By Eric Peters, Automotive Columnist
You may have thought — hoped — you could dodge the creepy “real” ID driver’s license the feds have been pushing since the terrorists who hate us for our freedoms gave the feds the excuse they needed to take away our freedoms. Including, for instance the freedom to travel.
Without permission, that is.
Without being ear-tagged like a steer, with biometric identifiers unique to each individual, such as a digitized photo (for use with facial recognition technology) as well as a bar code/scannable strip that contains all your vitals such as Social Security number, date of birth, address and so on. Some “real” IDs have RFID chips — which can be used to track/scan you in real time without you even opening your wallet.
And we’re all going to be forced to carry them around.
Because without one, you’ll be stripped of your ex-right and former liberty to travel.
Unable to drive. Unable to travel by air or train.
It’s the usual offer you can’t refuse.
Like being a “customer” of the DMV or the IRS.
These “real” ID cards are being sold to the populace using the ought-to-tired-by-now (but unfortunately, isn’t) canard about “security” and thwarting would-be evildoers.
In fact, great evil is made possible, made likely, by them — from the merely annoying (identify theft, fraud; all your personal data in one place and now scannable by anyone — not just the benevolent state — with the right equipment ) to the potentially deadly (literally) serious. Has there ever been a free society in which the populace was not free to travel without permission, with their comings and goings subject to cataloging? What is the purpose of collecting, collating and cross-referencing such information? Can it be benign? Has such cataloging ever been benign?
People are — with reason — suspicious.
Which is why a few holdout states have not yet adopted — that is, required — the “real” ID. Which infuriates the feds.
Which explains the news.
Next year — 2016 — you will no longer be able to fly or take a train unless you have a “real” ID. Or its equivalent, a biometric passport. So saith the TSA — which is protecting our freedoms by taking them away, one by one.
Consider what this means. You will either submit to being electronically ear-tagged like a steer — or you will be effectively denied the right (yes, that increasingly useless word) to travel outside the U.S. or to return. Or even to fly/take the train or drive a vehicle within the U.S.
The net cinches tighter.
“It is a choice,” flippantly explained David Fierro, the Public Information Officer for the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles. “If you use a passport when you’re traveling you don’t have any problems,” he soothes. “If you use your driver’s license as identification, you’ll need to either apply for the Real ID card or get a passport.”
Not unlike the “choice” one gets at the ballot box — Democrat authoritarian collectivist or Republican authoritarian collectivist.
Never neither.
Never freedom.
But, the truth is it’s already a done deal — or might as well be. The only holdouts (as of early 2015) are Arizona, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York and — wait for it — American Samoa (apparently, there is still a residue of freedom there that must be stomped, in order to keep us safe).
Open your wallet and have a look. If you live in one of the states not listed above, you are already ear-tagged like a steer. Look for a gold star on your driver’s license. If you find one, your DL is a “real” ID. The hauptam der heimat sicherheitsdeinst (Department Homeland Security; sounds better in the original, doesn’t it?) says that 70-80 percent of American drivers are “real” ID’d.
The rest are just a mopping up operation.
You may have noticed the last time you went to the DMV — under duress, as always — to get your permission-to-drive-your-car renewed. Remember how you used to be able to smile? And how they now insist you pose unsmiling? How carefully they snap your pic? Using that new equipment? Yup. You’re on much more than Candid Camera now. Your digitized picture has been entered into the “real” ID database. Those cameras sprouting like spring tulips all across the country? They’re not just watching you anymore. They are keeping track of you. Or will be, soon.
Everywhere you go. 24-7.
Those who do not like it — who “choose” not to be ear-tagged — will be rendered inert. Even traveling on foot (or bicycle) will become problematic since without “ID,” one is vulnerable to being hassled by “heroes” — the state’s costumed enforcers — who may demand a formerly-free person provide said ID upon demand merely to prove he’s not a criminal.
Does anyone out there notice the inversion? Or care anymore?
Thus died freedom in this country — to the accompaniment of flag-snapping and hand-clapping.
For the record — the historical record (one day, people will look back on this era and marvel that such a thing could have happened… again! Didn’t they remember the past?) just 43 congressmen and 1 out of 99 senators voted against all this, when the law was proposed back in ’05.
One of those lonely stalwarts was Ron Paul, who tried:
“Supporters claim it is not a national ID because it is voluntary. However, any state that opts out will automatically make non-persons out of its citizens. The citizens of that state will be unable to have any dealings with the federal government because their ID will not be accepted. They will not be able to fly or to take a train. In essence, in the eyes of the federal government they will cease to exist. It is absurd to call this voluntary.”
Such sentiments are not patriotic and freedom-lovin,’ of course — and Dr. Paul was jeered (moo’d?) off the dais. His son. Rand, took note and drew the appropriate conclusions. One does not become a leader in the United States by promising to defend the liberties of the people.
One becomes a leader by demanding they be taken away.
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