Papers please

A recent survey  by Rasmussen indicates 78% of Americans want voters to prove citizenship in order to register to vote. Sounds like a no-brainer, but oddly enough, voter registration forms do not ask for proof of citizenship.

This isn’t a voter identification question in the sense which has been debated previously, in fact, this measure might put an end to voter identification debates. You could not register without having shown adequate identification to prove you are a citizen of the United States of America, not just a driver’s license but a birth certificate or naturalization papers. The bigger question is, how would it work?

We often express a desire for legislation that has unintended consequences, so think for a moment how you might prove you are a citizen. We can talk about aliens being required to carry papers, but where are yours? It used to be that we didn’t routinely carry identification. After years in law enforcement, it continues to amaze me that people don’t habitually carry some form of ID with them at all times. Although almost no one writes checks for purchases anymore, you probably remember waiting in line when someone wrote a check, and didn’t have a driver’s license or other form of ID with them. At the mall or grocery store, to which they had driven a car.

A national ID card, or some form of government issued ID, could certify citizenship. It’s done in every other country in the world. Otherwise, we would need to carry our passports with us. That would be a problem, as there are only 109 million U.S. passports in circulation. That number is based on data attributed to the Department of State in several articles, however they all use the same link which directs to a 404 “page not found”. At any rate, 35% of Americans with passports is an all time high.

If we expect to be capable of asking aliens to identify themselves, we have to be capable of identifying ourselves. Otherwise how do I know you’re not an alien? Because you say so? That wasn’t good enough for them. In a country based on Free Speech, by which I mean it is second only to religion in the Bill of Rights, the most popular right when asked to identify is the right to remain silent. People are happy to share their points of view on the internet, but prefer to remain anonymous. There are no statistics available for aliases vs actual identities on the internet, but even on social media sites where the idea is to be yourself, it’s fairly common for people to use an alias.

In the last national elections, there was a push for voters to provide identification when voting. You’re voting, the wonderful right to choose your leaders and for some reason you don’t think you should have to identify yourself? You provide identification in order to enter a building, but balk when it’s time to vote? We associate being asked for our papers with a police state, and the ACLU has abundant advice on what to avoid providing if asked by the police. We cling to an illusion of privacy yet expect everyone to accept who and what we are on merely our word.

This may be the root of several social ills. “Bobby869” is more likely to respond with a string of obscenities than a rational debate, and while “Blake Cash” may be an alias (technically it is, my parents named me Kenneth), I use my own name because I believe in standing behind what I say. If you don’t feel safe identifying yourself with your actions, maybe you should consider the witness protection program. If what you have to say is unpopular with your friends, you have the wrong friends. If you can’t be proud of yourself, who can you be proud of? When you start by lying about who you are, when do the lies stop?

The positive effects of a national ID card outweigh the negatives, because I can’t think of a single negative effect. Maybe I’m over confident in the empowerment being yourself gives you, it’s working for me, but that is just anecdotal evidence. Are we as a nation ready to identify ourselves? If not, how can we ask anyone else to prove who they are?