Massachusetts Joins the Real ID Fight

In the battle against big government and the infamous Real ID, Massachusetts has hopped on board. In the words of State Senator Richard T. Moore, D-Uxbridge, "Historically, Americans have resisted the idea, which totalitarian governments have tended to do, of having a national ID. That's the broad philosophical issue. I don't think it's a good move and I would be reluctant to see why we are going to that step." And State Attorney General Martha Coakley thinks "it's a bad idea." Should be interesting to see how it gets voted.

Comments

Re:Sadly...

[hsmith]

Actually it is two fold. They are making the states implement it, but the money they steal from the citizens in the form on national taxes are being used to blackmail the states into implementing the ID. So if the states don't go along with their fascist idea of a national ID, the fed keeps the money and spends it in other states. Thus, your freedom is being sold off for your own taxes.

God bless the government and legalized blackmail

Re:Queue up the "paper's please" post

[zappepcs]

The difference is that not everyone *HAS* to have a passport. Making a mandatory national ID is wrong. Passports are your ID internationally, not for use when buying cigarettes. A national ID would lead to ever more invasive tracking of citizen's activities. This is wrong.

Re:Passport?

[fyngyrz]

Ever try getting a Drivers License?

What you need to realize is this is a brand new set of circumstances that you are accepting as "normal." I am 50, and I have had many drivers licenses in many states and several countries. Only in the last couple of decades has it been standard procedure for them to worry about your identity details; they used to be primarily concerned with your ability to drive, as absurd as that may seem to you. They used to ask (ask, mind you, not, demand papers proving) your age, your name, test you, and issue you a license if you didn't scare a year off the examiner's life (or maybe sometimes if you did... I used to live in south Florida, and I swear, the one thing you really had to watch out for was a little grey fuzz just barely sticking up over the steering wheel in front of you... the entire concept of "right of way" instantly became a fiction.) Anyway, there was no photo on the license, the number was an arbitrary one issued by the D/L department or equivalent, the name and birth-date were issued as described, and that was it. The issue was "can you drive" and nothing else. That is reasonable. What you accept as normal is what we used to use to laugh and point our fingers at the Soviets over. There are other issues peripheral to this; you can even find old references to them in pop culture. Watch "Hunt for Red October" and ponder when the sub's second officer asks the captain if you can drive "state to state" without papers. RealID is an internal passport. Nothing less.