Chertoff is powerless in South Carolina for as long as South Carolina stands its ground

April 1, 2008 – Many corporate news types have wrongly depicted the contentious REAL ID conflict between the Department of Homeland Security and the State of South Carolina as a David and Goliath battle heading for a climatic showdown.  The run up to yesterday’s events even had some members of the SC Statehouse doing their best “Chicken Little” impressions, despite the fact that South Carolina passed a law last year that said, The State shall not participate in the implementation of the federal REAL ID Act.  Even though the law is on the books, many state reps and senators were clamoring about the impact non-compliance will have on South Carolinians traveling through our nation’s government seized airports if the DHS refused to recognized South Carolina identification after May 11, 2008 as Comrade Chertoff had threatened to do if South Carolina didn’t start goose-stepping and fast! 

The latest chapter to the saga concluded yesterday when Gov. Mark Sanford announced he would not seek an extension permission slip from the DHS.  Sanford sent a five-page letter to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff outlining why South Carolina would not seek an extension or exemption. 

In response to Sanford’s letter, Chertoff gave South Carolina an extension that the state never officially sought nor should want. 

The headlines provided by the often atrocious and compromised corporate / censored / complicit news outlets demonstrate how programmed our journalism graduates are to follow the “rules” and maintain the perception of some sort of fictitious chain of command that has all things “federal” above all things “state”. 

To be clear on a few points – the Department of Homeland Security should be dismantled and abolished.  It is horrendous and un-American.  The TSA should be abolished also.  Airports should once again provide security at airports.  I will never fly commercial again for as long as I am subjected to government search before boarding a commercial, for profit, airplane.  I will not be searched by the government to fly commercial!  I’d rather take the risk and fight with any would be nutcase on the airplane then to be a huge un-American pussy that needs to rely on the government to keep me safe.  The government’s job isn’t to keep me safe.  Its job is to keep me free by protecting my privacy and liberty from jerk offs like Chertoff.  I’d rather plunge to my catastrophic end then to line up with the idiotic so that some government nipple sucking dork with a TSA patch can inspect my feet and my shoes.  Yes, I’m pissed off in the spring-loaded position and have had it with my fellow Americans willing to trade freedom for safety.  If you’re one of them, you suck!  Deal with it.

Let’s get real for a moment – a moment of clarity if you will.  9/11 didn’t unfold because of airport security checkpoints.  The devastating aftermath of 9/11 was initiated and facilitated by unsecured cockpit doors.  The unsecured cockpit doors opened the door for the rest of 9/11 to unfold – regardless of how you believe the buildings at the World Trade Center Complex imploded.  Securing all commercial airliner cockpit doors was a non-mandated FAA recommendation for years prior to September 11, 2001.  Armed with box cutters, as the government alleges the so-called hijackers were, secure cockpit doors would have prevented airplanes from being flown into buildings – period.  9/11 happened for many other reasons which most of America still cannot or will not fathom.  Check the archives.  

It’s as if Chertoff thinks he is really in the position to have the last word on REAL ID in South Carolina.  In response to Governor Sanford’s letter Comrade Chertoff wrote, “It seems clear that South Carolina is well on the way to meeting requirements comparable to those required by the final REAL ID regulation.  I will therefore treat your letter as a basis for an extension and hereby grant it”.  What Chertoff does not recognize is that South Carolina doesn't give a rat’s ass how he treats the letter.  He could treat it as a declaration of secession it he wants or a declaration of independence.  Either way, it would not change the fact that South Carolina passed a law last year in which it was clearly stated that the state would not participate in the implementation of the REAL ID disgraceful ACT. 

But the headlines – “Extension granted; REAL ID showdown averted”, Chertoff grants S.C. REAL ID extension”, “S.C. gets pass on driver’s licenses” – rolled off the presses as if Chertoff is in the position of higher authority over the Governor of South Carolina.  It really is an American tragedy that so many people honestly accept this illusion.  Did it ever occur to the dull and detached, to the pussies and Tories that expect and demand the government (if it can provide all things it can take away all things such as liberty and freedom as we have seen) to keep them safe, that blind compliance with centralize power has already proven an eventual death sentence for millions of people throughout history?  Shameful.  A national ID is a threat to your security.  It might protect the government from the irate, but it does nothing to protect you or your loved ones.  If you believe otherwise, you are part of the problem if not a domestic enemy of the original intent of the Constitution.  Go take a hard look in the mirror and decide. 

Sanford’s five-page letter was filled with the normal niceties exchanged between politicians and appointed dictators like Chertoff.  If Americans really understood the truth about the man – Chertoff – his family history and foreign ties and allegiances – few that support him could continue without being pathologic.  Although more flowery than I can tolerate, Sanford did make some key points in his letter that the corporate stiffs editing for South Carolina newspapers failed to report.  Have you noticed that the corporate news hardly ever reports the really important points anymore?  I read newspapers and watch corporate news nowadays to see what’s not being reported to decide what’s important. 

Sanford made this point better than I can so I’ll quote him directly from his letter:

“As you know, I fall into the camp with serious reservations about REAL ID, and would like to express them now with the hope that either Congress or DHS can address what I consider the more troubling parts of this legislation.  I do not blame you or the Department for what I believe is wrong with this law.  In many ways you have been put in the somewhat untenable position of being required to implement a law that Congress enacted, but never vetted – and as a consequence I believe it is very important we as a country indeed debate the merits of REAL ID and its requirements.  Although I speak for the State of South Carolina which has enacted a law prohibiting the implementation of REAL ID, as you know there are many other states across this country whose citizens share our apprehension about REAL ID.  So for these reasons, I am compelled to lay out the arguments against REAL ID and hope you will take them in the constructive spirit in which they are given – and see their intent in generating a long needed debate in Congress before REAL ID is fully implemented.”

Sanford continued, “First, I join with millions of Americans in believing that national policy changes should be debated, not dictated – and REAL ID was never fully debated in Congress.  As we both know, REAL ID was included as a rider to the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief in 2005, and it never underwent committee debate in the Senate or House.  Since this bill provided aid to tsunami victims in Southeast Asia and military personnel fighting in the Middle East, essentially no member of Congress voted against it and it passed overwhelmingly.  Does it make any sense to begin a de facto national ID system without debate?  As a practical matter, this sensitive subject received far less debate than steroid use in baseball.  Rather than compelling states to comply with REAL ID with the threat of longer wait times for their citizens in airports across the country, I think the American people deserve a full and robust debate on whether REAL ID will provide greater national security, and, if so, whether the increased security outweighs the risks to our privacy interests and other costs that arise from creating a national ID system.”

He’s right, you know.  And that is why the Honorable Governor Mark Sanford is the Governor of South Carolina and I am not.  My letter to Chertoff would have been one-page with two words:

MUCK OFF.