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Date: Tue, 04 Nov 1997 16:00:16 -0800
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From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: A Patriotic Gamble: Nevada's Aaron Russo
<snip>
>
>Patriotic Gamble
>
>URI DOWBENKO
>
>NEVADA
>
>"I'M not going to allow the ID card into Nevada. There will be no
>ID cards," says Aaron Russo emphatically.
>
>In the course of his career, Russo has been a nightclub owner, a
>music promoter, and a successful manager with movie stars like
>Bette Midler and Susan Sarandon, and music groups like Manhattan
>Transfer. More recently he has been active as a Hollywood
>producer, with hits like Trading Places, starring Eddie Murphy,
>Teachers, starring Nick Nolte, and The Rose, starring Bette Mid-
>ler. He is perhaps best known in Hollywood as the first producer
>to get a $1 million fee.
>
>Now Russo has traded his Hollywood base for Nevada, announcing
>plans to run as a Republican candidate for governor in 1998. Why
>has he given up the lucrative movie business for politics?
>
>"I believe that America is rushing headlong into becoming a
>socialist totalitarian society," he says, "and I want to help
>stop it. I see the Federal Government disobeying the
>Constitution. When the government is allowed to take control by
>force and act unlawfully, then that's tyranny."
>
>What Russo has in mind is things like the Omnibus Appropriations
>Act, 1997, a/k/a Public Law 104-208, passed by Congress and
>signed by President Clinton last year. Buried deep within this
>one-inch thick document lies a scheme for national identification
>cards. Presented as a safeguard to keep illegal aliens from
>working in America, this new law mandates a program for
>establishing a national database. In bureaucratic terms, they
>call it "Employment Eligibility."
>
>Tide IV, Subtitle A, "Pilot Programs for Employment Eligibility
>Confirmation," calls for so-called "machine-readable documents"
>with "the individual's Social Security account number" and photo
>identification. There is also a stipulation for the development
>of "counterfeit-resistant Social Security cards," implying the
>use of biometric data like fingerprints and/or retinal scans.
>This is not sci-fi, folks, it's the law.
>
>In addition there will be a toll-free telephone line so an
>employer can check on a prospective employee, in the words of the
>law, "concerning an individual's identity and whether the
>individual is authorized to be an employee." That's on page 664.
>Believe it or not, this code section ends on page 666.
>
>Sitting in Nate `n' Al's, a movie-industry eatery in Beverly
>Hills, Russo seems an unlikely person to go up against Big
>Brother. His successful career in entertainment, however, is
>probably an asset. He knows how to reach people. And, as he says,
>"Nobody's telling the American people what's going on." About the
>ID card, first, but that's not the only area in which Big Brother
>is active. For example, there is the "Communication Assistance
>for Law Enforcement Act, in which every phone in America will be
>prewired for a tap," says Russo.
>
>He is running as a Republican, but he doesn't see these as
>specifically Republican issues. "My support is across all party
>lines," he says. "I think if you're a Democrat or Republican, you
>don't want to carry an ID card. You don't want your phones
>tapped. It's about freedom in America."
>
>For Russo has the quaint idea that the Founders of our country
>meant what they said. "Under the Constitution, only Congress can
>make law. But now you have all these government agencies making
>rules and regulations that will have the force of law." The FDA,
>for instance, which has continually overstepped the boundaries of
>its jurisdiction. "I want to make Nevada the alternative-medicine
>oasis of the United States," declares Russo. "I believe in free-
>dom of choice in medicine. The FDA has tried many times to stop
>doctors across the country from practicing alternative medicine.
>I believe it's up to every individual to make his or her choice
>about what kind of treatment to receive. That's another thing
>we're fighting for."
>
>As for national educational testing and standards, the point
>isn't whether the particular standards are good or bad; "I
>believe that the job of educating children belongs to the local
>community." First federalism, now limited government; what will
>he think of next?
>
>HOW about due process? "Last year in America, there were 250,000
>asset forfeitures, and 80 per cent of these people were never
>charged with a crime. much less convicted of anything. If the
>government can come in and take your assets without due process
>of law, then that's the definition of a totalitarian country."
>
>Russo also has harsh words for the Internal Revenue Service.
>"We're going to make sure that people who get tips, which are
>gifts, will not have to pay taxes on them. Under the IRS's own
>code, gifts can only be taxed if they're over $10,000. There are
>many people in Nevada who cannot afford to live.
>
>"I met one waitress," he continues, who was working 16 hours a
>day and she was living in a car with her five year-old child
>because the government pre-assumes how much money she's making in
>tips and takes it out of her paycheck.
>
>"She earns $900 every two weeks and takes home $167 after taxes.
>It's beyond comprehension. Imagine---the government assumes how
>much monev you should make, then you have to pay taxes on it. I'm
>going to go to the Supreme Court," says Russo, "and stop the IRS
>from taxing people's tips in Nevada."
>
>Voter apathy and mistrust of government have also captured
>Russo's attention.
>
>"I'm very concerned about voter fraud," he says, "because when
>you use a computer to cast a vote, there's no way to really tell
>if there's fraud because there's no paper trail. In Nevada, I've
>been having many meetings with the Registrar of Voters in Clark
>County. I'm telling them that the computer has to spit out a
>paper receipt which the voter looks at to see if it matches his
>vote. If it matches, he presses a button which verifies that the
>receipt's correct and then he drops the paper receipt in a ballot
>box. So now you have a ballot box and a computer voter and those
>two should line up with each other, so you can verify the
>computer votes with the paper trail.'
>
>In tackling Big Brother, Aaron Russo's platform is clearly based
>on states rights issues defined by the Tenth Amendment of the
>Bill of Rights. In tact, much of what he says is reminiscent of
>the prophetic words of Patrick Henry from The Anti-Federalist
>Papers ( June 5, 1788). Henry warned his compatriots, ". . .
>Happy will you be if you miss the fate of those nations, who,
>omitting to resist their oppressors, or negligently suffering
>their liberty to be wrested from them, have groaned under
>intolerable despotism....
>
>"Those nations that have gone in search of grandeur, power, and
>splendor have fallen a sacrifice and been the victims of their
>own folly. While they acquired those visionary blessings, they
>lost their freedom."
>
>When asked what he'd like to accomplish, Aaron Russo says, to
>"stop the tide of the Federal Government's encroachment on
>everybody's life. If I can do that and light a spark in America,
>other states can see that it can be stopped." That would be a
>significant contribution.
>
>
>
>Mr. Dowoenko is chairman and CEO of New Improved Entertainment.
>
>Reprinted from: NATIONAL REVIEW, p. 30, OCTOBER 13, 1997
>
<snip>
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