--- begin forwarded text Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 08:24:36 -0700 To: <other people>, rah@shipwright.com From: <somebody> Subject: BAA, BAA, SAY THE SHEEPLE COLORADO SENATOR CHARLES DUKE ON THE LOSS OF LIBERTY By Senator Charles R. Duke, September 16, 1996 Colorado District 9, (719) 481-9289 BAA, BAA, SAY THE SHEEPLE Who would have thought America would be where it is today? Earlier in the week, news stories appeared announcing that a proposal to do background checks on regular passengers came from a commission studying terrorism. This, of course, would do absolutely nothing to stop terrorism. Any decent terrorist knows enough to not travel under a real name. In any case, most airline terrorist incidents will likely be caused by someone who doesn't fly on the same plane for which the incident is planned. Since these ideas are patently obvious to the most casual observers, what, then, is the purpose of this tyranny? Is it simply to get the American sheeple so accustomed to government spying that we don't mind? To do this would require some sort of identification number and what better number to use than the Social Security number? Having the SSN flying around all these databases would also allow those who have access to such numbers to examine our bank records and credit history, along with many other records. Oh, nuts, I say. This proposal is just too depressing. So I pick up the Wall Street Journal for Friday the Thirteenth of September. Might as well read a little financial news to get in a better mood. I mean, our economy is really doing okay, or at least so the government would have us believe. I never got to the stock tables. There, on the front page, is a story from San Mateo, California, where den mothers, coaches, and other volunteers who work with children will now be subjected to fingerprinting and background checks. The idea, you see, is to keep our children safe from child abuse. Don't look now, Toto, but this doesn't feel like Kansas, anymore. This will be totally ineffective at curbing child abuse, but you probably already knew that. This writer knows something about child abuse and can assure everyone that the overwhelming majority of child molesters become neither den mothers nor coaches. We have a Fourth Amendment to our U.S. Constitution that flatly prohibits these unreasonable searches and seizures. Specifically, the Amendment states, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized." It means that our private effects and our private lives are none of any civil authority's business, unless they have probable cause, and can obtain a warrant, sworn to by an oath or affirmation before a judge. The only way any nosy government gets away with this open and flagrant violation of constitutional rights is if the sheeple allow it. Where is the hue and cry from everyone about these measures? Have we become so conditioned to prying eyes that we have forgotten what privacy is about? Why are you, who have the courage to read this column, just standing idly by and letting our God-given rights be stripped from us on a daily basis? Where are the letters to the editor and civil demonstrations about this blatant tyranny? Our forefathers paid for these rights with their lives and their blood. They must be churning in their graves with the lackadaisical attitude we have today about our Constitution. They fought a War for Independence because King George was allowing warrantless searches and incarcerations. It was considered by our Founding Fathers to be a sacrilegious violation of rights granted to us by our Creator and not subject to the rule of Man. Somehow, in 1996, we have been lulled into complacency and apathy by a government totally dedicated to the absolute subjugation of our free will. Most of us have never really been free. We have been enslaved so long it is not clear we would know how to behave if by some process we had our real freedom restored. It is possible the American people actually deserve what is about to happen to us. We deserve it because of our collective inaction, our collective morals, our collective set of values, and our collective embrace of a failed political process. There are many examples in history where societies created and led by moral and just people have lasted for long periods. Almost without exception, the collapse of these societies were preceded by a loss of character in the people governed. Where would you put America today? --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com) e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "'Bart Bucks' are not legal tender." -- Punishment, 100 times on a chalkboard, for Bart Simpson The e$ Home Page: http://www.vmeng.com/rah/