Post by Steady Micro Aggressor on Feb 19, 2007 23:47:18 GMT -5
I've been noticing a re-occuring theme recently. That theme would be an effort to tutn business and individuals into stool pigeons, finks, or snitches. I'm going to post example of this in this thread. There's not too much lower than a rat fink. There are exceptions to that, but "finkery" usually ends up being so abused as too become a bigger threat to freedom that the problem used to justify snitching. Here's the first Article from By TIBOR R. MACHAN, who's a fellow at the Hoover Institute.
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Periodically I go shopping. And I have hired folks to do cleaning at my house. And there is a handyman in my neighborhood who does extensive work on my house.
On none of these occasions do I ever ask the people with whom I engage in commerce for any kind of identification, proof of citizenship, nada. If they are well-recommended, if I am convinced their track record is fine, I'll take my chances. And the last thing I would want is for the government to force me to check up on these folks.
It is bad enough that government forces employers to do the dirty work of extorting money from employees, by means of tax withholding – it kind of hides the nasty business and makes it look like government isn't really perpetrating the crime. But then to force businesses to do the government's job of crime control, that's quite over the top.
I've been hearing how Bank of America, with which I do some little business – checking, savings, etc. – hasn't been insisting that its customers prove whether they are American citizens. So what?
Unless these customers are doing something wrong, why should the bank butt in with such detective work? That's not what banks are supposed to do. They are supposed to make sure that they do business profitably – that's what they owe their owners and investors.
In a free country people are innocent unless proven guilty, and that is how they are expected to treat one another in many endeavors. The people I may bowl with or with whom I may shoot baskets or play tennis, with whom I worship, attend school, travel – who haven't done anything untoward to me will be left in peace by me, and I would expect the same treatment from merchants. Accordingly, when I take my clothes to the cleaners, or my car to the mechanic or purchase a phone at Circuit City I am not asked for an ID. So long as I pay up, do what I promise, I expect to be left in peace about who I am, where I come from, what my religion is, whom I date, etc.
So I am baffled: Why all this hostility toward Bank of America when all the bank is doing is following the spirit of due process? Do not bother people unless you're aware of some kind of case against them.
Some argue, not surprisingly, that it is because bank deposits are backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which is another body the government ought never to have established and funded from taxes, banks may be coerced to act as snitches.
This is bunk; it is also yet another move toward the creeping police state: People are "given" another subsidy only to have it accompanied by all sorts of restrictions and demands.
So perhaps all this brouhaha about the bank isn't really about what they are doing wrong but rather about what doesn't please those who are eager to catch illegal immigrants. OK, I am not in favor of illegal immigrants but neither do I believe it is a bank's or anyone else's business outside of law enforcement to chase them down.
Maybe if our government didn't get involved in millions of other tasks, it could concentrate its energies on what it was instituted to do by America's founders, namely, secure our rights – protect us from criminal conduct. But no. It seems more and more to be farming out that job to private citizens and organizations, both of whom are not trained in proper methods of law enforcement.
But then the business of making employers collect taxes, Social Security and other monies the government extorts from us has habituated too many of us into thinking that everyone is part of the government, everyone must act like a cop, like an enforcer of the laws. This reminds me about how, back in communist Hungary, we were all expected to report on everyone around us who didn't toe the government's line about innumerable matters.
We were all snitches there. Maybe this is happening in America now, too.
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Periodically I go shopping. And I have hired folks to do cleaning at my house. And there is a handyman in my neighborhood who does extensive work on my house.
On none of these occasions do I ever ask the people with whom I engage in commerce for any kind of identification, proof of citizenship, nada. If they are well-recommended, if I am convinced their track record is fine, I'll take my chances. And the last thing I would want is for the government to force me to check up on these folks.
It is bad enough that government forces employers to do the dirty work of extorting money from employees, by means of tax withholding – it kind of hides the nasty business and makes it look like government isn't really perpetrating the crime. But then to force businesses to do the government's job of crime control, that's quite over the top.
I've been hearing how Bank of America, with which I do some little business – checking, savings, etc. – hasn't been insisting that its customers prove whether they are American citizens. So what?
Unless these customers are doing something wrong, why should the bank butt in with such detective work? That's not what banks are supposed to do. They are supposed to make sure that they do business profitably – that's what they owe their owners and investors.
In a free country people are innocent unless proven guilty, and that is how they are expected to treat one another in many endeavors. The people I may bowl with or with whom I may shoot baskets or play tennis, with whom I worship, attend school, travel – who haven't done anything untoward to me will be left in peace by me, and I would expect the same treatment from merchants. Accordingly, when I take my clothes to the cleaners, or my car to the mechanic or purchase a phone at Circuit City I am not asked for an ID. So long as I pay up, do what I promise, I expect to be left in peace about who I am, where I come from, what my religion is, whom I date, etc.
So I am baffled: Why all this hostility toward Bank of America when all the bank is doing is following the spirit of due process? Do not bother people unless you're aware of some kind of case against them.
Some argue, not surprisingly, that it is because bank deposits are backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which is another body the government ought never to have established and funded from taxes, banks may be coerced to act as snitches.
This is bunk; it is also yet another move toward the creeping police state: People are "given" another subsidy only to have it accompanied by all sorts of restrictions and demands.
So perhaps all this brouhaha about the bank isn't really about what they are doing wrong but rather about what doesn't please those who are eager to catch illegal immigrants. OK, I am not in favor of illegal immigrants but neither do I believe it is a bank's or anyone else's business outside of law enforcement to chase them down.
Maybe if our government didn't get involved in millions of other tasks, it could concentrate its energies on what it was instituted to do by America's founders, namely, secure our rights – protect us from criminal conduct. But no. It seems more and more to be farming out that job to private citizens and organizations, both of whom are not trained in proper methods of law enforcement.
But then the business of making employers collect taxes, Social Security and other monies the government extorts from us has habituated too many of us into thinking that everyone is part of the government, everyone must act like a cop, like an enforcer of the laws. This reminds me about how, back in communist Hungary, we were all expected to report on everyone around us who didn't toe the government's line about innumerable matters.
We were all snitches there. Maybe this is happening in America now, too.