Proposed ID Cards Threaten Liberty

A group of Orange County political activists has hatched a proposition requiring all Californians to carry a tamper-proof identification card issued by the state government. Christened with an innocuous sounding acronym, RSVP--the Residency Status Verification Petition--proponents are planning a signature drive to place this scheme on the November ballot.

According to backers, RSVP’s system of mandatory ID cards is needed to weed illegal immigrants out of the public assistance population and reduce welfare fraud by American citizens too. To this Orange County conservative, RSVP means a massive, intrusive and permanent government machinery for combating problems that are transitory, at worst.

Does anyone truly believe massive illegal immigration is a phenomenon that will continue indefinitely? Two things are clear from American history: Immigration waves inevitably abate, and government programs, once created, are nearly impossible to dismantle. Once governments get hold of a useful means for controlling citizens, they never fail to find reasons for keeping it, even after the original rationale has evaporated.

Immigration has been good for America, and the welfare state harmful. It is ironic that some “conservatives” seek to deploy government power massively to curb a phenomenon historically beneficial to America (immigration) in order to more effectively operate a destructive social experiment (the welfare state).

The argument that RSVP will reduce welfare fraud is unpersuasive. What poses a greater threat to liberty: welfare fraud or the welfare state itself? RSVP is worse than the affliction it purports to cure.

Should RSVP become law, every infant born in California would be fingerprinted and the legal status of the child’s mother recorded. Call me old-fashioned, but I still hold to the quaint notion that government should only obtain our fingerprints without consent in the event of arrest for the commission of a crime.

The RSVP ID card would also be required to register a child in public school, to apply for a CalGrant and for an otherwise qualified applicant to collect unemployment or disability insurance.

Fingerprinting us at birth in order to run a massive ID system is an affront to a freedom-loving people. Are welfare fraud and illegal immigration such grave threats that we should voluntarily submit to such an authoritarian scheme that will erode liberty and strengthen government control over our lives?