The REAL ID means a real Leviathan

Mises.org’s Jim Fedako writes, “War was not waged on just the government’s foreign adversaries, war was also waged on everyday Americans. The crisis gave us the USA PATRIOT (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools to Restrict, Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) and Homeland Security Acts, protein for a growing Leviathan, with both acts annulling significant portions of our natural and constitutional rights.

In addition, under the guise of fighting supposed existential threats at home, government passed the REAL ID Act to mandate a federal ID that would distinguish friend from foe. The argument was that federalism is ineffective against committed adversaries, with states unable to properly issue IDs. Only DC could keep the skies and elsewhere safe. We were in a crisis. The act was needed, and it was needed right away.

The Patriot and Homeland Security Acts passed soon after 9/11. Advocates of liberty—at least those not under the spell of government gaslighting—opposed the laws. However, the majority of citizens allowed the bipartisan attack on liberty to prevail.

With the REAL ID act, we were four years removed from 9/11, so there was additional dissent, enough for the state to proceed cautiously.

It’s now 2021, a full twenty years after the crisis, twenty years after the panic, and twenty years with no similar attack. Yet the deadline for full compliance with the REAL ID Act remains in the future—the new date being 2023, twenty-two years after the event."

Read the entire column.