general freedom

Here we go again. One of the less-debated provisions lurking in the Immigration Modernization Act would revive an old statist dream: a national ID card.

More precisely, it would create a federal database of info on everybody. An increasingly intrusive national identification regime would follow.

An article in Wired alerts us that the 800-page bill provides for an “innocuously-named ‘photo tool,’ a massive federal database . . . containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license and other state-issued ID.” Employers would have to check the database before hiring.

That’s intrusive enough. But this database would also lay the basis for all manner of further surveillance and authorization protocols.

A push for a national ID card as a way to combat terrorism has been ongoing especially since 9/11. Worries about illegal immigration have been another major rationale for planning an expansive surveillance regime.

Whether from fear of immigrants, fear of terrorists, fear of drugs, fear of cash or fear of unmonitored actions of any kind (what do people do when they draw the blinds?), the huddled masses are invited to eagerly submit to ever-more-invasive oversight. And, hey, unless we have “something to hide,” why wouldn’t we have boundless faith in the motives and powers of Big Brother?

Who should object to the database? Civil libertarians, libertarians, conservatives, liberals, or, really, anybody who gets a creepy-crawly feeling at the prospect of the surveillance state’s monitoring and approving our every move.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

It’s the business of reporters to report on events like the Boston bombings, and the business of commentators to explain them. But since we don’t have enough evidence, yet, about who did what, all commentators can do is speculate . . .

And that’s not very illuminating. Anyone can speculate.

Instead, let’s take a step back.

“Terrorism” is old. Anarchists at the end of the 19th century began their “propaganda by the deed” campaigns, eliciting from the U.S. government a vast repressive effort against anarchists (even peaceful, non-terrorist anarchists) and syndicalist unionism.

Striking out and terrifying a populace tends to unite that populace, making people more supportive of their government and its policies, not less. This has been observed from time immemorial. So anarchist terrorism was probably the dumbest terrorism in history.

An earlier bout of terrorism was the mob of “democrats” in France, during the late French Revolution. The furor to kill and dispossess got so out of hand that the French were prepared for a tyrant, Napoleon.

Not very effective there, either.

The most common form of terrorism in the last century was state terrorism, where governments brutalized their citizens, the better to solidify power. These regimes seem to succeed, sometimes for long periods. But people eventually turn on such tormenters, preferring peaceful life under a rule of law.

As Bostonians reel from the bizarre bombing, we should remember: the rule of law is better than terrorism. It’s plodding, yes. It is never ideally just, since it is run by human beings. But refusing to resort to indiscriminate violence to “obtain justice” or “make a point” or “get/maintain power” is the basic idea of civilization.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

One of the more inspiring perennial stories of my youth were of defectors, people who left their Communist-controlled countries to reach freedom . . . on American soil.

Many, many Soviet and Eastern bloc subjects smuggled themselves out of their countries, or “jumped ship” while visiting the U.S. or other Western nations. The list of freedom seekers is long, impressive, and inspiring.

And this isn’t just “ancient history.”

After an international tour, seven members of Cuba’s National Ballet were confirmed by homeland sources as “not having returned.” And a Cuban exile website has informed us that six of the defectors are now in the U.S., while the seventh remains in Mexico, where the troupe had broken free:

“We were intent on seeking a better artistic life and economic well-being for our families,” Cafe Fuerte quoted one of the group, Annie Ruiz Diaz, as saying.

Correspondents say Cuba’s National Ballet has suffered from a number of high-profile defections over the years, as performers stay abroad in search of greater creative and economic opportunities.

But this is only the tip of the proverbial floating mass of frozen water. In truth, thousands of people defect to the United States every year. Leaving their countries of origin, they flee poverty, tyranny, reckless government and outrageous criminality (too often these latter are the same thing), seeking the comparatively peaceful life found under a nation run by the rule of law.

Alas, defection is going the other way, too, as more and more Americans attempt to escape from increasingly burdensome taxation, oppressive regulations, and selective enforcement of innumerable laws.

We honor the heroic defectors from Cuba only by making the U.S. a place that fewer and fewer peaceful folks would be tempted to flee from.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit blogger, is often sensible, always indispensable.

But his idea for slowing “the revolving door between government and business” would encourage government to do more of the bad things freedom lovers loathe.

Glenn says: “Political appointees in the executive branch should pay an extra income tax when they leave for high-paying jobs.” He wants a surtax of 50 to 75 percent, for five years, on all income greater than what the victims of the surtax had earned as government officials.

Even if lobbying were the biggest cause of outsized government — dubious — expanding government’s ability to impose strangling taxation ain’t the answer.

The tax would, first of all, be unjust in itself, among other things treating persons unequally under the law. It would massively penalize select taxpayers simply for having worked at a certain level in a certain branch of government. Penalize them not only for unapproved-but-legal conduct (lobbying), but for unapproved-but-legal conduct in which they might engage.

The tax would also be a horrific precedent. For one thing, why apply it only to executive appointees and not also lawmakers, judges, the president?

Indeed, such a tax would foster the notion that it’s okay to confiscatorily target the income of members of any group, not just former government officials, in hopes of preventing other disapproved-but-legal conduct. After all, lawmakers wouldn’t be calling up Instapundit to get approval of the next proposed application of his idea.

Back to the drawing board, Glenn.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

One way marijuana legalization was pushed, politically, in Colorado and Washington, was with the “let’s tax this weed!” agenda. Indeed, the “tax and regulate” approach proved a convenient way for marijuana users to get non-marijuana users “on board” the legalization bandwagon, basically buying off those who were most sympathetic to the prohibitionist status quo.

And it’s the dominant way of thinking, today.

This frustrates many who wanted to return marijuana growth, distribution and usage to its pre-1937 legality, for they saw the prohibitionist program as inherently illiberal, nasty, inhumane. To these legalizers, “taxing and regulating” appears as just a ramped-down version of today’s policy.

Think Genghis Khan, who wanted to kill all Manchurians and turn northern China into a vast grazing land for horses. He was convinced not to do so for reasons of the “Laffer Curve”: he’d get more revenue by taxing Manchurians than killing them.

While taxing and regulating Manchurians was certainly better than genocide, it was still a tyrant’s prerogative.

Apply the same logic to cannabis.

Marijuana has been grown and used for eons. Trying to control or eradicate it as a noxious weed rather than tolerate it as a plant with many uses, seems unjust, not merely inadvisable. The whole “tax and regulate” notion rubs up against the home growing of the plant. Marijuana is easy to grow, but many folks want to prohibit people from growing it out-of-doors — the better to keep it out of the hands of thieving youngsters.

Call me old-fashioned, but it seems to me that thieving youngsters should be nabbed and dealt with in Andy Griffith-style justice.

But then, I missed the marijuana episode of the Andy Griffith Show.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.