{"id":18518,"date":"2016-04-15T10:39:43","date_gmt":"2016-04-15T17:39:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=18518"},"modified":"2016-04-15T13:42:32","modified_gmt":"2016-04-15T20:42:32","slug":"friday-bag-o-the-beast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=18518","title":{"rendered":"Friday Bag o’ the Beast"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"beastbag\"<\/a>As cynical and\u00a0jaded as I’ve become, headlines like this still induce rage: A Black Man Brought 3 Forms of ID to the Polls in Wisconsin. He Still Couldn\u2019t Vote.<\/a><\/p>\n

As a boy, my sense of justice was acute.\u00a0I threw\u00a0tantrums when I thought mom or dad treated me unfairly. Apparently I’ve never gotten past that. Knowing elected officials are turning people they dislike away from the polls makes me want to throw bricks and Molotov cocktails. You talk about injustice, voter suppression is injustice in its purest form.<\/p>\n

Whether it’s Republican-controlled\u00a0Phoenix reducing the number of polling places from 200 to 60<\/a> for the recent presidential primaries, or red states setting\u00a0voting ID hurdles impossibly\u00a0high\u00a0for poor, student, and minority citizens<\/a>, it’s fundamentally unfair. It goes against\u00a0every value we hold dear as\u00a0Americans. It’s wrong.<\/p>\n

How can we ensure every adult American gets a vote?\u00a0National ID.<\/p>\n

Some say national ID is the Mark of the Beast and will bring on end times. Such\u00a0people are idiots. Some say national ID would encourage massive voter fraud. Such\u00a0people are Republicans, and they are motivated by racism.\u00a0Some say national ID would result in every one of us being part of a government database, subject to constant monitoring. Such people have a point, but that train left the station a long time ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We’re on our way to national ID with something called Real ID<\/a>. These are state-issued\u00a0driver licenses and ID cards that comply with federal Real ID standards (all but nine states currently comply). The next step, to my mind, is a federal law that says if you have a Real ID driver license or identity card, it will be your national ID. It’ll be all you need for proof of identity, for any purpose. Once you go through the hoops necessary to obtain that national ID, you can put your birth certificate away … you’re done with it. Every child born in the USA from this point on should receive a national ID along with a Social Security number; those of us already alive should only have to register once.<\/p>\n

The whole idea of American citizenship is that every citizen\u00a0is enfranchised and equal before the law. When\u00a0every citizen has some form of national\u00a0ID, and all cities, counties, and states are required to honor it, there’ll be no more bullshit voter ID requirements.<\/p>\n

National ID, along with motor voter registration<\/a> and voting by mail<\/a>, would put an end to other un-American Republican tricks, such as closing polling places in poor and minority neighborhoods. I was furious when I saw those photos of mile-long lines of\u00a0people waiting to vote in Phoenix a few weeks ago, but at the same time I couldn’t help wondering\u00a0why those folks\u00a0hadn’t registered to vote by mail, as any Arizonan easily can. I’ve voted by mail in every election since\u00a02008, and it works like a charm.<\/p>\n

Let me just add one more thing to this discussion: one of my middle names, Quentin, is spelled “Quinten”\u00a0on my birth certificate. On my driver license and military ID it’s spelled “Quentin.”\u00a0Why? Because when\u00a0I apply for different forms of ID I spell\u00a0it right.\u00a0On several occasions I’ve had to prove my citizenship by showing my birth certificate along with other forms of ID …\u00a0to join the USAF, to go to\u00a0college, to get\u00a0a VA home loan, to get a passport\u00a0… and no one\u00a0has ever said “Hey, it says here you’re Quinten, but here it says you’re\u00a0Quentin. Get out, you vile\u00a0imposter!”<\/p>\n

I’m white. The guy in Wisconsin is black. Any questions?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How can we ensure every adult American gets a vote? National ID.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8],"tags":[1328,2084,568,650],"class_list":["post-18518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-politics","tag-national-id","tag-real-id","tag-republicans","tag-voting"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18518"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18535,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18518\/revisions\/18535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}