Work!? LUXURY!! When I was a wee lad I had to keep all my state secrets in an old shoe box at the bottom of a frozen lake! I would have killed for WORK at that age!
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Youâre right, thereâs no solution to this problem like there is for Social Security Cards. Itâs completely impossible to solve
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Iâve always felt it wasnât worth the hassle. Iâve lived in the Middle East, I have foreign relatives and donât want to explain or be responsible for their politics, and in the extreme case donât want to dignify the psuedoscience of a polygraph. I also have a shit memory for the irrelevant details that they seem to want. I canât remember where my dad was born, and I donât want to talk to him just to find out. Itâs funny because my great grandfather was part of the American national security apparatus at one point and it wasnât that long ago that I considered joining it for what in retrospect were not the best reasons. (C.f.).
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Iâm not sure itâs impossible, but it will cost money.
IDK, if passports werenât so expensive perhaps theyâd work for aviation ID purposes. But as others have mentioned upthread, some places donât even acknowledge their validity.
I was at our credit union this past August and the super officious woman just had to tell me that my driving privileges were going to expireâŚin three weeks. I said that surely this was none of her concern, but she told me in no uncertain terms that my picture would no longer valid as an ID once I could no longer operate a car legally.
Itâs ridiculous that banks and CUs are in cahoots with the DMV, but at least the CU will recognize my passport.
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In Canada they offer a single ID that works for crossing the border, flying, health care, drivers license, and ID, and probably a few other things like voting and scraping the ice off of your car window. It is called the Enhanced Security ID.
That name wouldnât fly in the USA but the people in Canada are chill and donât have such a distrust of their government. 
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But this canât be true! Everybody was just telling me that it was too hard and expensive and would create chaos and destruction.
And youâre telling me that they already are doing it in Canada? They could afford it despite having only 80% our GDP per Capita? And people havenât freaked out or anything?
And it really is more convenient???
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Canât we just oxidize the bureaucracy instead?
Optionally, burn the bureaucrats on the bonfire of their own forms?
In my experience the bureaucrats arenât the problem anymore, at least not in the healthcare side (including registration and such) When I worked at HP/DHS the primary source of bureaucracy was HP (the corporation) and the secondary source was political appointees. It wasnât until I engineered a position working directly with the bureaucrats that I could start getting things done without constantly running into barriers.
Iâd seen similar issues working contracts in similar situations, though never quite as in-depth
The private/public partnership is not the boon we were promised.
And, as @redesigned clarified, Canadaâs bureaucrats are handling these issues pretty well.
Not all bureaucrats are government-related. Any sufficiently large structure will start breeding them.
We need some persistent poison, like DDT used to be, and hope they wonât develop resistance in few generationsâŚ
Oh very much so. Like the huge multinational aircraft manufacturer I work at⌠It is just a result of any large entity sadly.
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Those states should deport the TSA agents and build a wall so they canât get back in. Actually, all states should.
Unless those passengers are driving their cars up to the plane, a driverâs license is not relevant.
I had a savings account at a bank for years as a kid. So when I grew up, it was my first choice, being the only bank I knew. I went back to open a new account and they refused me - not because my ID was invalid, but because it was a non-driver ID (a DMV-issued non-driverâs license). Despite being in a city, theyâd never met anyone who didnât drive and couldnât comprehend the idea. I argued with two levels of managers before I decided I didnât want people that stupid managing my money.
As a criminal, having your movements tracked is a common part of the punishment of being on probation/parole. When a government declares war on its citizens (or on inanimate objects and ideas which any citizen might potentially have) and views itself as an occupying force in a hostile territory, it will naturally need to treat the natives as guilty until proven innocent. (Because thereâs a war on and the natives are dangerous.) Therefore, simply by existing, youâre a criminal. If thereâs not enough room in the prisons, labor camps, concentration camps, you get probation instead by default.
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A Better ideaâŚjust ban the TSA in those states!
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Are USAians allergic to passports?
It costs $110 for a passport, if one is willing to wait more than 6 months for it. Getting one in a timely manner costs more.
(Coincidentally, this is around how much I was charged for a doctorâs appointment (cash, upfront) when I was last ill in America.)
Also keep in mind how very far one can travel without crossing a border and that ânormalâ holiday time is a scant ten days, which has to fit in every wedding, funeral and long weekend. And also that most venues inside America will not accept a passport as valid ID. An American passport will not get you into a bar in America. Arguing with the bouncer is fairly pointless. The only place they are useful (before now) is foreign travel.
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One of my sweeties is legally blind. Obviously this means they donât have a driverâs licence, but instead a similar non-driver ID to the one you describe. Despite living near Chicago, theyâve also often run into these same sorts of situations wherein the people with which theyâre dealing simply canât grasp not having a driverâs license.
(Weâve also gotten odd looks when I have to read the small text of menus or the like to them.)
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I am not going to argue about the coat or merits of passports. But two years ago I learned something that absolutely saved my bacon.
You can get one in a day.
There are ~12 locations in the US where you can get a passport issued at the office. It is expensive and you have to go there (I drove from Scottsdale to Tucson and back), but if you are ever in a passport emergency (like I was) it does exist.
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Do you know of a case where someone was allowed to actually fly without an ID? Because I do know of a case where people were NOT allowed to fly because of lack of ID:
http://www.papersplease.org/gilmore/facts.html
True, itâs just one case, but can you come up with a counterâŚ
Just because we donât need our ID to fly, doesnât mean that people are being allowed to fly without ID.
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One pony for you!
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I think the big difference is that Canada is smaller, population-wise, and this was the program all along. Here, we have a patchwork of ID issuing organizations. Changing that would be a hassle, and it would cost $$$, which, Iâd suspect weâd have to pay for, since we all have to pay for anything new, over and above the taxes we already pay. Plus, do you actually trust this government at all?
Well, I donât mistrust it so much that Iâm willing to make life extra inconvenient for poor people who already have too much to deal with.
Itâs not like the reduction in IDs to maintain wouldnât be a net positive, and âweâd have to pay for itâ is kind of an argument for any changeâŚand the current system is an annoyingly complicated patchwork. Other countries move away from that sort of thing for a reason.
