Background Checks?

FredHayek wrote: We already do have background checks when you finance a home or car and even paying with cash will raise red flags. We are constantly being monitored.

New Car maybe. Home no. Used car no. Bank Financing perhaps. Private financing no.

I have bought and sold many lots of land and houses in the last few years, no background check - locally and not. I have bumped into people in the woods in Park County, proposed selling a guy the land we were on, shake on it and then record the deed the next day. The only place the govt knows the transaction happens is at the registry. Not everyone even records their stuff right away or buys things in their own name. They do not do background checks at registries. Of course they would see money moving around in my accounts if they are immoral enough to look at my personal transactions, but they would have to do more work to figure out what they are for.

You can start a corporation, buy land or a car with less checks. You can start a corporation in CO, then that corporation can start one in CA, and then that corp can partner with your college roomate and start a LLP in TX and then that LLP can start a LLC in WA and then that LLC can start a corporation in Argintina that can then turn around and start a Corporation in CO in order to business. It can be done and is done 1000x times over and documents can be hidden, overlapping or unavailable. Just do it in a state that does not put much not the net yet, they still exist. If you are a criminal and you are smart, you can hide it. If there is enough money involved, you will pay the silly fees to hide things.

Even if paying in cash raises flags, if all you have done is trade money for goods, who cares what flags are raised?

We are constantly being monitored, but not every last bit of information and all the paths to doing transactions have not been covered. Also, even if the information is out there, we are not quite to the point where it is all being put together yet. Real criminals have the job of staying one step ahead of this and they will.

But to the point. What is the background check for when it comes to voting? I thought you had to qualify to register, so you have been checked. Plus voting does not actually matter that much, so I guess I don't really care. I am not sure I am going to vote again anyway, especially if they make it harder. If we put these checks in place, it might make us debate voting to the point where people realize that 51% of people deciding something is not really enough to change your life - you need to want to change to really change.

on that note wrote:

FredHayek wrote: We already do have background checks when you finance a home or car and even paying with cash will raise red flags. We are constantly being monitored.

New Car maybe. Home no. Used car no. Bank Financing perhaps. Private financing no.

I have bought and sold many lots of land and houses in the last few years, no background check - locally and not. I have bumped into people in the woods in Park County, proposed selling a guy the land we were on, shake on it and then record the deed the next day. The only place the govt knows the transaction happens is at the registry. Not everyone even records their stuff right away or buys things in their own name. They do not do background checks at registries. Of course they would see money moving around in my accounts if they are immoral enough to look at my personal transactions, but they would have to do more work to figure out what they are for.

You can start a corporation, buy land or a car with less checks.

Even if paying in cash raises flags, if all you have done is trade money for goods, who cares what flags are raised?

We are constantly being monitored, but not every last bit of information and all the paths to doing transactions have not been covered. Also, even if the information is out there, we are not quite to the point where it is all being put together yet.

But to the point. What is the background check for when it comes to voting? I thought you had to qualify to register, so you have been checked. Plus voting does not actually matter that much, so I guess I don't really care. If we put these checks in place, it might make us debate voting to the point where people realize that 51% of people deciding something is not really enough to change your life - you need to want to change to really change.

I think you are an outlier. I agree there is a substantial underground economy, but what percentage of the economy do you think it is?

FYI, we've been doing background checks on purchases at gun shows here in Colorado for about a dozen years now. IIRC that was done by the 2001 General Assembly, but it might have been either a year earlier or a year later. So called "universal" background checks won't do anymore to stop what happened to Tom Clements than the "closing of the gunshow loophhole" did to stop criminals from getting their hands on guns. It was already illegal to sell handguns to minors when the killers at Columbine got their hands on the ones they used nearly 14 years ago. We also had an "assault weapons" ban in place at that time as well as a federal limit on magazine capacity. All it meant was that one of the killers bought a few more magazines which held a maximum of 10 rounds for the handgun he was illegally sold.

To paraphrase Representative Fields, the did indeed do something that day. Nothing worthwhile, effective or reasoned mind you, but something nonetheless.