THE CONSPIRACY TO MAKE WINGNUTS PARANOID AND STUPID, STARRING RICK SANTELLI

Today I ran across this World Net Daily story, which is a week old but is still getting posted to message boards by alarmed right-wingers:

NEW BILL REQUIRES GOLD AND SILVER REGISTRATION

The slippery slope to confiscation has begun.

Gold and silver buyers could soon have to register with the state of Illinois.

Rick Santelli provides an update on legislation that requires every gold and silver transaction to be registered with the State. Here are the basics. The bill, officially called SB-3341, was introduced in 2012, immediately passed the Illinois Senate and is now awaiting action by the House....

This is followed by a CNBC clip of Rick Santelli -- yup, the guy who made the "tea party" notion go viral back in '09 -- talking about the evil sinister Illinois plot and the horrors of government regulation and oh, by the way, did you know Chicago has America's highest murder rate? (The clip is below.)





Here's the official synopsis of this horrible fascist bill:

Creates the Precious Metal Purchasing Act. Provides that a person who is in the business of purchasing precious metal shall obtain a proof of ownership, create a record of the sale, and verify the identity of the seller. Provides that a person who is in the business of purchasing precious metal shall not pay for the precious metal in cash and shall record the method of payment. Requires the purchaser to keep a record of the sale for one year or, if the purchase amount is over $500, for 5 years. Provides that a person who violates the Act is guilty of a petty offense and subject to a fine not exceeding $500. Provides that the Attorney General may inspect records, investigate an alleged violation, and take action to collect civil penalties.

Omigod! If you buy gold, you can't pay cash! And you have to get the seller's ID! And you have to make a record of the sale and hold it for one whole year! And if you don't, there's a $500 fine! You know who else required record keping for precious metal sales, don't you...?

But seriously: it turns out that a number of states have requirements just like this. A law similar to this was passed in 2011 in Alabama; a bill in Pennsylvania was approved by the majority-Republican legislature last year and signed into law by the Republican governor; a comparable law in Virginia requires the records to be kept for two years. Two!

The reason given for all these laws is that, with the increase in gold prices in recent years, a lot of unlicensed buyers are setting up shop, sometimes for a few hours in a hotel room, and buying gold with no questions asked. Criminals are breaking into houses, stealing jewelry, and selling to these fly-by-night dealers, we're told.

Oh, and the unlicensed dealers are cutting into the business of licensed jewelers and pawnbrokers. (The Alabama link above is from the pawnbrokers' lobbying organization.)

Whatever the reason for the laws, you'd have to be a paranoid right-wing idiot -- or is that redundant? -- to think that the government is going to impose fascism by amassing the names and addresses of people who sell gold.

Now, I expect World Net Daily to try to gull the rubes with this sort of nonsense. But isn't Rick Santelli supposed to be some sort of legitimate financial journalist, rather than a right-wing hack and apparatchik?

Santelli knows perfectly well that this idea isn't unique to Illinois -- or if he doesn't know that, he could have found out in about thirty seconds on Google, the way I did. But he understand that the right-wing rank-and-file regards Illinois, and Chicago in particular, as some unholy combination of Dodge City and Pyongyang. So he's going to keep the suckers stupid, by telling the scare story they want to hear.