TTC, RFID and other nonsense

I usually don’t listen to Alex Jones but that’s not because I think he’s wrong. Being a conspiracy theory sympathizer (see here), I would probably go batshit insane if I knew of everything that Alex talks about. I saw this video this morning though, and after a little research, decided that I should tune in to Alex’s show on a regular basis.

The video, which discusses the Trans Texas Corridor, RFID chipped Texas auto inspection stickers and driver’s licenses, is old news at this point and I’ve been bitching about the TTC for years now, but I want to pipe in with a few thoughts.

The proposed and defeated TX inspection sticker bill was written to have the chips in TX inspection stickers updated by insurance companies with current insurance information. The stickers were to be readable roadside, compatible with existing toll road readers (and presumably the new TTC toll roads) and drivers without (readable) current insurance were to be fined $250 by mail. Rather than the vehicle’s registration address, the owner’s address as shown in an insurance database would be used. The registered owner of the vehicle would have only 15 days to appeal the fine. Interestingly, the owner would have been required to prove his innocence and there was to be no jury trial appeal.

That’s some scary shit and when you look at the plans for the Trans-Texas Corridor on the TxDOT website, Real ID, and the government’s own website on the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, you start getting a real idea of where this is all heading. If you think talk about a North American Union is tin foil hatter’s stuff, check out Jim Kouri’s article on the first NAU driver’s license in which he quotes Missouri State Representative, Jim Guest:

When Rep. Guest asked participants to take out their driver’s license and see what was on it one gentleman was a state employee and on his license there was this hologram with the North American continent on the back. They were all surprised to see that on a North Carolina driver’s license.

Guest has formed a coalition called Legislators Against Real ID Act, or LARI.

“I was astonished when I saw that North American hologram on the North Carolina driver’s license,” Guest said. “I thought to myself that the state DMV has already included this North American symbol on the back of the driver’s license without telling the people of North Carolina they were going to do this.”

“I thought right then that this was going to be the prototype for the driver’s license of the North American Union. When we called the North Carolina DMV, they hedged at first,” Guest said, “but finally they admitted that, yes, there was a North American continent hologram on the back of the license.”

Going back to the TTC and TxDOT’s double speaking website, one will find that they intend to use existing taxpayer funded highways (even though they say here that they won’t do that without local voter approval) and that some tax dollars will initially fund 80,000 miles of roadway using pass-through financing. A private foreign corporation would build and manage the roadway and get this, TxDOT agreed to a sort of non-compete contract. From FreeRupublic.com:

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has agreed to consider lowering the maximum speed limit on a stretch of interstate highway that competes with a planned toll road. Cintra-Zachary, a joint Spanish-US venture, paid TxDOT $1.3 billion for the right to collect tolls on 40-miles of State Highway 130 set for construction beginning in 2009. Although TxDOT suggested that free market competition was part of the goal of using a public-private partnerships to construct and operate roads, the contract it signed on March 22 to construct this portion of SH130 was specifically designed to limit the desirability of alternate, free routes.

Nope, you don’t have to wear a tin foil hat to see how fucking foolish this is. I’m generally a fan of private investment and toll roads, but this marriage of taxpayer money to restrictive corporate contracting will only serve to blur the lines of responsibility and lay all risk on the Texas taxpayer. To top it all off, there is much to add insult to injury.

In order to enrich a foreign company, eminent domain will be used for some of more than 500,000 acres of land (just in TX) necessary to build the project. They say the TTC will help in the event of natural disasters but it’s hard to see how moving more people in the same direction will actually provide congestion relief during an emergency. There still has to be an endpoint that will bottleneck. They claim it’ll be good for the TX economy but the actual terms indicate differently and, in fact, suggest that those helped won’t be the average Texan. While the some people dismiss plans of planned NAFTA superhighway connecting Mexico and Canada as conspiracy theory hype, TxDOT’s website clearly states the TTC will connect Texas and Mexico. Yet, a spokesman for TxDOT stood and denied that to participants in a recent (January 22, 2008) town hall meeting. (Video)

It’s long past time to wake up to the debt slavery our elected representatives are forcing upon us. If left to their own devices, the bastards will have us all pay for our own destruction.

The Libertarian Party of Texas has long opposed the Trans Texas Corridor Act and has included language specific to TTC in its platform.

~ by Miche on January 26, 2008.