Social Security / Lost Liberty

According to the law of the land, a social security number is literally only required to obtain social security benefits and is completely voluntary.^[1] In practice it has become a hurdle to things necessary for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Most who have a bona fide conviction that they cannot participate with the universal identification number scheme are being told that they cannot vote, bank, drive, hunt, fish, marry, cash a check, or do many other things, soley because they cannot identify themselves with a SS#.

The prohibitions of many people are religious, stemming from the book of Revelation, chapter 13, that has figurative language to describe a literal numbering scheme whereby no man can buy or sell without it. Those who believe that the SS# is the "number of the beast", have no choice but to abstain from identifying themselves with it, whether or not their name has ever been associated with a number. There are Jews who feel compelled to refuse to identify with the SS#, believing they would be contributing to a Nazi-like scheme. Not forgetting lessons from history, they understand that the overreaching use of the SS#, as a means of tracking and controlling individuals, is bound ultimately to lead to oppression.

     Those who cannot identify themselves with the SS# routinely find themselves caught in a quandary of Catch 22s. When denied banking services they are told that the bank is merely following federal mandates. When the banks are shown that the federal requirements do not "mandate" that a number be disclosed, and that there is a mechanizm for accommodation, the banks change their tune. They claim that it is internal policy, and thus, the Privacy Act has no force against their demand for a number. All fifty states now demand that each applicant identify themselves with a SS# on a driver's license application, or the application will not be accepted.   One man in Texas is being excluded from his normal crop-dusting contracts because he cannot give a SS# in order to obtain a general pesticide applicators license. See Texas Attorney General Opinion (http://www.oag.state.tx.us/opinions/ga/ga0289.pdf). The State governments claim that they are following a federal mandate that allows no exceptions, citing 42 USC § 666, paragraph 13. Yet, the United States Supreme Court has declared such a mandate cannot be exacted upon the states due to U.S. Constitutional limitations. See Printz v. United States.^[2]

     The crop-duster is hard-pressed to overcome his obstacle. If he cannot continue his vocation, he cannot survive let alone hire the team of experts it will take to get a ruling in his favor. There are hundreds like him throughout the country who are being denied the means of livelihood, yet cannot compromise what is to them a moral obligation, according to Revelation, "loving not their lives even unto death." Those who take a stand are often left to standing alone. Rather than finding help and encouragement, much of their oposition comes from within the church.

     Should we all just leave them to Darwinian theory? Do the rest of us have any responsibility to endorse them in their plight to recover liberty and livelihood in spite of their religiously motivated limitations? I say, certainly not and absolutely so. How can we glibly say their Biblical interpretation is wrong when their liberty is not secure?   Not bringing a needy stranger in from the cold is equal to putting him out in it. Today's liberty lost for them, is our future liberty lost along with it. Imagine yourself in their plight. You may eventually find yourself in it.

American Christian Liberty Society
www.christianliberty.org

[1] "The Social Security Act does not require a person to have a Social Security number to live and work in the United States, nor does it require a Social Security number simply for the purpose of having one." April 11, 2003 letter from Charles A. Mullen, Social Security Administration, Associate Commissioner, Office of Public Inquiries.

[2] (f) Finally, and most conclusively in these cases, the Court's jurisprudence makes clear that the Federal Government may not compel the States to enact or administer a federal regulatory program. See, e.g., New York, supra, at 188. The attempts of the Government and the dissent to distinguish New York--on grounds that the Brady Act's background check provision does not require state legislative or executive officials to make policy; that requiring state officers to perform discrete, ministerial federal tasks does not diminish the state or federal officials' accountability; and that the Brady Act is addressed to individual CLEOs while the provisions invalidated in New York were directed to the State itself--are not persuasive. A "balancing" analysis is inappropriate here, since the whole object of the law is to direct the functioning of the state executive, and hence to compromise the structural framework of dual sovereignty; it is the very principle of separate state sovereignty that such a law offends. See e.g., New York, supra, at 187. Pp. 25-34. (Emphasis added) Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 98 (1997)

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