A Ray of Hope on Real ID

The headline I saw this morning is cause enough for a bit of celebration: Real ID is postponed for 5 years. The main points:

The Bush administration hit the brakes Friday on a controversial law requiring Americans to carry tamper-proof driver's licenses, delaying its final implementation by five years, until 2017.

A number of states have balked at the law, objecting to it largely over cost and privacy concerns. But under the administration's new edict, states that continue to fight compliance with the law face a penalty: Their residents will be forbidden from using driver's licenses to board airplanes or enter federal buildings as of May 11 of this year.

Some might view that “penalty” as a negative, but I don’t, overall.

I see this delay as an implicit admission that the idiotic law is more difficult and expensive to implement than anyone imagined. The fedgov has blinked; and I think if people keep balking, might actually back down entirely. That scenario could be more likely than I dare hope today, since this shift means that a new Supreme Sov– er, administration will have to deal with it. With the economy in a downturn, costs rising, and people’s unease with the federal government rising as well, it could come about that even [shudder] President Bubbette would have to back down.

And regarding those penalties for states that are resisting? If I lived in one, I would make it clear to the state-level ’crats that they should keep resisting. Let the airlines feel the economic pinch of fewer travelers—and let the fedgov experience the clusterfuck of potential jurors, defendants, and others whom Our Imperial Masters wish to appear before their greatness not being granted admittance to their hollowed halls [that isn’t a typo]. And that’s probably just the tip of the monkey-wrenching possibilities that open up.

So call me overly optimistic, but that’s how I’m viewing the scene this morning. And yes, I’ll admit to chuckling with glee.