Great take on Arizona immigration flap via sports

This is true. You wouldn't believe the rights we consider fundamental that no one even batted an eye about suppression of until WWI or so. For example, it is still considered a legitimate theory of First Amendment law that the ONLY kind of freedom of speech that the Bill of Rights actually grants is from prior restraint. After publication, they can throw the book at you for pretty much anything. That seems ludicrous to us now, but less than 100 years ago that was pretty much the law of the land.

 

My point was that the loyalty oath generally arises at the worst moments in our history. In times of panic or paranoia. Whether during the Palmer Raids or McCarthyism.

It is the absolute founding premise of this country that the government, insofar as is practical, leave the individual the fuck alone.

 

Dude, let's be honest, there's nowhere in the constitution where it says "leave the individual the fuck alone" or anything close to it.

So many folks scream that there's no right to privacy in the Constitution, but then are more than willing to accept what you just wrote at face value. Why? Because it's how they want to see things.

You know what the absolute founding premises of our country are? The words that are specifically in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights. Everything else - including whatever's in the Federalist papers - is just people manipulating words to put forward their own view of how things should be.

And, I'm sorry, but I think our country can't forever be bound by what a bunch of white guys thought 200-plus years ago when there weren't cars, planes or the internet. Especially when all of them thought it was just dandy that women couldn't vote and they all could own slaves.

 

Liberal on liberal violence is quite entertaining.

 

This seems like a good time for this:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-passionate-defender-of-what-he-imagines-c,2849/

 

I agree with every word of that. But none of that says I have to think that government-mandated identification papers are a good idea.

 

I don't believe for a second that they won't become incredibly forgable within a few months of coming onto the market.

 

For policy reasons, though, not constitutional, right? Which is perfectly reasonable. But 99.9 percent of the people at protest rallies in America - left, right, and anything in between - don't understand the difference.

 

There's nothing in the Constitution that says they can't do it, so I don't see why it'd be unconstitutional.

But there are lots of values I'd like to see us have as a country that don't directly involve the Constitution.

 

U.S. Passports are forgeable, but they're EXPENSIVE to forge, which is why they're rarely forged by illegal immigrants. If they can implement that dynamic with passports, they can - and will - eventually implement it with a national employment ID card.

And, no, I'm not saying you have to think they're a good idea.

If you go back to the beginning of this conversation, I was just expressing that I really don't understand why people oppose them. I still really don't, because I don't understand why some people legitimately fear they could lead to a police state or whatever.

 

The journalism angle of this thread on the Journalism Topics Only board grows ever fainter in the distance.

 

This was already explained. I don't fear that it will directly lead to a police state. I believe that it's important for a free society to have certain principles, and that one of those principles is that its citizens not be required to carry around papers to justify their existence to the government. We don't need the government's permission to exist. It's the other way around.