Now, I’m very clear that the good Governor of Montana and I don’t line up on every political issue. But I’ll tell you what – I’m foursquare behind his style (and the Real ID issue):
“Well, we’re putting up with the Federal government on so many fronts, and nearly every month, they come out with another harebrained scheme – an unfunded mandate, to tell us that our life is going to be better if we’ll just buckle under on some other kind of rule or regulation, and we usually just play along for a while and we ignore them for as long as we can, and we try not to bring it to a head, and if it comes to a head, we’ve found that it’s best to just tell them to . . . go to hell.”
[Â . . . ]
“You give me a half a dozen high school students and a Kinko’s, and I’ll show you a birth certificate that looks very very real.”
[ . . . ]
“So that everyone understands, the Montana legislature passed a bill that instructs the Governor and the Attorney General not to implement any provisions of the Real ID [Act], and this is the only thing that I know of that has united the farthest Left to the farthest Right in Montana politics. ”
[ . . . ]
From the interviewer:Â “Well Governor Schweitzer, what happens in May [Real ID Act “deadline” for state compliance with Real ID Act] if somebody from your state wants to get on a commercial flight?”
Gov. Schweitzer: “They’re gonna show them their Montana driver’s license and they’re gonna get on that commercial flight and nothing’s gonna happen.”
Interviewer: “But that’s supposed to be the deadline.”
Gov. Schweitzer:”Blah, blah, blah, “supposed to be the deadline.” There’s nothing in the Constitution that tells Homeland Security that they’re supposed to do this so they must do this.”
Check out the rest of the NPR All Things Considered interview.
Harry Landers
Good for Gov. Schweitzer. States should be issuing driver’s licenses to control the right of their residents to drive motor vehicles. Those licenses shouldn’t have anything to do with the federal government’s security issues and it’s wrong to try to pass those costs off on the states.
By the way, Brian Schweitzer ought to be showing up on short-lists of candidates for Vice-President.
J. Tyler Ballance
DHS must be disestablished. They are the American Secret Police (just like the Stassi was for East Germany) and they are more often than ever before, turning their growing power against the citizens.
What is worse, all of their domestic surveillance programs do nothing to prevent terrorism; especially when one considers that our supposed enemy is thrilled to have their act of terror recorded for posterity. To these stereotypical terrorists, surveillance cameras are like bait. The cameras being present at a potential target site is like icing on the cake to them, since the cameras assure them of the instant press exposure after their act.
The fact is that there is no way to defend against a terrorist who is willing to kill themselves. You can slow them down, and sometimes get them to blow-up at the wrong place and time, but a determined, suicidal adversary will not be stopped; even if we create gulag-America and embed rfid chips into everyone’s heads.
Better to address the underlying problem that nurtures these maniacs. Examine and adjust our foreign policy; our trade policy and our aid programs.
If we find that the terrorists are coming from the same few countries, work with those governments to solve the problem. If that doesn’t work, then have Congress declare war on those countries and take the fight to them.
We Americans, whether we are from the political left or right, must never give up our God-given LIBERTY; especially in exchange for the promise of security. In the end we will have neither security nor Liberty.