Papers Please
Quite intersting that it’s OK to randomly ask people for ID’s in Miami but refuse to show one at a Federal Center and it’s cause celeb. Most startling was the ACLU’s comment on the Miami checks:
Howard Simon, executive director of ACLU of Florida, said the Miami initiative appears aimed at ensuring that people’s rights are not violated.
“What we’re dealing with is officers on street patrol, which is more effective and more consistent with the Constitution,” Simon said. “We’ll have to see how it is implemented.”
Granted that’s not an open “oh that’s ok” from the ACLU but it is a fair and resonable response that would not be extended most mayors in America. That either speaks well of the Florida chapter of the ACLU (who recently went Republican as you may recall) or the Mayor is a Democrat.
The whole “papers please” thing coming to America really bothers me. There are common sense precautions that will have a high return on increasing our security without inconviencing us or taking away even minor civil liberties. Then there are inconvenient precautions that have a low return and tread ever so subtly on our civil rights. Randomly checking papers is just too 1950’s Moscow for my tastes and with the activist lefties demanding drivers licenses for illegal aliens checking them will do nothing mroe than condition the next generation that this is acceptable in America (something many “precautions” are aimed at, not us but programming the next generation).
Ultimately if our concern over security effects our daily lives to this extreme then “they” have already won by forcing a reaction that destroys our own freedoms. I would rather live with the daily risk of “terror” than sacrifice what America stands for in fear of “terror”. But it appears that the coasts have become so fearful in their government induced inability to protect or fend for themselves that they feel it is a small price to pay. It is a sad testement to the growing feminization and weakness of America.