Indiana Bans Driver's License Smiles, For Security

Smelly Jeffrey writes "According to a recent article, Indiana BMV Communications Director Dennis Rosebrough states that applicants for a new or renewed operator's license or state identification card will no longer be allowed to smile and say cheese. Apparently new facial recognition software being employed by the state fails to function when the face is distorted by something as innocuous as smiling. Also on the list of taboos are hats, eyeglasses, and hair that hangs down over the face. The article fails to mention, however, the legality of beards, mustaches, and bushy eyebrows." Similar restrictions are in place for the Enhanced Driver License (which serves as a sort of limited passport) implemented by the state of Washington, among others.

Comments

To be more precise...

[tjstork]

Fascism is defined by extreme nationalism and a disregard for basic human rights

Facism is an undemocratic military model applied to the entire state. Each person is a soldier of the state and the thought is that this would be more efficient, as armies were thought to be efficient. It follows that there is an extreme nationalism and disregard for human rights, largely because the view of the state as a single giant army generally leads to wars.

SO... you have a giant state, everyone is a soldier, and from the top on down, and there is no accountability or information flows from the bottom up. Everything is strictly top down. This arrangement has nothing to do with who owns what corporation, or even the entire state owning everything. It is the combination of the lack of citizen powers, the lack of accountability, the view of the entire state as an army, all culminating in absolute power for a leader who assumes the legislative, executive and judicial powers, that makes a facist state.

While its certainly vogue to claim that the USA is going fascist (when Bush was in office-I'm sure we'll here equally ridiculous claims about Obama going communist once he's sworn in), the dividing line here is that Bush does not have the legislative and judiciary power in his hands. Granted, the American President does have a great deal of power relative to the divided system of President and Prime Minister in parliamentary systems, but, he's still limited constitutionally in that he cannot spend money or wage wars without the approval of the Congress, and he has little say in the process of amending the US Constitution. And, in any case, he's only allowed to serve two terms, must be elected and then re-elected and then he's done.

By contrast, Hitler was both the head of state, and the prime minister. After the "Enabling Act" passed the Reichstag, Hitler was legally allowed to do -anything-. He could arbitrarily declare war on another country, which no US President could do. He could also set budgets and manage the spending of the Reich, which no US President could do. And, he had wide powers of arrest and harrasment that a US President does not have.

Perhaps the easy way to test a dictatorship would be to see what happens to the dictators enemies. Presently, in the USA, the political enemies of the President wind up getting rich and famous, whereas in NAZI Germany, they wound up in Dachau, assuming they were not all executed in the various purges that took place as Hitler gained power.

Re:To be more precise...

[tjstork]

Except for the 'enemy combatant' nonsense Bush II arrogated for himself.

Even that's not a "wide" power. When I'm talking "wide" power, I'm talking about a Hitlerian edict to round up and hang a few hundred people on a dime and then dial up some popcorn and giggle at them in home movies.

You have to remember, that, at his peak, the Fuhrer was flat out killing ten times as many people as there are in Gitmo, every day. That's a good fascist.

The real question is, would you say Stalin was a fascist more than a communist? I mean, yeah, he went through the motion of the five year plans and the whole communist enterprise... and he had a greater degree of economic control than even the Nazis had over their industry... but, he was a strongman, had absolute power, went less in favor of the idea of global communism and more in favor of mother russia (there's the nationalism), and followed it up with loads of killing.

I'd say the most recent fascist out there might be Saddam? Mubarak in Egypt? Can't decide.

Re:I'm glad I'm not a Hoosier

[redcaboodle]

Note to the mods- "Hoosier" is not an insult

It's a sad comment on the state of Slashdot's moderation system when you have to preemptively explain a fairly common phrase you used because you have a reasonable expectation that someone will mistake it for "flamebait."

Imagine - there are people on Slashdot who are not American at all. I have a good grasp of English language colloquialisms (mostly BE, though) and I didn't know that one.