Shameful. Just shameful.

At a time when other states, including our neighbor South Carolina, are resisting the anti-American, anti-freedom REAL ID Act, North Carolina is actually bragging about being among the first to comply with it. Phillip Rhodes blogs about it here:

[T]here is no doubt that North Carolina and it’s people have a long history of embracing Freedom and Liberty as core values. Now however, we see that corruption and decay have reduced this once proud state to a level where state official are *bragging* about their compliance with a totalitarian National ID law passed by the Federal government in 2005.

He’s right. And to think, this is the state that was the first to stand up to the British oppression with the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence on 20 May 1775 (and even if you dispute that, there’s the Mecklenburg Resolves 11 days later), the Tryon Declaration on 14 August (I’m directly descended from one of the signers), and the Halifax Resolves on 12 April the following year. Also, our main delegate to Congress, Joseph Hewes, was one of the biggest driving forces behind the push for independence, despite his inaccurate portrayal in the otherwise excellent 1776.

We’ve been sinking into Socialism for a good number of years now. With REAL ID, we go into Communism and “papers, please.” It’s high time we woke up, remembered our legacy and heritage, and did something about it.

It looks like Congress is going to act to restore habeas corpus. The fact that I even had to write that sentence would make our founders, had they the ability, moan so loudly from beyond the grave it would shatter every window in the country. How much worse is it that some Republicans say they’ll vote against restoring it? Without habeas corpus, you have no other rights.

Here’s a very good news report explaining why:

I just had to share this entry from the Downsize DC blog:

Picture this: A Mexican migrant worker sits down to read the new 700+ page Senate immigration bill.

He doesn’t know a lick of English, but he’s giving it a go anyway. He wants to obey the law, so he has to know the difference between a Z-visa and an a, b, c, d or whatever visa.

Can’t imagine it happening? Well how about this . . .

This Mexican worker earns a whopping $15 a week working in Mexico, but he really does want to obey the law, so he spends a month’s salary for a lawyer to tell him how to work in the U.S. legally.

Still can’t picture it? Well how about this . . .

The Mexican just ignores the whole thing and walks across the border.

This last scenario makes the Mexican look pretty smart, and Congress, and huge chunks of the American public, pretty stupid.

Can we really expect a Mexican to read and understand our laws, when not even Congress does?

And see, that’s the problem: it’s easy to get here illegally, and too difficult to get here legally. They come here illegally because it’s easier to swim the Rio Grande than it is to climb the mountain of bureaucracy.

This new immigration law will expand federal control over law abiding U.S. citizens.

Businesses that comply with this law will feel the heavy hand of the state as they strive to do background checks on every person they hire. Law abiding businesses will suffer, while those that participate in the black market for cheap labor will thrive.

Law abiding workers will also suffer. You will be subject to background checks, but those working in the black market will not.

All prohibition schemes of all types share several crucial features. They all ignore the law of supply and demand. And they all succeed in punishing only a few of the guilty, while making all of the innocent suffer from the negative consequences that flow from a black market.

The truth is that this so-called immigration reform is really about the REAL ID Act. The electronic verification aspects of this bill (which is just code for the REAL ID Act), are the only parts of this bill that will have any real impact. And the impact will be on YOU, the legal worker, or you, the legal business operator.

And that’s the big problem. Government whips up all this anti-immigration fervor–by complaining about a problem it caused–and uses it to take away your rights.

It’s high time we all woke up.

New Hampshire Public Radio interviewed Ron Paul today for almost an hour. Listen to it, and I think you’ll see why I think he’s so awesome.