tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5736821.post4655686284302683975..comments2023-08-08T04:19:26.974-07:00Comments on THE CALLADUS BLOG: Our new National ID card - or not.Calladushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17620879847877868166noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5736821.post-62866752496634593932010-05-04T10:10:04.859-07:002010-05-04T10:10:04.859-07:00But other than receiving certain government benefi...But other than receiving certain government benefits and for identification during foreign travel, when do we really need to establish our citizenship? And in those cases, how would a national identification card improve the status quo?Peter Wallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15026459298407890137noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5736821.post-32464299585006374602010-05-04T10:04:12.205-07:002010-05-04T10:04:12.205-07:00I've been arguing on Twitter with another gent...I've been arguing on Twitter with another gentleman that perhaps we don't "need" a national ID card. (He is adamantly against a national ID card.)<br /><br />But at the same time, I think even you will admit Peter that carrying a driver's license, birth certificate and Social Security Card are not documents that are rigorous enough to prove citizenship by themselves.<br /><br />In order to be effective, these documents must be cross referenced with the USCIS, who then makes some sort of determination. Whether that determination is, "legal citizen" or "NOT an illegal immigrant" - I dunno. (The two positions are very different!)<br /><br />The gentleman I'm in a discussion with has a passport, and is of the opinion that a passport is a dandy way of proving citizenship - so much so that he thinks every true American citizen should carry one.<br /><br />My point on this is based upon my observation of the Social Security System. Since SSN's were first issued, they have steadily become more and more mandatory in identifying us in our business transactions. They are placed on our medical forms, taken when we buy a car, and of course they can be used to identify our citizenship when we apply for a job. We even write these SSNs on our checks!<br /><br />If everyone has a passport, over time it will become a de facto citizenship card.<br /><br />We don't "need" a national ID card because anything that is sufficient in itself to identify us as a citizen of the United States will, over time, become a national ID card.<br /><br />And I don't know what I think about that either.Calladushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17620879847877868166noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5736821.post-88037950749923371712010-05-04T09:26:36.317-07:002010-05-04T09:26:36.317-07:00(continued from previous comment)
Even so, as I u...(continued from previous comment)<br /><br />Even so, as I understand constitutional theory in this country, sovereignty and the natural "police powers" said to arise from it, belongs to the states, except to the extent they have granted some powers to the federal government by the Constitution. Which, to add a wrinkle, was rhetorically propounded by "We the People" but ratified by state conventions instead of popular votes. Meanwhile, the Constitution also gives the federal government sole authority to regulate "Naturalization" and "Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes," so that states are not actually bestowing citizenship. Tricky.<br /><br />There is probably some good scholarship out there that I haven't read yet, but it sure seems to me that our complex system of government is <em>almost</em> tailor-made to obliterate the concept of citizens identifying themselves with some unit of sovereignty, given the fact that our "citizenship" arises from the federal government, while its "sovereignty" arises from the states. (Hence the compartmentalized mindset we see in the political discourse.) But isn't it <em>practically</em> true that we only have "United States citizenship" for the purpose of foreign travel? Within the United States, we have Social Security numbers for federal identification and state driver licenses (or non-driver identification cards) for general identification.<br /><br />So why would we need a national identification card? Despite the bizarre complexity of our government, I haven't really heard arguments that there would be some kind of administrative cataclysm without one. We just get these pessimistic proclamations about "terrorism" and "national security," as though they were self-evident.* It just seems like a proxy for nativism and racism, sort of the way that states-rights libertarian appeared to use federalism as a proxy for his desire to impose family morality on others.<br /><br /><br />* For an excellent critique of the "national security" concept, I highly recommend <em><a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/5654532/book/56833122" rel="nofollow">The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism</a></em> by Andrew Bacevich.Peter Wallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15026459298407890137noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5736821.post-3117071197886955752010-05-04T09:26:18.194-07:002010-05-04T09:26:18.194-07:00I'm still undecided about national identificat...I'm still undecided about national identification cards. The whole history of the United States might be told as the story of how a bunch of fiercely distinct regional, colonial, and immigrant populations who banded together initially against a perceived common enemy have gradually homogenized and nationalized their identity. But we still have strong regional differences, so that story would be pretty weak. Our sense of state and federal identity seems at times like a compartmentalized mind—we call on one or the other identity when it's convenient or politically expedient to do so. People who, for a particular issue, prefer a weaker government that will give them more leeway, seem to call on state sovereignty, while they might invoke the federal government when they favor a broad, unified, and standardized approach across the nation.<br /><br />I remember a few years ago getting into an argument with a states-rights libertarian over a case where an unmarried interracial couple somewhere in the deep South had invoked a federal civil rights claim against a local government that had penalized them for living together as an interracial couple or without being married (I don't remember the details exactly). While he was much more interested in getting us mired in the problem of whether the protections in the Bill of Rights are incorporated into the 14th Amendment and therefore enforceable against state and local governments (and in perpetuating the false narrative of the federal government "involving itself" in local affairs, even though the parties had invoked federal rights on their own) I kept asking why he chose this place to pick his fight. Assuming he was right that federal constitutional protections should not apply against state and local governments, wasn't the subtext of his argument essentially that local governments should be allowed to discriminate against people for such terrible reasons? He refused to answer, saying that the federalist principle held true regardless. That seemed pretty weaselly to me.<br /><br />(continued in next comment)Peter Wallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15026459298407890137noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5736821.post-81672280868480489002010-04-30T12:35:54.228-07:002010-04-30T12:35:54.228-07:00I have the same reasons you do for liking the idea...I have the same reasons you do for liking the idea--and, I'm sad to say, some of the same heebie-jeebies as others. (Sad because I like to think I'm the exception to American frontiersman rugged individualism, otherwise known as big-government paranoia. But of course I'm not, completely--all said and done, I was born and raised here.) I can think of a number of ways such things can be abused, with identity theft being one of the most benign. <br /><br />I'll try and follow your thoughts/research/info on this one--I'm still undecided as well.Scientiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09254279030002819459noreply@blogger.com