On 5/7/2011 4:42 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 5/7/2011 14:08, Warp wrote:
>> I lived many years without any unexpired official identification
>> document.
>
> In the USA it's kind of interesting. Most places that need ID need "a
> government-issued ID." Most people use a driver's license; but remember
> that we have at least 50 different kinds of drivers licenses, because
> driving rules are state rules, not federal rules.
Ironically, some states are doing things like the digital bar strip on 
the back, which makes carding someone easier in a store (Arizona is 
using a test system in Safeway for that now), and it is easier to law 
enforcement to run a card with that too. The ironic part being that the 
wackos and loonies have argued against an official federal ID for 
decades, but the transition to magnetic strips on the cards may just 
result in uniformity of the system, thereby producing one anyway. Mind, 
it will take about 4 seconds, once its universal, for some idiot pencil 
pusher to argue that its not valid as a country wide ID in some obscure 
case, anyway.

> People in the military
> often use their military ID. And there's passports, but surprisingly few
> people actually have a passport. (I heard that less than half the people
> in *Congress* have a passport.) Of course, you need a passport to get
> back into the country if you leave(*), so that means most people making
> our laws have never even vacationed in a different country.
>
Actually, now you can't even get out without a passport, as I understand it.

> "Social security" is basically a federal tax. It started out being
> *just* government guaranteed retirement benefits. Now, of course, the ID
> number is used for pretty much every financial identification, in spite
> of originally being guaranteed to only be used for social security.
>
And, of course, because of this, people can steal it from you, and get 
the benefits, assuming someone isn't paying attention in the fed, or you 
drop off the grid, while they keep using it.

> Other than that, there's very little need to have an "ID" as such. We
> don't even require IDs for voting. (Primarily because we had slaves for
> much longer than most modern civilized countries, and when the slaves
> got freed, none of them had IDs. We also don't have any sorts of tests
> (history, literacy, etc) for voting, for pretty much the same reasons.)
>
Again, this is changing on some states. The real reason is that a lot of 
poor, disinfranchised, and/or non-hard ass, non-drivers, newly arrived 
student, etc. vote Democrat, so once you have busted unions, to cut into 
the funding of Democratic campaigns, you then go after the voters (on 
the claim that vast, but completely unproven, fraud is happening), thus 
requiring that everyone show up with ID as proof of who they are (even 
if they are known by everyone in the damn town, and have lived there for 
50 years). Hell, in one case the even wanted to try to demand that a 
students "parents" be able to show X number of years of residency in the 
state you attend school in, so that you could vote, or you would have to 
wait Y number of years yourself, before you where eligible. Its the 
whole, "You need to take a test first.", all over again, only 
indirectly, so as not to run afoul of the prior law on the subject.

> You need a driver's license to drive. You need a passport to pass ports.
> Of course, you also need a credit card to charge something, a
> prescription to get controlled drugs, etc. But you don't really need ID
> on a normal basis.
>
Again, not always the case. Some states require you prove age, via ID, 
even if you look like you are 90. Its about as non-standard as 
everything else in the US, but you can't buy alcohol in those states, 
even if you where mummified, and had proof of being a 3,000 your old 
dead Egyptian, unless it was a form of verifiable ID, in those states.

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