But don’t worry. When it comes to administrating your health care, the federal government will be much much much more solicitous. CNS News:
A report from the Social Security Administration Inspector General (IG) found 4,317 instances where a non-citizen was able to obtain two Social Security numbers, including 542 instances that happened since 2001.
“We identified 4,317 instances where the Numident record of 2 SSNs assigned to noncitizens contained matching first, middle, and last names; dates and places of birth; gender; and fathers’ and mothers’ names,” the IG reported on Dec. 10, 2012.
Numident – which stands for Numerical Identification System – is the master file of applications for social security numbers. The IG found that SSA had issued multiple numbers to 4,317 non-citizens from 1981-2011.
The IG found that the errors occurred because SSA did not cross-check the names of the people applying for an additional Social Security number.
“In each case, SSA had not cross-referred the records, indicating that SSA either was not aware it assigned two SSNs to the same noncitizen or it believed the number-holders were not actually the same person.”
The review was initiated after a non-citizen was convicted of defrauding the government out of $55,000 in Social Security and federal housing payments by using two Social Security numbers, the report said. While no further fraud was found, the IG acknowledged that the potential for fraud still existed.
Four words: “iceberg” and “tip of the.”
This country is so internally FUBARed — intentionally so, in many instances — that I despair of ever being able to fix it. Without a mulligan, that is.
the SSA is a dagger pointed at the penis of america
Shit, only 2 Social Security numbers? Pikers, all of them.
Company I used to work for, the CFO had a guy come in for his retirement benefits and the guy had 5 Social Security numbers.
Then there were the two couples, identical names, social security numbers, etc., both husbands trying to claim the same pension.
We don’t need to fix it. We merely need to survive it.
Nothing beats a good piece of ash.
Now, let’s all smoke apiece pipe.
Mr. Eastwood recommends a nice piece of hickory.
I have a feeling the market for CrankyCudgels™ is going to spike a bit. I think I’ll ramp up the production line.
When things are this messed up, I recommend the C4 solution. Blow it all up and start over.
Not in a literal sense, of course. Not all of it. There are a few buildings, like the IRS headquarters, we could stand to detonate for cathartic reasons (once they’re emptied of people, of course. And I’m being generous by including tax lawyers in that designation).
It’s a freaking Masonic Temple.
Not in a literal sense, of course.
Yep, but in a gesture of recognition of Bastiat’s suggestion regarding broken windows and the consequences, rather than use a *boom* or *burn* metaphor, let’s say instead something like “pull the plug”, so as to, so to speak, remove the power-source. Thataway we preserve the capital goods for use after the energy is reapplied in a more appropriate manner and time.
Doesn’t work for me Sdferr, I think it’s 180 degrees out of phase.
We are the power source. It’s the machine gobbling up more and more power and going for a monopoly that needs to be dismantled piece by piece until we’re back down to the frame.
The let it burn people are a little naive I’m afraid, thinking they will escape the conflagration and even come out with something better on the other side. Far more likely is another dark ages, IMHO. Something more akin to the Middle East these days than the golden years of the USA (whenever that was, being kinda subjective).
We are the power source indeed, which is why we can pull the power source. This is, at least as I understand the theoretical or optimal basis of our polity, the simple way things stand. Which in turn puzzles me why you would think it 180 out of phase?
Let me put this in another or somewhat expanded way. In The Federalist, I believe the theory is advanced that the people donate some portion of their inherent power to the institutions of government in order that those institutions may carry out the actions which the people desire them to carry out.
To say only a little more, this idea is closely linked to our notion of political legitimacy, and therefore to proper judgments of illegitimacy, or right and wrong as we conceive them in a political context today. So the right thing would be a judgment of the people in this respect (donating their power), and removing their donation of power would by definition reflect their considered judgment that the instruments of government, their own creations, had lost the legitimate possession of those donated powers. Does that work?
Because “pulling the plug” implies cutting off the power source, which can be made to mean we voluntarily withhold the power I suppose, but not in the context of seeking an alternative expression to “let it burn”.
Maybe I didn’t understand what I meant in seeking an alternative to “let it burn” then. But on the other hand, I’m not entirely sure that I didn’t understand, as opposed to had another thing in mind.
I visited Paris years ago, and one thing I remember thinking then as I toured the various historical sites was a deep hatred of the destructiveness of the French Revolution, the deeply, profoundly stupid waste of the thing. When I hear or read let it burn or blow it up, I suspect much the same feelings arise today. But perhaps this is too idiosyncratic a reaction on which to base a view of proper political change?
The let it burn people are a little naive I’m afraid, thinking they will escape the conflagration and even come out with something better on the other side. Far more likely is another dark ages, IMHO.
Not naive; merely tired of waiting for the shoe to drop. With the course we’re currently on, my grandkids can look forward to a life of misery, debt and subservience. I may be naive or optimistic in my belief that we can get through the dark years in time to offer them a chance at something more hopeful, but that’s a naive optimism I must bitterly cling to.
Seems a better idea to change course than hasten the journey, is all.
Or resign ourselves to the destination.
Let it burn is just too passive for me.
On my good days, I commit myself to the local efforts that I’m convinced are the only practical means I have to effect positive change. I support my local neighborhood groups, I meet with my neighbors, I talk to my city and state bureaucrats, I push back against false beliefs borne of slanted media coverage, and all that sort of thing.
On my bad days, I’m convinced that no amount of local hustling will be enough to undo the damage inflicted on our nation since the great march through the institutions took hold. I’m convinced that we’re heading to a day when the red states will refuse to bail out the blue, or when functional counties balk at bailing out the dissolute big cities, at which point things get really ugly. I’m convinced that our federal debt will finally come due, triggering a period of hyperinflation that will wipe out my decades of frugal living and saving for the future.
On those bad days, all I really want is to be rid of the uncertainty, so that I can deal with the aftermath and recovery. I would rather have a really horrible situation that I could work at overcoming, than continue to sit and contemplate just how horrible it will be, and to wonder just when the day will arrive. I would rather work hard at a project with a decent shot at bearing fruit, than to continue pouring energy into efforts that I suspect are futile. I’d rather work seven days a week for the good of myself and my family, than continue working two days a week for myself, and three days working to pay for state programs and personal retirement plans that I expect will never pay off.
So yes, today is a bad day, and I admit that I may be naive, or optimistic about my ability to weather the coming storm. But on those days when I believe that we can actually turn this ship away from the iceberg, am I any less naive or optimistic? Which is the more realistic path?
These are very difficult questions Squid. Not least because of the fraught implications of terms like practical, realistic and so on, in their wider political context.
If we ask how the nation has come to this pass, often the more careful examination will tie to the miseducation of our people regarding the intentions, the origins, the very meanings of our most common political instruments, for instance.
We point to the ‘long march’, that is. But do we ask whether at its inception that long march was or looked practical? If we answer yes, then aren’t we committed to just such long term devices ourselves, or in the interim at least to direct counters to the progressive long march, such as learning and teaching the contrary as we go? That’s my hobby-horse, and I’m (with Aristotle, Montesquieu and T. Jefferson) sticking to it.
All we have to fear is fear itself.
No one’s future is certain, never has been, never will be. All we can do is prepare for the worse, hope for the best, and deal with what is in front of us.
Hoping for the worst is befuddled thinking that can only result in misery, and must be recognized as such if one wants to avoid disrepair.
But do we ask whether at its inception that long march was or looked practical?
The takeover of education, news media, pop culture, and government by the Left was the longest of long-term plans, brought to fruition by slow, steady, relentless effort over the course of decades. Resistance was minimal, since most Americans had no idea they were even under attack (and still don’t!). Time, complacency, and inertia all worked to the Left’s favor.
By contrast, our unwinding of the long march must be accomplished against a determined foe, well aware and well-prepared to defend the gains they’ve made. We’re fighting against a disinformation engine that makes it nigh-impossible for us to reach the masses. We’re fighting an entrenched bureaucracy that will not give up their cushy sinecures without a fight.
Nor do we have the limitless time in which to accomplish our counterattack; where the Left had decades in which to work their slow advance, we’re lucky if we have a handful of years before we go the way of Greece, with the rioting and societal dysfunction that entails, and without a large, powerful neighbor to cushion the blow.
So forgive me if I sometimes throw up my hands, and spend some time on damage control and preparedness, instead of leading a long march of my own. Forgive me if I see two million new gun owners as representing just about the best outcome I could hope for, given the battlespace prep I’m up against.
I’ll feel better tomorrow, I’m sure. At which point Three Dog and I can take up the good fight once more.
heh, imagine my despair at hearing it takes too long over and over again for the last forty years. But at this point, I’m inured.
Precisely. 100 years of institutional takeover can be reversed quickly if a good selective plague should happen to take out the current occupants.
And just to make it worse, I’ve been hearing it from smart people who should have been able to reason their way through the problem better than they did. Forty fucking years. Others, sadly, have been making the same argument at least as many decades longer again than I have. But always in a rush, America stood by while its utilitarian ship never came in, yet its political ways were overthrown. Like the posters of George Bush smiling, waving “Miss me yet”, so smiles and waves Western Civilization as it fades away.