Last year when I went to renew my driver's license for my birthday, I was disappointed to not get an eight year term, but last Sunday i changed my tune. Apparently Nevada's new DL law essentially equates our driver's license with a national ID, and I think that causes problems both up front and in the future. Furthermore, I don't really understand how this harmonizes with the governor's politics and with the president's plans, since some of the things they demand of citizens are considered racist if we demand them of illegal aliens. Finally, I am not sure I like the new format.
According to some, asking for ID or any other documentation is racist. I hear that in order to obtain the new NV Driver's License, you must bring in an original legal birth certificate, your SS Card, your old license, proof of residence (utility bills in your name), ad infinitum or substitute a current passport for some of these. Well, how many people know where these are, will know to bring them with them, etc.? Will illegal aliens be required to provide these same documents? If getting an ID is so arduous, doesn't this make it even more arduous if not impossible? Is Brian Sandoval racist?
The new cards will cost more and tell the state more about us. I don't like this, because it makes it easier for cops to do their job when that should not be the case. Criminals already have more rights than citizens in many cases, and I am concerned that this constitutes harassment of citizens. Laws do not really apply to criminals because criminals do not follow the law. Like TSA restrictions on toothpaste, wearing shoes through the scanner, and bans on any size of pocket knife whatsoever, we keep allowing the government to harass law-abiding citizens rather than profiling and specifically paying attention to those most likely to secede. With a quick scan, I am sure this card will tell anyone who can read it all sorts of things with the click of a mouse that used to come with much more work. Now you don't need a warrant, to do any investigation, or to go research. The work is done for you, and yet cop salaries will increase when they become essentially glorified POS devices. What if the information isn't true? Not like you can't hack the database still and fill it with misinformation. It calls to mind Minority Report...
Supposedly, these new IDs contain special tracking chips like the credit cards to protect our identity and register our rights when crossing state or national boundaries. They don't technically count as a passport, which means it's sort of redundant and vestigial, but if I could do both with one card, that does appeal to me. The other features give me pause. When credit card companies first introduced the pay pass system, I worried that I might walk by one of these and be obligated to pay for something of which I was not aware. While the microchips ostensibly make the ID more secure because it's more difficult to counterfeit, it does not mean they cannot be faked and it does not give me peace of mind. They track us enough as it is. I have a passcard at work that registers every time I swipe a door open and closed. While mostly I enjoy this because it corroborates that I am at work when I claim to be at work, if I walked by passive scanners with a government ID they could essentially track me wherever I am whenever they like without due process. Why do you think I drive a 20 year old car and use a RAZR V3?
People should not be afraid of or harassed by their governments. Thomas Paine wrote that government is "a mode made necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world". Society comes from our wants; government from our wickedness. At best government is an inconvenience we tolerate for the sake of civilized society; at its worst, it is an intolerable situation that causes great suffering among the people it administers. This new process will probably conflagrate the issue before it solves any problems, and it probably won't make anything easier for the citizens whom they force to comply with the new regulations. Many people will show up without the right documents or all of them, necessitating longer wait times and multiple trips to the DMV to get their new license since many people in line will not be ready to be in line. Then, when we have it, it will probably cost us more because we get to pay for technology. We furnish the means by which we suffer. It is truly silly that a swamp should rule a continent, but that's what we allow Washington DC to do. I do not think this is done for us, but that's how they will sell it to us just like every other usurpation ever played to exercise hegemony over the mind of man.
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