Citizen, you will read this

[IDemo]

"So, to be fair, my modest proposal is that all Americans inside America, not just outside, should be required to have passports and to carry them at all times. Whenever any American is asked for an ID, he or she should have to produce one issued by the federal government. Those who fail to comply should be liable to detention until the cops who picked them up figure out if they're really true red, white, and blue Americans, no matter whether they are black, brown, white or shades in between."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/237950

[unhappycamper]

1. AZ is now the new home of Looney Tunes.

:eyes:

[AndyA]

2. Sounds like Nazi Germany.

Arizona = the new Nazi Germany.

I've got to believe that most of the people in Arizona will not tolerate this shit. C'mon, Arizona, vote these assholes OUT OF OFFICE!

[midnight]

3. I don't see any reason to expand this fascism by issuing the ss I.D. card to everyone.

Your article list a very important reason why not. It is a slippery slope down the road of intimidation.

[political_Dem]

4. Wow. What happened to the land of the free and the home of the brave?

America is being hijacked and overrun by fascists who see nothing wrong in violating the civil liberties of individuals.

We are truly in the dark ages of America when people can openly voice support for the violation of Fourth Amendment rights and see nothing wrong with what they are saying.

[leveymg]

5. This has been happening for a long time. See the 1962 film, "Lonely are the Brave"

http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/culture/Lonely_Are_The_Brave.htm

Now--nearly 40 years later--that I have learned the full story behind the making of "Lonely are the Brave," the beat generation associations not only become more meaningful, I also understand the importance of the film to the radical movement since it brought together two disparate strands of the American left: the screenplay was by Dalton Trumbo, one of the greatest blacklisted writers in Hollywood, while the screenplay itself was based on one of Edward Abbey's anarchist/deep ecology masterpieces, "The Brave Cowboy."

The driving force behind the movie came from Kirk Douglas, who was one of the first to challenge the blacklist by insisting that Dalton Trumbo write the screenplay for "Spartacus" only 3 years earlier in 1958. Douglas, who often starred in the same kind of mindless beefcake spectacles as Burt Lancaster, was not at all like the characters he played in films (nor was the bisexual and liberal Lancaster!). He was the son of a Russian Jewish ragman from the Lower East Side and a product like so many in the entertainment industry of the vast cultural and social forces embodied in the New Deal radicalization. While never a Communist himself, he believed that the blacklist was evil and put his reputation on the line by standing up for Trumbo. (Lancaster was not what he appeared as well. In real life, he was bisexual and something of a radical.)

After a couple of years tending sheep, Jack Burns has come to town to break his old friend Paul out of jail. Paul is a scholar about to be transferred to a penitentiary to begin serving a two year for running a modest underground railroad for undocumented workers from Mexico.

Since the only way he can free Paul is by becoming a prisoner himself, he goes to town to find a saloon where booze and trouble often go together. He is not disappointed. As soon as he takes a seat in one such establishment to begin enjoying a bottle of whiskey with a beer chaser, a one-armed man hurls an empty bottle at his head. In keeping with a innate sense of fair play, Burns uses one arm to fight the man in a lusty barroom brawl that honors the best traditions of the Western film.

After he is arrested, he finds himself in the holding pen with Paul where he lays out his escape plan. With the two hacksaws he has smuggled inside his boots, the two should be able to break out before morning arrives. Paul demurs. He has a wife and a young son. The sentence for jail break in New Mexico is 5 years. He would prefer to serve out his term and return to a normal life. While a jail break might deliver freedom in the short run, it also would sentence him and his family to a life on the run.

Although Jack can not persuade him to break out, he himself has no qualms. With the assistance of Paul and other prisoners, he cuts through the bars to the street below. He then returns to Paul's house where he has left his horse. From there, he heads toward the mountains, beyond which Mexico and freedom await.

From this point, the main action of the film takes place, pitting the lone resourceful cowboy against a posse made up of local lawmen and a helicopter deployed by the same airforce base whose jets disturbed his peace in the opening scene of the movie. In charge of the whole operation is Sheriff Monty Johnson (Walter Matthau) who seems to harbor a secret desire to see the prisoner escape. This is understandable since Johnson, and most of the audience watching the film, probably felt trapped by American civilization in the early 1960s.

[tom_paine]

11. It is now the "Land of TV and Home of the (virtual) Slave"

Face it, we're not the nation that helped beat Hitler anymore. We have little to nothing in common with that nation.

We are the nation that, if a new "plausibly deniable" Hitler rose, would ally itself with him happily and unquestioningly.

[pinboy3niner]

6. The column is a very poor attempt at satire

The writer alludes to Swift's satirical "A Modest Proposal," in which Swift suggested the solution to famine in Ireland was that the Irish eat their own children.

Dickey doesn't even come close to that level of the outrageous and the absurd, and for much of the column treats his proposal as serious.

And don't even bother to click on the link to the AZ law's text--it's a pre-enactment Senate version that was NOT the version enacted.

(Ed. to correct a word)

[Javaman]

9. poor satire is usually a reflection on the authors terrible grasp of the topic.

or worse, trying to pass it off as "satire" when the author actually has other intentions.

[ima_sinnic]

7. those who can't produce the passport will be shot

-- hey, it worked for Nazi Germany! why take halfway measures?

[Javaman]

8. that newspeak article is repugnant.

nothing but watering carrying for the racists.

[southernyankeebelle]

10. Funny you should say that. I was telling my husband we need to get passports. Apparently that is a

true form of ID of american citizenship. Oh except if your President Obama. You know republicans make up the rules cause they are the only true americans.