In Revolution, Martin Anderson’s 1988 e book in regards to the Reagan revolution and about Marty’s position in issues, Marty tells an fascinating story about unlawful immigration. On July 6, 1981, the Activity Pressure on Immigration and Refugee Coverage met within the White Home. Marty was there. The Legal professional Normal, William French Smith, introduced his proposal for sanctions on employers who employed unlawful aliens. He additionally proposed a nationwide ID card in order that employers would know who was authorized and who wasn’t.
Marty was appalled.
He writes:
Such a card is an indispensable software of a totalitarian state, for earlier than a authorities can actually start to regulate your life it should know who you’re and the place you’re, and it should be capable of demand proof of your existence wherever it encounters you—making use of for work, transferring to a different tackle, strolling down the road. With out a nationwide identification system, it is rather tough for a small variety of individuals to regulate a big society. With one, it’s a lot simpler.
Marty then goes on to clarify how having such a nationwide ID would steadily develop into regular.
He notes that Smith made a flawless presentation and was persuading numerous members of the cupboard. Marty was sitting “a few ft behind the legal professional basic, in one of many tender leather-based seats alongside the again wall that have been reserved for senior White Home employees.”
When Reagan regarded across the room for feedback, there weren’t any. Marty didn’t wish to be a part of an administration that launched a nationwide ID card. And if he received fired for talking up, oh properly. So Marty broke an unwritten rule, elevating his hand. Reagan observed him and mentioned, “Sure, Marty.”
Marty identified that such a card would value a number of billion {dollars}. However that didn’t appear to hassle individuals: “By that point a billion {dollars} or two didn’t hassle anybody within the cupboard.” [DRH note: federal spending in FY1981 was $657 billion.]
So Marty took one other tack:
“I wish to counsel one other approach that I believe is rather a lot higher. It’s rather a lot cheaper. It could’t be counterfeited. It’s very light-weight. It’s even waterproof.”
“All we have now to do is tattoo an identification quantity on the within of all people’s arm.”
As Marty recounts, a number of individuals gasped after which there was an extended silence. Then Inside Secretary James Watt spoke up:
“Why, it sounds to me as when you’re speaking in regards to the mark of the Beast. That’s horrible.”
Lots of the individuals across the desk regarded perplexed. Reagan wasn’t. He acknowledged the Biblical reference to Revelation 13: 16-18.
Reagan regarded straight at Smith and, smiling broadly, joked:
Possibly we should always simply model all of the infants.
That was the tip of nationwide ID playing cards for 1981.
Observe: That is from the King James model of the Bible, the one I grew up with:
16 And he causeth all, each small and nice, wealthy and poor, free and bond, to obtain a mark of their proper hand, or of their foreheads: 17 And that no man may purchase or promote, save he that had the mark, or the identify of the beast, or the variety of his identify. 18 Right here is knowledge. Let him that hath understanding depend the variety of the beast: for it’s the variety of a person; and his quantity is 600 threescore and 6.
