used effectively.

[democratic wing]

20. except...

more House Repubs voted against the bill than Democrats. Another case of either being too timid to oppose or the increasingly common reason of not actually reading the damn legislation before voting. In their defense,Democrats were shut out of the conference process and were not even sure of what provisions the bill contained and reminiscent of the hurried passage of the Patriot Act and the recent omnibus spending bill,were only given a few hours to look it over.

I'll post the link to the article exposing this farce when I find it.

[democratic wing]

23. Re: except

Here is the link to the article I mentioned:

http://technocrat.net/article.pl?sid=04/12/09/016203&mode=thread

Yet this monumental legislation will be voted on by members of Congress without those members having had time to read, let alone study, the bill. It's just after 2:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday, December 7th. The U.S. House is expected to vote on the 9/11 bill sometime today or tomorrow. But at this moment, there isn't a copy of the final bill available for House members to read.(ed: isn't that convenient?)

So, is there a provision in the bill to establish a national ID? No one seems to know. Or at least the people who do know aren't saying. What else is in the bill that the select few in Washington are keeping secret? Who knows? Anything could be...and that's the point.

Remember how passage of the Patriot Act was handled? Members had only two to three hours to read the final 400-page bill before they had to cast their vote. The legislation that created the Department of Homeland Security was handled in the same way. (ed: yes, it sounds familiar)

So, here we go again. Everyone is talking about this monumental legislation as if they've read it. News reporters, commentators, political analysts, think tanks; 9/11 families; and yes, members of Congress are busy sounding off as experts trying to convince the American public that Congress should pass it. Have any of these people actually read it? Their opinions are just based upon someone else's opinions that are based upon other people's opinions and so on.(ed: same with the mainstream press on most other issues, you have to really dig beyond the headlines to get any decent facts)

The House version of the intelligence reorganization bill is in two volumes. Volume 1 is 1,778 pages. Volume 2 is 1,586 pages. How many pages are in the final conference report and what exactly has been added or deleted at the last minute? Well, as of 2:00 p.m. ET, the final report is not available for members to read. But the vote on that enormous bill will be held within hours. (ed: even the synopsis, the final report wasn't avilable for them, yet the vote went forward.)

[imenja]

22. Some conservatives are civil libertarians

They fear the encroaching power of government. Bob Barr, for example, has spoken out against the Patriot Act. Some civil liberties issues can be a forum for common ground between the civil libertarian wing of both parties.

[democratic wing]

24. true

but they also strongly dislike what they consider "nanny" government;Social Security,MediCare,public education,etc.,and the taxes necessary to fund those programs. Can't admit to being a big fan of publick eddacashun myself.

[democratic wing]

25. to prove your point

http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=17168&c=206

The final bill also lays the foundation for a de facto national ID card. Opposition for the intrusive measure came from the ACLU and numerous groups across the political spectrum, including the American Conservative Union and the Free Congress Foundation. A national ID card is unproven to deter terrorism or weed out terrorists, but it would strip away our privacy and inch us closer to a ‘Big Brother’ society.

Finally, the intelligence reform bill unnecessarily expands upon law enforcement powers - several of which were seen in the draft Patriot Act 2 - a measure so controversial, it was never considered by Congress. Specifically, it unnecessarily expands wiretapping to erase a key constitutional safeguard and expands the "guilt by association" material support law, including making mere membership in a designated terrorist organization a criminal offense for the first time. It should be remembered that the 9/11 Commission did not call for any of these provisions in its report.

We applaud Congress for resisting attempts by a few hard-line Members of Congress to insert further assaults on immigrants’ rights and grant law enforcement sweeping new powers. We hope that they could have passed a bill that was completely protective of our most cherished liberties, but that was not the case.

[Cheswick2.0]

26. get him to join the recount bandwagon

tell him he has a chance to reverse things.

[livinginphotographs]

27. It's kind of mixed feelings for me.

On the one hand, I'll get the satisfaction of saying "I told you so."

On the other hand, how bad do the Bushies have to fuck up the country and/or the rest of the world before I really get the chance to say it with some impact?

[Liberty Belle]

28. Be kind. You have an opening to convert him.

Here's your chance to educate him on the fact that the Bush administration does NOT represent conservative values. Tell him many good conservatives have joined with Democrats, Libertarians, and Independents once they realize how Bush and team are doing things that no sane American would support, including:

* Running up our national debt to all-time levels with no plan to
get out of the red ink

* Destroying Social Security (taking money out of it for private investment, a move that will force benefit cuts for seniors)

* Creating a police state with the new Intelligence bill that creates a national ID card and allows the government to arrest anyone and detain them indefinitely on mere suspicion, just because you belong to a group that might be deem subversive (Suggest that the NRA might qualify--dictators don't like independent militias. Maybe Bush will take away guns next!)

* Giving huge tax breaks to the very rich while doing nothing to help ordinary working people

* Trashing our environment(Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, founded the conservation movement. Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency. Conservation ought to be a conservative principle, but Bush is allowing big corporate campaign contributors to increase pollution of our air and water)

* Starting a war based on lies (no WMD), violating international law, sending our kids off to die without body armor, making plans for a draft and yet more wars.

* Lying repeatedly to the American public--WMD and his plans to privatize (destroy) Social Security are just two.

* Destroying America's reputation as a good and just nation. Bush's own White House lawyer told him in a memo that it was okay to torture prisoners in Iraq and ignore the Geneva Conventions. Bush knew this would happen and allowed this disgraceful conduct, of which all Americans should be ashamed. Now we learn similar things were done at Guantanamo. Most of these torture victims were not terrorists, just people in the wrong place at the wrong time, held for months or even years without trial or even contact with lawyers.


*Increasing poverty rates, job losses, and outsourcing of jobs overseas while cutting unemployment benefits and college loans for the poor.

* Forcing mental health testing of all schoolkids. In Texas, this resulted in lots of kids on mind-altering drugs. The new budget bill makes this a national program and guess what--the president's commission that came up with this wants to test all adults next.

* The president's party has become a party that has no ethics. They do not represent moral values. They've lied, cheated and stolen this election. They changed the rules in Congress to keep their majority leader, Delay, in office while he's under indictment for multiple criminal charges. The administration is riddled with corruption--Halliburton & Enron ties, to name just two.
"Thou shalt not lie. Thous shalt not steal." These are sins. To support those who engage in these actions is immoral.

While he may not agree with everything the Democratic Party stands for, surely the GOP is the greater of two evils from his point of view. Our country can survive four more years with a Democratic president (since the Congress is controlled by Republicans, tell him it would be gridlock, no ultra-liberal lefty stuff could pass), but gridlock is surely better than watching our cherished freedoms and our children's futures go down the drain.