By Don Kilmer

Posted October 26, 2019 4:00 PM PT

My “Friday Essay” has evolved into this mutated habit. It grew from email rants to select (tolerant?) friends, into this intrusion on your attention at this little start-up site. My friends, some of whom are serious journalists and scholars of how media works, tell me that Mondays and Tuesdays are better days for publishing punditry. But I never wanted to be a serious journalist. And I have no interest in competing with other pundits, however good they might be. (H/T to Instapundit.com.)

You see, I want you to think about my pearls (or paste) during the weekend while you mow the lawn, grill a steak, watch your kid play center-field, or clean out the garage. I have this theory that thinking about a topic should be done when you are physically away from the inspiration for the topic. This exercises your attention span muscles.

Last week’s “Friday Essay” included a quote from a favorite author: Robert A. Heinlein. This week’s essay returns to that well:

“When a place gets crowded enough to require ID’s, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.”

This quote was from a novel set in a future where space travel was a historical given and common occurrence. Unfortunately for those of us still living in California, circa 2019, space travel is not an option. My wife and I will have to make do with relocating to Idaho.

It’s not that Idaho won’t require us to get a new driver’s license when we get there. And it’s not as if Idaho won’t require the same nonsensical rules for obtaining the new sine qua non of ‘Required-ID’ now known as Real ID. This is the ID that will become your new permission slip to board domestic flights after October 1, 2020. That is, of course, assuming you’ll still want to board a plane to visit the nieces and nephews on Thanksgiving–after Donald Trump is either re-elected or defeated in what promises to be an election that too many pundits will compare to 1860 for all the wrong reasons.

My wife and I discovered that the federal government is behind this sorting, tagging, and tracking of citizens when we looked at the checklist for obtaining the California version, also called Real-ID and discovered that it’s identical to the one for obtaining the Idaho version called StarCard.

We discovered this only because we were trying to decide in which state it will be less burdensome to prove we are who we say we are. Hamlet can kiss my ass. Facing the slings and arrows of answering existential questions is nothing compared to tracking down documents to issue a required-ID. Basically, Leviathan insists on forcing you to take up genealogy for the privilege of traveling America via any modern means of mass travel. Yep, Amtrak has ID requirements too.

People who already travel internationally, people who have immigrated to this country, people who visit this country from other countries, people who work in this country with permission from Uncle Sam, basically the international jet-set, will have an easier time obtaining a Real-ID/StarCard than an American born in this country. Why? Because they won’t have to come up with their birth certificates and marriage licenses for the “to be or not to be” process of providing papers to prove you are who you say you are.

Unfortunately, copies won’t suffice. You have to provide documents that lawyers and judges call “self-authenticating” certified copies—which means these documents have funny little raised bumps on the paper and official looking multi-colored stamps that say they are authentic documents. As if terrorists don’t have access to colored ink and embossing stamps. How is a DMV clerk in California going to know what the “official” seal of Pocahontas County, Iowa looks like?

Obtaining birth certificates is an adventure. The custodian of records at my place of birth (no, not Pocahontas County) requires $10 per certificate. I can download the form online, but I have to fill it out by hand and send a copy of my current ID (the old that will be invalid soon), the money, and a self-addressed stamped envelope to obtain the proof that I was born. And if my small town birthplace back east gets the job done with the usual bureaucratic efficiencies, I will have the sacred texts necessary to obtain my Idaho StarCard next year.

My poor wife was not so lucky. Her California driver’s license was set to expire before we decamp to Idaho. She had to decide whether to get the California Real-ID, or merely renew her CDL and get the StarCard when we get to Idaho. The difference in price between a mere driver’s license renewal and the CA Real-ID was zero. But the unintended costs of proving she was (is?) who she says she was (is?) is not zero. She had a copy of her birth record. And it was certified.

So far so good, right? No. Birth “records” — whether certified or not — are not an acceptable document according to the CA Real-ID website. Apparently there is some distinction between birth “records” and birth “certificates.” Nor are hospital records or baptismal certificates valid forms. But my wife was born in Silicon Valley. Home to modern progressive governments with computerized records and retrieval systems. A certified copy of her birth “certificate” will cost us $140. I guess my old-fashioned back-east town isn’t so bad after all.

But there’s a catch. The name on her birth certificate does not match the name on her current driver’s license. She changed her last name to my last name when we got married 34 years ago. So according to California’s Real-ID website, she’ll also need to provide documentation on her name change in the form of a copy of our marriage certificate. (We have one, but it wasn’t certified.)

At this point, my wife decided to renew her license and forgo the California Real-ID in lieu of getting the Idaho StarCard next year after we move. The normal renewal by mail is not available during this “window” of nudging California residents to upgrade to Read-ID. So she brought the forms she currently has in her possession — birth record and uncertified copy of marriage certificate — on the off chance that the DMV would take pity on her and accept these. They didn’t and they won’t. So a certified copy of our marriage certificate will cost another $149.00.

Why is all this necessary? Because California and other states decided to issue government IDs to persons who are “unauthorized” to be in the country. And when that wasn’t compassionate enough, they went one step further and decided to issue actual driver’s license to such “unauthorized” persons.

This is not a screed against those souls looking for a better life in America. If I were born on the wrong side of the Rio Grande, I might try to get here too. For me the question is not open or closed borders, but monitored and minimally controlled borders. You know, to keep the terrorists and known criminals from coming here and doing terrorist stuff and crimes. Or as Dennis Miller once said, “Sign the guestbook on the way in. Then stay as long as you want.”

The problem is that the federal government relies on state-issued driver’s licenses and other government issued IDs. They have regulations requiring such IDs for their federal purposes, like boarding a plane. The lax laws of California were subject to abuses like identity theft and unverified personhood, by persons who are “unauthorized” to be in the United States in the first place. So naturally, law-abiding U.S. Citizens must now recreate records and obtain super-duper ID cards to prove that they are lawfully who they say they are: that is, natural-born U.S. Citizens.

Why? Because state and local governments want to be admired as the compassionate and welcoming parens patriae against an oppressive and overbearing federal government. Never mind that the federal government is constitutionally charged with protecting the nation from infiltration by terrorists from hostile countries and ordinary criminals from the rest; and if another 9/11 happens due to fake IDs and stolen personhood, the nation will blame the Feds and not California’s lax ID policies. It’s classic buck-passing.

So in sum, a woman who takes her husband’s name must pay twice as much to verify her identity to get a required ID so that she can take a plane to visit family next Thanksgiving. California is not just too crowded. It is clinically insane.