Should You Need a Photo ID to Exercise a Right?

by Tom Rhodes, 3/20/2001

The 21st Amendment recognizes drinking intoxicating liquors as a right of the people, repealing the 18th amendment which had prohibited intoxicating liquors. Current laws are such that to purchase intoxicating liquors like beer, wine, and other fine spirits requires a photo ID. This then begs the question:

Is requiring photo ID's to purchase beer a racist assault to keep minorities from their constitutional right to purchase and drink alcohol?

If requiring a photo ID to exercise this clearly constitutional right is not racist than voter ID cannot be racist. Although I think voter ID as a method of preventing dead people from voting, as the Attorney General said over 900 did in South Carolina, for other reasons I kind of hope that the left wins this one. If they do then requirements to produce ID's to purchase beer, wine, etc will have to be repealed on the same grounds. Once those are repealed then requiring ID's to purchase Sudafed should be repealed for the same reason.

More importantly the right to keep and bear arms includes purchasing arms. The Supreme Court has ruled that this is an individual right. There are clearly racist roots in most gun control laws, aimed at not allowing blacks to own guns. Even laws that attempt to outlaw "Saturday Night Specials" (inexpensive guns) making them unaffordable to disenfranchised minorities was directly attributed to racist rationale. Using the logic of liberals that it is racist to require a government issued ID to vote, we can only conclude that it is racist to require a government issued ID to purchase a gun. If the left wins this, then it will set up a whole new set of court precedents that can be used to eliminate government tracking and the requirement to show ID when purchasing a firearm. All you'll need to do is register to purchase firearms the same way as you register to vote, once on the register to purchase firearms you will only need to claim to be the purchaser no need to produce an ID. Registration as a reasonable restriction on the constitutional right should be no different to vote, purchase firearms or alcohol, and should have the same standards. It will eliminate the need for a "waiting period" as you are already registered. Since the government cannot and does not track your vote, it has no need and should not be able to track or know your firearms purchases. A seller need only confirm that who you claim to be is registered to purchase arms, not verify that you are who you claim to be, nor record what you purchased, etc.

This whole movement to outlaw and claim as racist the requirement to provide an ID to exercise a constitutional right may be a good thing. If we believe in the rule of law, and that it is unconstitutional and racist to require a government ID to exercise constitutionally protected rights then it opens a whole gambit of methods to eliminate an intrusive government. Start with the Real ID Act, based on this logic this is clearly an unconstitutional and racist Law and must be repealed. Since you have a constitutional right to travel, the entire ID requirement to fly, board a train or bus, etc. must be considered racist and eliminated. Since you have a constitutional right to drink alcoholic beverages, the laws requiring and ID to purchase them must be considered racist and eliminated. Since you have a constitutional right to purchase firearms, the laws requiring an ID to purchase them must be considered racist and eliminated. Obviously all of the Border Patrol Checkpoints that are not actually on the border are clearly unconstitutional and racist as nobody should be required to show a photo ID to travel.

I believe my position has changed, I agree with liberals and the NAACP, government ID's to exercise constitutional rights are racist and ALL laws, rules, regulations, and mandates by the federal government that require a person to produce a government ID should be repealed. Of course if the left supports requirements to have government ID's to exercise other constitutionally protected rights like traveling or purchasing booze and guns, then maybe it's fair to say that they don't oppose requiring a photo ID to vote on constitutional/racist grounds but instead want to preserve the current system which, as recent James O'Keefe's Project Veritas videos have demonstrated, makes it absurdly easy to register fraudulently or vote as a dead person.

To any of you who oppose voter ID laws, are you consistent and do you oppose requiring voter ID to exercise other constitutionally protected rights for the same reasons, or do you just want to keep it so that voter fraud is easy? If you oppose having to produce a photo ID to vote, and do not oppose having to produce a photo ID to buy a beer, then you need to think about your real motives.