Oh Mickey, Not So Fine!

Nick Gillespie | September 10, 2003

Policy skeptic and uber-blogger Mickey Kaus half-heartedly comes out in favor of a national I.D. card (scroll down to Monday, September 8). In a discussion of how immigration is playing out in California's recall, he writes:

Your Papers, Please! The legitimate argument in favor of giving illegal immigrants driver's licenses is that it would require them to know how to drive and allow them to buy state-mandated insurance. The legitimate argument against it is that driver's licenses function as I.D. and having them would allow illegals to do more or less anything in American society--resulting in a de facto amnesty and increased security risk. Why isn't the obvious solution this: Separate the two functions. 1) Have a national identity card that serves the I.D. function. (This seems like an unfortunate post-9/11 necessity anyway.)...

To his credit, Mickey links to an ACLU page attacking the very idea of such a card. Mickey, read Reason Contributing Editor Glenn Garvin's great story on the subject and then take it all back.

Reason needs your support. Please donate today!

Try Reason's award-winning print edition today! Your first issue is FREE if you are not completely satisfied.

Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment or disable your ability to comment for any reason at any time.

Russ D|9.10.03 @ 1:18AM|#

Reminds me of a National Lampoon Radio Hour bit about immigration:

"Hey, ya just stamped mah hand!"
"That's so if you go out, you can come back in again."

|9.10.03 @ 1:28AM|#

Might valid ID cards not be issued by capable, trusted companies like Pinkertons?

Except that Pinkerton is no more. I worked for Pinkerton/Burns until the middle of July; they switched over to the name of the Swedish company that bought them out, "Securitas," July 1. Changed uniforms and all. It was a daft decision, if you ask me -- giving up the most well-known name in American security for "consistent branding." Sigh. I'll never understand corporate decision making.

While we're on the subject, though, I think that private licensing of drivers would work well. Something like Underwriters' Laboratories.

|9.10.03 @ 2:37AM|#

We already have a national ID card - it's called the social security card. In times past the number was supposed to be private, but now - unless you're dealing strictly in cash - any business can demand it of you.

Issuing drivers licences to non-citizens is not a real good idea simply because too many states use these as ID for voter registration. Unless they are a different color entirely. Can you see the outrage that will build in Calif when BDL starts asking people for proof of US citizenship? Discriminatory surveillence of hispanic citizens or some such nonsense, ACLU moving in, "profiling" etc.

Don't we accept foreign drivers' licences?

Douglas Fletcher|9.10.03 @ 3:02AM|#

"Until someone can prove to me the intense difficulty and therefore the "skill" needed to drive a car..."

Spend a day driving around a big metro area in this country and you might come to a different conclusion. If carpenters worked with the same level of "skill" you can see displayed on our roads every day we'd live in cities full of crooked houses.

Whether or not the government should be the authority dealing in licenses is a good question but I'd say, looking at the insurance rates we have where I live, we could do a lot better at educating drivers than we do now.

Keith|9.10.03 @ 3:21AM|#

Do uniformed Securitas guards say "Hey! Respect my authoritah!"

"I really hate Cartman with authoritah"

Warren|9.10.03 @ 4:44AM|#

I remember hearing an anecdote by a member of the Reagan administration. I seems the idea of a national ID was floated. One of the quicker minds in attendance spoke up and said that yes "there is a technology available that is, light-weight, theft-proof, highly resistant to tampering, impossible to loose and would provide everybody it's issued to a positive identification on file with the government." "Oh really? What is it?" "It's simple" he replied "all you have to do is tattoo a number on their forearm."

The issue of national IDs was dropped.

|9.10.03 @ 4:53AM|#

Douglas,

You make it sound like every big metro area is suffering under terrible driving conditions created by the drivers, deaths and destruction at every turn.

Gimme a break. The fact that you arrive at your destination safe and sound in an endless sea of unskilled morons refutes your assumption. I can't buy the notion that you arive safely because you are one of the few out there who drives skilfully and defensively. If that were the case, then you would be one of only a few who arrives at his destination safely. But almost everyone does, everytime. With our existing so-called lack of driver education.

The insurance rates have more to do with the fact that the government mandates insurance for all drivers in most areas now. When you coerce demand, prices go up.

Hovig John Heghinian|9.10.03 @ 12:05PM|#

Perhaps this is off-topic, but why couldn't identification authorities be private companies? Might valid ID cards not be issued by capable, trusted companies like Pinkertons?

We already employ privatized identification on the Internet, through VeriSign, Thawte (which is now owned by VeriSign), and Geotrust.

|9.10.03 @ 12:31PM|#

The point of that would be they would be optional versus mandatory.

What exactly is the moronic fixation of requiring "them to know how to drive"? It takes more brains and skill to vote than drive, yet driving is a privelege and voting is a right. Until someone can prove to me the intense difficulty and therefore the "skill" needed to drive a car, the driver's licensing scheme is nothing but surveillance tactic.

|9.10.03 @ 12:49PM|#

I don't get it. You don't have to be a citizen to get a driver's license, just a resident. A DL should prove nothing. We already have national identification for citizens -- the passport.

|9.11.03 @ 10:25AM|#

Why on earth should the government issue any kind of permit or other documentation to illegal aliens? For any purpose? Ever?

Blum David|9.10.04 @ 1:38AM|#

EMAIL: pamela_woodlake@yahoo.com
IP: 62.213.67.122
URL: http://free-digital-photo.online-photo-print.com
DATE: 01/21/2004 12:04:43
Ethics is not necessarily the handmaiden of theology.

Reason.com