Not long after 9/11, while driving from my home in Indiana to stay with my dad in PA for an extended time before he died, I lost my wallet somewhere on Interstate 70. I was scheduled to start a new job in PA while I still had a residence in Indiana. So in order to pass the I-9 form (required to prove I was born in the USA) I needed "at least two forms of ID from list A, or as an alternative one from list B and one from list C"...
Birth Certificate? Well, mother says father has it, father says mother has it...both divorced for 20 years. Good luck there. But let me read off a list of forms of ID that I did have which did NOT satisfy the Indiana requirements to get a replacement:
(below the fold)
I graduated High School in 1985. This little saga was in 2003. I was 36 years old.
- my high school ID card (laminated, with picture, 1983
- college ID from NC State University (laminated with picture, 1993)
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- college ID from Purdue University (laminated with picture, 1995)
- college ID from Wake Technical Community College, (laminated, with picture, 1989)
- employer ID from Whirlpool Corporation, (laminated, with picture 2001)
- employer ID from Caterpillar Corporation, (laminated, with picture 1995)
- Expired Driver's license (my first) from NY State, 1984
- Expired Driver's licence from North Carolina 1985
- Expired Driver's license from North Carolina 1990
- Expired Driver's licence from Indiana 1995
...The current vehicle registration, inspection, and insurance cards all with matching Address and vehicle info for my residence in Indiana, which had been unchanged since 1998.
I was told I could not get a driver's license unless I had "one of the items from List A - which included an original or certified copy of my birth certificate.
I lived about 4 hours (luckily) from the state capital of the state I was born, and in one day I was able to drive up there and get a duplicate birth certificate and drive it back down for my first day of work.
NOW -
I want you to know this:
Before I committed to drive the 9 hours to Albany NY and back, I checked the Google and found...well, this - hundreds of places that promised - PROMISED, I tell you - for only $75 - I would be sent a certified birth certificate within 48 hours, by mail, with only a major credit card and my mother's maiden name and the city where the hospital I was born in was located.
So..what would you rather have?
An unbroken string of photographic documents (that all looked like they had been carried in a wallet long enough to be plausibly created at their printed dates) that showed an unbroken history of what was arguably the same guy as he aged over 20 years, complete with addresses that would easily be verifiable.
(I know this because I once applied for a store credit card; a person called me within an hour of submitting the application and asked me for the address and phone number of every place of residence that I had lived at for 15 years, and he had all of it.)
Or...
Would you rather have a cerfied duplicate of a birth certificate that can be had by anyone who could read my web page or Facebook account that gives my hometown and age.
I wrote a letter to the governor of Indiana after this incident (because I was told at the DMV that "after 9/11...blah blah blah" - What? After 9/11 we're not allowed to think for ourselves?
I found my wallet. It was underneath the passenger seat of the car.
As as aside: Since I have been labelled one of the "new" atheists by a number of people who seem to find their enemies easily labeled, I have begun to tell the following parable of my own (to compete with the chapter and verse that gets thrown at me)
"The Christians have been waiting for Jesus now for about two millenia. And if the poor guy has the unfortunate luck to show up in 2010 (God would do that)...
...and the clouds parted....
...and descended from the heavens on a winged white horse...
...was a man in flowing robes, appearing luminescent from his own intrinsic glow and from that of the golden halo above his head casting shadows beneath him...
you and I know good and well that someone would ask him for I.D. "
The Arizona law is nothing more than a 21st century version of burning the witch at the stake. The country is scared and angry, so we need to kick ass on something to make ourselves feel better. We thought Iraq and Afghanistan would make us feel macho and triumphant again, but that's not panning out the way it was forseen.
...in other words, just like in the Salem of old, the crops have failed, a newborn baby has died, the town elder has fallen ill, and the village needs a demon to blame it all on. The 2010 version of this is the "illegal" immigrant ("illegal" being optional, depending on the crowd you're in) ...and the test of whether or not she's a witch is the precious documentation.
"...There are ways of telling she's a witch..."
(someone please find the Monty Python "Holy Grail" sketch please, if this does not work)
And no documentation will ever be good enough.
This country is eating it's own, folks. You're watching the end of days - and I'm an atheist. We trust no one. All are guilty until proven otherwise.
When was the last time you heard a Republican talk about Bin Laden or terrorists? Anyone John "I was not a maverick after I was once a maverick" McCain shamelessly say that if HE were elected, McCain would find Bin Laden.
But no, we elected Barack Obama, so McCain kept his knowledge and power to himself.
By the way - for all these Right Wing Loon-with-Tics, if we really did run all the "illegals" (or just those guilty of looking brown with "particular shoes" -
...can you imagine what the price of tomatoes would go to?
...and a long list of other items that magically get produced by what few American corporations/companies are left with labor that goes undocumented so that they can get paid less, without benefits, or payroll taxes?
My neighbor is one of those guys who blames "them" -
And yet my neighbor runs a vending machine business....who does he think is paying his bills through those machines at the factories where his coin-operated food is being consumed? The CEO?
...or is it the "illegal" workforce he wants to see shipped out of the US on a 1000 mile long convoy of busses?
Bin Laden must be laughing his ass off at us.
This country is eating itself from the inside.
We should not be this hungry .