As befits someone who believes getting microchipped will cause you to lose your soul, Newsmax columnist James Hirsen believes in other conspiracy theories as well, such as fearmongering about nonexistent digital currency. He served up a version of that in his Oct. 9 column:
Digital IDs and CBDCs pose a grave threat to personal privacy, economic autonomy, and individual freedom.
Case in point: Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Keir Starmer recently announced a plan to implement a national compulsory digital ID.
“You will not be able to work in the United Kingdom if you do not have digital ID. It’s as simple as that,” the prime minister and leader of the Labour Party stated.
[…]The digital IDs actually tie an individual’s identity to a government or corporate-managed database.
So what effect would this have?
Well, first of all the technology provides governmental agencies with unprecedented monitoring capabilities.
Additionally, with the assistance of AI, the technology also allows every single transaction, movement, and interaction to be tracked, stored, and analyzed.
Centralizing this type of personal data (including names, addresses, biometrics, and transaction histories) into a single digital profile causes “Big Brother” (think, George Orwell’s “1984”) to become a reality.
Funny, we thought that right-wingers like Hirsen believed in constant government surveillance. He went on to rant about nonexistent “central bank digital currencies”:
When combined with CBDCs, the digital trajectory becomes supercharged.
The reality is CBDCs are fully traceable and programmable.
Central banks will have the ability to dictate how, when, and where each individual’s money can be spent.
Currency itself will exist in a digital wallet, and purchases will be restricted based on the whims of government central planners.
Hirsen concluded with a paranoid warning:
It also means the money of individuals could literally be turned off or rendered valueless at the direction of government.
The fact of the matter is digital IDs and CBDCs work together to concentrate unprecedented control in the hands of governments and technocrats.
For those so inclined, the temptation to amass power is overwhelming.
During Canada’s 2022 trucker protests, bank accounts were frozen without due process, an ominous preview of what programmable currencies may potentially facilitate.
Anyone who truly values personal liberty needs to think long and hard about surrendering personal privacy and economic independence to systems that, once implemented, are nearly impossible to dismantle.
The risks about which our forbears warned, particularly with regard to the loss of economic sovereignty and self-determination, need to be examined in liberty’s light.
May the unceasing pursuit of freedom define our future path.
Again, Hirsen needs to contact his fellow right-wingers for guidance on who, exactly, deserves to be under constant government surveillance.