In Poor, Rural Communities, Fleeing Hurricane Michael Was Tough
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Compared to what, not evacuating and having hundreds of thousands (or millions) weather out a major hurricane? That seems doubtful..
Non of this is relevant to this case; lack of money shouldn't be the reason people don't evacuate. If the government determines that evacuation is warranted, it should fund an evacutation. (Of course, this policy could backfire if it means the government calling for fewer evacuations).
It starts as a national ID scheme, and then eventually everything about your life gets centralised into one database, which the government is free to abuse.
I'm also opposed to the idea that you're legally required to carry an ID card at all times, like in many European countries.
This is already happening in Australia with MyGov, which is an online platform for all your government things. As part of MyGov, they've introduced My Health Record, which is single central medical record. Apparently the Australian Taxation Office have been using My Health Record to go after sex workers for tax evasion by searching for people with an abnormally high frequency of STI checks.
The "purple state" deal seemed "within state purple" on a county level some comments around here seem that that this type of "purple" may erupt into a "next level purple" on a national level as if we don't have that already in terms of "swing states".
So we have "the purple" on the county level, and we have "the swing" on the state level. Out of this combined whirlwind, is there any sense to be made or had?
I think things are too fluid to predict any kind of clear geographic fault line.
What would be interesting would be if a state somehow broke up.
This system has been in place in the US for well over 200 years. The US has a long history of states vs federal government, don't believe the folks who tell you that today is any different in that respect.
Also relatively new is the use of federal constitutional law to overturn local social/moral regulation. Half a century after Roe v. Wade, a supermajority of people in states like Alabama and Mississippi believe that abortion should be illegal in most/all cases. That's for both men and women (who poll similarly on abortion). Meanwhile, voters in Maryland are riled up to take back the Senate to protect Roe, not because there is a danger of abortion becoming illegal in Maryland (where it's supported by voters 2:1), but to make sure it stays legal in Alabama and Mississippi. In retaliation, voters in Alabama and Mississippi have made it harder for women in Maryland or Massachusetts to actually get abortions, by securing a federal ban on funding them (which creates a huge barrier because the federal government bankrolls Medicaid).
In other areas, federal constitutional law was used to strike down lots of moral regulations in conservative states (e.g. on obscenity) that were considered perfectly acceptable at the time of the founding. (Of course, in retaliation, conservatives have figured out how to use the expansive nature of the federal government to hamper the loosening of moral regulation in liberal states, e.g. marijuana laws).
It's not like a nationalized system wouldn't be dependent on administrative subdivisions. In this case, Mr. Bearden's birth information would've still been filed away somewhere in Atlanta. Likewise, any solution that involves getting those records from Atlanta to somewhere else could be implemented just as easily without having a central national ID system.
Of course, we also have a national ID in the form of passports, but a lot of people don't have one.
A national ID would presumably be available, or obligatory, to everyone. But countries can and do deny passports or rescind them < the passport is a letter asking the govt of a foreign country to let its citizen in. Sometimes you don’t want a citizen to leave or vouch for him.
Anyways all states I’ve lived in have IDs that are solely IDs
This doesn't solve the issue of people lacking a drivers license but might solve a few others along the way.
Passports should be issued to citizens free of charge, and could carry driving endorsements as physical and digital metadata (I don't suggest that harmonizing driving credentialing and administration across all 50 states and other US territories is an enormous undertaking, just one that should be done).
While true, it’s also hilarious as they do indirectly regulate speed limits, road composition, vehicle safety features, and emission standards. So basically everything except the person operating the vehicle.
The issue of course is that their driver's license is the only government-issued photo ID they possess so if they want to fly or enter a federal building without a driver's license, they would need to get a federal ID such as a passport issued which has both monetary and time costs. (And isn't available for everyone.)