-Eric
One problem I see in Ohio is most people's only state ID is their driver's license
The "law" is that you must always have a picture ID on you at all times, whether it is a driver's license or state ID card. Now this is barely enforcable unless you get detained by officers. The truth is that if your license is suspended, and you aquire a state ID card so as to comply with the "have ID at all times" law, then you must re-test to reaquire your driver's license once the suspension ends. Obviously very few people will take the state ID route, but rather they wait it out and get their license reinstated. You can not hold each ID as valid concurrently. This is my personal experience.
These are considered to be acceptable primary id in Ohio, and you must have one of them on you at all times.
Driver License - (Any State) with photograph, current or expired not more than 6 months.
U.S. Birth Certificate - Must be original or certified copy, have a seal and be issued by an appropriate government agency. (U.S. territories are included, i.e. Puerto Rico, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands)
State Issued Identification Card - (Any State) with photograph, current or expired not more than six (6) months.
Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS) Documents - Must be original and valid.
Certified Copy of Court Order - Must contain full name and date of birth. Examples include: Adoption document, name change document. (Cannot be related to any Bureau of Motor vehicles issues).
Birth Registration Card - Must be an original containing the official seal of the issuing county health department and display the registration or file number; include name, date of birth, gender, and name of parent(s). Must also be signed by the City Registrar of Vital Statistics.
U.S. Valid Military Identification with photograph
Valid U.S. Passport
State Issued Learners Permit - (Any State) with photograph, current or expired not more than six (6) months.
You apparently are not required to supply ID, just state your name and address.
This creep had NO PROBLEM with showing a driver's license.
AND now for my point... my perspective on this is VERY different from those on most on this thread. I have not a problem, given the experiences I've encountered with this issue, in law enforcement attempting to get to the matter of CORRUPTION.
Now, for the even better part.. after receiving subpoenas to appear in court -- it seems the LA System has gotten FINALLY a handle on the fact that the guy using my friend's identity, needs to be apprehended on MULTIPLE CHARGES. I say GOOD!
And now for the last kick-boom... the creep criminal.. in NO way physically resembles my friend. "ANTI-Profiling" measures PROTECTED this creep.
Imagine being law enforcement. You arrest a guy for criminal behaviors.. he shows his DL. His DL picture doesn't look like him. The creep laughs in your face and walks out into the "community" encouraged to commit more crimes and because Law Enforcement is HINDERED AND HAMPERED from doing what they need to do.
Bottom line is.. libertarians can just be ridiculous, at times.
You are a citizen. You have certain rights. You also have certain responsibilities. If showing your DL when asked is so much trouble for you, go to Costa Rica. Move there. Live free.
Problem is, IMHO, some people mistake being a wanton jerk with being "free" to do whatever they want.
America is a long ways from being "over", and I know this is disappointing to some in various political aisles.
Are there instances of police harassment. Of course. But are there millions more cases of law enforcement actually apprehending criminals. Duh, YES.
Some people, IMHO, have OBE in thinking they are living inside some "Demolition Man" world, rather than the reality they ACTUALLY live in; and posture the thinking that if ONE innocent person is harmed by a law, then the law should be tossed! Acting like caveat emperors. It's really pathetic, you'gist?
In John Galt's world, such a creep would have had NO due process, but taken down immediately by physical force. Carry Galt's world to it's logical extension, beyond that which Ayn Rand wrote, and you get to see a world with laws be re-created.
Assuredly, her point was not that laws were bad -- the point of her book was that systems can be overweighted when people live selfishly and blindly.
The trick to halting and preventing such a dulled-system, is to be active and awake and aware in the here and now. We have multiple "problems" in our system now: Identity theft, terrorists, "anti-profiling measures" ad nauseum. If providing a DL to law enforcement which asks (and yes, none of us relishes doing that) means that a system can be righted NOW before it arrives at the dulled system detailed by Rand and pre-Galtian times, then it is a good thing.
IMHO and IME, of course.
Measures such as the Patriot Act are doing exactly this -- weeding out and cleaning up the system.
But some people wanna revolution.... piffle. Wah! They wanna see American fall to its knees so they can have a shot at being "big fishies" in a little pond in their "devastated" communities.
Solid systems keel over when people live purely by their own ego-driven wishes and demands. Living in a civilization and community often requires that we contribute "as members in good standing" to the good of the city, state, nation.
Amazing to me. We've got people doing noble sacrifice in LAW ENFORCEMENT AND MILITARY giving their all to keep their fellow citizen safe from harm, and then contrast this with PEOPLE HYSTERICAL OVER SHOWING A DRIVER'S LICENSE.
I do wish people could keep their pet peeves and personal egos out of this matter. But they can't and won't and don't.
And THESE that I've just named are the reasons a system gets DULLLED. All those people in the pre-Galt world were all about THEIR WANTS, THEIR PERSONAL EGOS.