http://www.aztlan.net/badges.htm
Posted on 01/13/2008 1:42:30 PM PST by Congressman Billybob
There are a few scenes in classic movies that are so effective that the dialogue has passed into the common language. One of those is in The Treasure of Sierra Madre. Mexican bandits have confronted American gold miners, including Humphrey Bogart. The bandits claim to be federal police.
Challenged to produce their badges, one gives the memorable reply, “Badges? We don’t need no steenkin’ badges.” And then they begin shooting.
Well a situation began in New Jersey, then played out in the Court of Appeals of Maryland, which justifies the modified use of that line. It also should concern all citizens of the US who care about where this nation is headed.
Ramiro Silba Alavez, a citizen of Mexico, got a drivers license in New Jersey by presenting false documents which represented that he was a US citizen and a resident of New Jersey. NJ required that anyone seeking a drivers licence there show proof of citizenship. Somehow, NJ got word of his false documents and “withdrew” his license after it expired in 1991.
Senor Alavez, being both cheeky and resourceful, then moved to Maryland, which doesn’t bother to check whether a license applicant has a legal right to be there. Alavez applied for a Maryland license. That was denied because Maryland does prohibit granting a license to anyone whose license has been suspended in another state.
Alavez doesn’t sound like a man of means, but with the help of support groups for illegal immigrants, he took his case to the highest court in Maryland, the Court of Appeals. The majority there just ruled on 9 January that the DMV was correct to deny a license to Alavez, not because he was an illegal immigrant, but because his license was suspended in another state.
It was six years ago that I was invited to meet with a group of state legislators from around the country, on the subject of drivers licenses. Keep in mind the reciprocal rule, that anyone who has a license from one state could go to any other and get a new license there.
That made the entire process of issuing drivers licenses as weak as the laws of the weakest state. That’s why all of the 9/11 highjackers were carrying multiple licenses from many states. I told those state legislators that either they would work with each other to establish minimum standards for proof of citizenship, or Congress would set a standard and compel the states to follow.
The states did not act together. Congress has forced the issue, and the Homeland Security Department has just issued the final regulations for all states to adopt those minimum standards.
What is the importance of all this?
Our northern and southern borders are still as porous as Swiss cheese. We don’t have a big problem with Canadians sneaking across the border because their standard of living is about the same as ours. But we have a huge problem with Mexicans because the US has become the ad hoc welfare department for Mexico (and a hundred other nations).
This presents a related set of problems: higher costs for education, welfare, hospitals, police departments, prisons, plus the dangers from drug dealers and terrorists, plus the problem of foreigners voting in American elections. All of these problems are made worse by the issuance of drivers licenses to illegal aliens. These points are all obvious, but not obvious enough for the Governor of New York, the California legislature (and several others), plus some pathetic positions on this issue taken by certain Democrat and Republican candidates for President.
It ought to be obvious that American elections, hospitals, schools and the like are paid for by American taxpayers for the benefit of American citizens. The idea that any aliens who sneak across the border are entitled to the same things simply because they’ve got a bad deal in whatever third-world nation they come from, will bankrupt local, state and national governments in the US, as well as challenge the integrity of our elections.
The answer to the question in the title is that we DO “need steenkin’ licenses.” To vote, to drive, to board an airplane, we need to restrict licenses to actual, live, American citizens. Anyone who thinks otherwise is participating in the piecemeal destruction of America.
People who hold public office, or who aspire to public office, have as their first duty the preservation of the United States of America. Those who do not understand this, should be driven out of public life as quickly as humanly possible.
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About the Author: John Armor practiced in the US Supreme Court for 33 years. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu He lives in the 11th District of North Carolina.
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That's what they all say, say.
As a poetic device, that is called Synecdoche.
John / Billybob
Nor “Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a damn.”
I looked it up.
John / Billybob
It seems so obvious. Why can't we fix it faster? Like yesterday?
The government’s failure to stop illegal immigration should not be the backbone of a new government boondoggle that allegedly provides a fix for their ineptitude of the initial premise.
There are immigration laws already in place.
Government makes excuses why they cannot enforce the laws.
So their better idea, that makes government look like it is legitimately trying to solve the problem they have created, by not enforcing the current laws, is to impose on the “subjects” another program they will ultimately fail to deliver on.
We are born in a State. We live in a State. We are educated in a State. We learn to drive in a State. The State issues our birth records. We live under State Laws.
I am a citizen of my State first. I am not a subject of the federal kingdom. There is nothing wrong with the State recordkeeping. There is nothing wrong with State law enforcement.
But there is everything wrong with a federal mandate that forces me to obtain permission and travel documents within my own country when I am already a legal resident.
The Real ID is a distraction ploy. The American citizen is NOT the problem. The problem is with the illegal immigrants and the governments inability or willingness to enforce those SPECIFIC LAWS related to immigration.
They can’t even build a damn border fence. I bet in monetary cost, a border fence would be much less costly than duplication of ID documents already held by lifelong American citizens.
Checking people at the borders makes much more sense, just because of the low volume, than auditing CITIZENS.
Those 12 million illegals didn’t cross the border all at the same time. They came one at a time, and they can be sent back one at a time, even if it takes 10 years to do their job the Feds told us they would do.
There are many movie quotes which are misremembered. Such as Strother Martin as the Warden in “Hud.” He did not say to Paul Newman digging in the hole, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” Not quite that.
John / Billybob
http://www.aztlan.net/badges.htm
There will still be, BTW, some differences between the licenses issued by the various states.
John / Billybob
It seems unfair to me that we REQUIRE non-Americans to break our laws in order to qualify for American welfare benefits. If there is no citizenship requirement for welfare and other benefits (in-state tuition, medical care, etc.) then we should not require non-Americans to come here to collect the benefits. We should do the right thing and deliver the benefits to them in their home countries. Basically, every person in the world should immediately become "quasi-American-citizens" with all the rights and privileges of American citizenship.
Or.....
...maybe we could limit the rights of American citizenship to American citizens.... I'm just saying...
You make some very good points that I hadn’t considered.
We do have a problem with forged identification or ID that was obtained using forged documents.
Hopefully the steps my state is taking will allowed those using phony drivers licenses to be apprehended.
Thanks for your input.
p,s The bast_rdized quote you DO use is from Blazing Saddles, not Treasure of Sierra Madre.
Now go ahead and get the last word.
John / Billybob
Thanks for the response.
I will say that this is becoming our defacto national ID card, and I think that will be problematic.
Which means that the so-called "problem" of mass deportation is entirely bogus.
Those illegal aliens got here through their own actions, including a lot of planning, exertion, and risk. They can, just as, or more easily, go back to Mexico on their own, if conditions are made (like employment) so that is in their better interest.
Funny, they say that George Bush was such a great poker player at the Skull and Bones. He, dragging along the American taxpayer, has been totally snookered by the Mexican government.
It is incomplete to look at the whole illegal alien thing without invoking Mexico, its government, its criminal institutions, as almost an enemy, or at least hostile neighbor. Mexico has adequate natural resources for its own.
So much for the current administration's "foreign relations" experience.
This is bad, bad stuff
That drawing in post #29 - where did you get a picture of Rage Boy’s family reunion?
You are correct. He didn’t say anything quite like that, or anything else, in “Hud” :)
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