National ID Wha?
February 14, 2005 @ 03:26 AMI disappeared…
Wow, what happened to ME? Seems like the last week went by in a blur. Not that anything major happened, just little things. I’m still doing my deep spring-cleaning… the kind where you dump everything out of all your closets into a big pile on your floor (which merely hides the fact that you had already accumulated a pile of stuff on your floor). My front-room, kitchen, and dining room are basically done, as in my hallway closet (which was shoved full of stuff). Next I’m working on my master bedroom, which has proven to be a challenge. Perhaps I’ll post some pictures tonight.
Anyway, DellRumors.com traffic has leveled off… around 10,000 hits a day, which is still 9,900 hits a day more than I had been getting before all the excitement, but I was peaking at like 30,000 hits a day last week.
National ID Card
The Senate has just passed a bill requiring driver’s licenses to contain certain digital information about the person to which it was issued. Now, despite the relative bi-partisan support in Congress, no doubt the dems will start screaming about civil liberties and privacy and how we’re one step closer to a national ID card.
Which raises an interesting question. Why DON’T we just create a national ID card? It would seem to make a lot of sense to me. Every OTHER organization you become a member of sends you a membership card. I can’t get in to Costco without my Costco card, for example. And the benefits to having a national ID card are largely obvious.
But like I said before, people would scream about privacy and rights… But the way I see it, if you’re not doing anything illegal, why does it matter if the government can keep tabs on you? And of course, I’m addressing the worst fears of the ID opponents, in reality a national ID card won’t permit the government to keep tabs on you any more than they do now.
I was struck by a line in BSG on SciFi this week. Paraphrasing: "The purpose of the law is to protect the people, not prosecute them." So long as our government understands the purpose of the law - which I believe both the Republicans AND Democrats do - then Patriot Acts and National ID Cards and laws that give the government more tools to protect us don’t scare me. Conversely, as soon as a government no longer believes in that purpose, then all the constitutions in the world won’t save us.
I don’t always agree with the people in government, or the way the government in being ran, but I don’t fear it. Because we all know that the government is of the people, by the poeple, and for the people. America knows it. Even the politicians. Even the judges. Even the Democrats, and yes, even the Republicans.