Since I posted the previous article I have talked with a number of people and everyone feels that it would restrict their freedom.

The second concern is if there were such a card could someone be arrested for not carrying it?

First, it would be an identification card not a government ‘tracking device”. The US government already has such a device. It is your credit or debit card.

If the government wanted to, they would know how much money you spend with respect to your income, what you buy and where and when. They could follow your activities in great detail at present if they wanted to.

They know the make, model and year of your automobile and knowing how much gas you purchase, they can know how far you drive in a year and where you have purchased gas therefore where you have been.

When I go to vote in Connecticut, I must present my driver’s license or I don’t get to vote. It’s as simple as that. The police don’t haul me away to prison.

We carry all sorts of “cards” today already. You have your driver’s license, your Social Security Card, your medical insurance or Medicare card, your library card and so on.
If you do not present that card you are not arrested, you simply do not receive some service appropriate to that card.

Now to the consequences as a result of NOT having this card.

Saudi terrorists would have been unable to obtain drivers licenses which they were able to use to receive flight training leading to pilot certificates in the US.

They would have been unable to board those large commercial aircraft.

The World Trade Towers would still be standing. Those lives would not have been lost. The US would not have gone into Afganistan. The US would not be fighting a war in Iraq.
Billions of dollars would be instead taking care of problems at home. Thousands of American servicemen would be alive today and more thousands would not be crippled.

A National Identity Card would have prevented all this.

What lies in store for us without this card?

It’s your decision.

“Good fences make good neighbors”Robert Frost

Throughout history fences had been successfully used to indicate the limits of one’s control. Without a distinct marker of some sort, a range of uncertainty exists as to what a person or a country can do at the edges of their controlled property. This uncertainty usually leads to disputes which can lead to violence. In the past if the border dispute was between countries it led to war.

Fences and borders are so specific in their placement that in most areas of the US a plus or minus foot variation can lead the Planning and Zoning Commission to order the removal of an existing building.

In short, boundaries are important and fences are visual indicators of those boundaries.

We put up fences to indicate to the deer that they cannot eat from our apple trees and we make the fences sturdy enough to prevent the deer from crossing that boundary. The converse is true to keep our cow or horse or dog from running loose on our neighbor’s property.

Fences are necessary to keep things in…and to keep things out.

Saudi Arabia is presently starting a $5 billion project to build a wall that is the most sophisticated wall ever built. The purpose is to keep out illegal immigrants and potential terrorists.

Isn’t that interesting?

Consider some past walls:

Hadrian’s Wall was about 80 miles long and was built in 122ad by the Romans across England to keep the Picts from raiding the southern territory. It was built to provide economic stability and was made of stone and turf as high as 16 to 20 feet and manned by as many as 9000 troops.

It was replaced by another, built for the same purpose, the Antonine Wall, about half the length at the border of present day Scotland.

The Great Wall of China, approximately 4000 miles long and said to have been guarded by over a million troops, was built to keep out the Mongols who were raiding China from the north.

The Maginot Line, built in the 1930’s along the French-German border, was less of a wall than a series of forts and obstacles and proved rather useless in a modern war which employs planes and tanks.

The Berlin Wall was started in 1961 to keep westerners and their influence out of East Germany and to keep the East Germans from leaving.

It is sort of the inverse of what is happening between the US and Mexico today. The citizens of East Germany saw the economic advantages available to them in the west but their government would not permit them to leave.

The Roman Empire generally used rivers as boundaries or often inhospitable land features like deserts. One of the major reasons that the Roman Empire collapsed was that it had extended itself too far and along with internal conflict between people competing for power it could no longer control its borders.

What is the reason that people cross borders?

  Probably for the same reason that squirrels cross roads. People emigrate because of discontent, or hunger or to avoid being persecuted (or prosecuted). When people are hungry, poor or live in fear where they are, they move on. This can be simply moving to another patch of woods in a primitive society if it is available or leaving your homeland entirely as happens today. There have been small migrations since the beginning of time as it applied to birds, animals or humans.

The colonization of the western hemisphere saw larger mass migrations by people hoping to significantly improve their lives. These migrations are always prompted by stories returning of the potential for wealth or for freedom of choice of cultural standards or religious beliefs.

Today our southern border is porous. The influx of new people is creating incredible economic stress in our Southwest. People are coming across in hopes of a better life and people are coming across to expand their crime and drug networks. How does one sort out intentions?

The only way is to close the border and attempt to sort out intentions by legalized entry. It’s easier to keep the bear out of the kitchen before he gets in than to get him out after.

Unfortunately we didn’t close the door quickly enough and the bear is in the kitchen and hungry. Now we have to feed him.

Again, fences are necessary to keep things in…and to keep things out.