The “Big, Bad Government”
I’ve been reading around lately and I saw some controversy on this REAL ID stuff that the United States government is pushing. While I agree that it’s a bit ridiculous that the federal government is threatening to take away state rights if they don’t accept the ID, it reminds me a lot of the change in drinking age a few years back where the federal government said they would give states who accepted the change benefits such as larger budgets and what not.
And I’ll state it for the record…it’s wrong. It’s honestly just not right, and I’d imagine we’ll see reform in the next couple of years regarding the power that the federal government has over the state government.
Although, the thing that seems to piss the most people off, isn’t about this federal power struggle, it’s about the fact that people have this “issue” with being monitored by the government.
If you drive anywhere in the US, you obviously have a drivers license. I live in New York and as a result, I have a NY drivers license. I’m not sure about the rest of the country; however, having a NY drivers license, if I get pulled over in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, even Canada!, it will effect my license! Now I would say, “THAT’S RIDICULOUS”; however, I have no reason to complain! If I don’t speed and I follow the rules of the road, I won’t have any issues. Period. It’s really as simple as that.
In essence, that’s what this new ID is going to do. It’s going to allow states to pull up records from state to state. While people might say “OH NO I don’t want to be tracked!”, what the hell are you worried about? In all honesty, if you have a fear of being tracked or kept an eye on, you probably have something to hide. We’re not talking about army’s quartering in our homes. The United States provides an enormous amount of freedom compared to anywhere else in the world. However, with that freedom, comes a few negatives; and they’re not the end of the world. If anything, this national ID should solve law enforcement issues with traveling state to state to apprehend criminals. In my opinion, this is outlined to make the US a safer place.
Let me ask you, if you have a social security number in the USA, why isn’t your DNA on file? Why is it that you need to commit a felony or other crime for your DNA to be linked into a national database? If at birth, your DNA was put on record and attached to your social security number; we could essentially stop rape. 80% of rape cases in the US leave behind DNA, why aren’t we tracking our citizens via DNA? You may say “NO, I don’t want to be recorded and marked.”, but when you or someone you love is raped, I’m sure your attitude will change.
In short, I don’t think this is something to view as detrimental to the way we live; however, a positive. If you live a clean, safe, pure life, then what are you worrying about? If the government wants to tap my phones, go ahead, I’m not planning anything, if the government wants to watch me via satellites (which I’m sure is already done today), let them do it!
And before anyone starts bashing me, understand that I’ve seen corruption in the government first hand. I’ve been a part of the issues the court has. I wouldn’t be surprised if statistics showed that more than 25% of the people put away in jail were actually innocent, and you know, maybe if the law enforcement was a bit better and had better knowledge, we wouldn’t be putting people in jail who didn’t belong there…