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OPINION

The Daily Campus

MONDAY n MARCH 4, 2013 politics

To respond to any pieces on our opinion page, tweet us at @thedailycampus with the hashtag #hilltoptweets. culture

Official identification is a privilege for some abhijit sunil Contributing Writer abhijitsunil@smu.edu So we all have the freedom of expression. And among other rights, we have the freedom of speech, the right to worship and of movement. But there is one entity in all this that is still somewhat a privilege. “We.” How can you prove you are indeed you?

In other words, what exactly are your rights to your own identity?

We could produce a host of papers, legal documents and cards right away. From our passports to licenses to birth certificates to a host of other certifications you may have with your name spelled out and a picture of you.

But really, how much of us really exists outside these papers? If tomorrow all of your identification papers are burned, will you still be you?

We live in a world with more mobility, information and communication — the effects of globalization — than ever before. And there is indeed one thing we take care of on a day to day basis, almost without even realizing it, and most of the time simply taking it for granted: our identity.

Being an alien in a foreign country certainly breaks you out of your comfort zones. Indeed, staying in a part of the world where you physically stand out in every way thrusts you into even more unfamiliar grounds. It makes you realize how much you have to be able to demonstrate accurately that you are, indeed, you. A luxury that I might have taken for granted back home.

We have systematically done this all through our lives. We meticulously build our own identity in the society and our private lives. And we take care to put it all in writing and legal documents. We’ve proven our identities in school, in college, at our jobs, at the bank and a million

more places including the local bar.

I couldn’t have realized how important this might be until I was told that the format of my Indian name is simply not acceptable in the U.S. I did not carry a surname as part of my name, and this made all legal processes in the U.S. excessively difficult. In the process of getting my passport itself changed now, I had the opportunity to witness how much my own security and rights simply rely on a very delicate balance of maintaining a bunch of papers that would say my name and description just right. From my passport, to my University I-20, to the I-94 I received on arrival at the airport, to the so many other small pieces of paper that really give shape to my own identity.

This is not simply a question of trust, of course. It is also convenience. At a bar, flashing a government ID to proclaim your age definitely makes more sense than any philosophy about realism. And yet, it is impossible to not note that without a “valid” identity, you are hardly you.

Secondly, as I mentioned, it is a matter of security. To live inside a system, we need to have certain rules. And this not only makes us all more efficient, it helps identify the outliers in the fringes of our society.

So I am certainly not repining.

It’s part of our system, and our society. But I couldn’t escape the thought that in this decade and generation, if I would decide to burn all of my “identity” papers and decide to “explore myself ” much like Chris McCandless (“Into the Wild”) in Alaska, I might just get shot; if I am lucky, I might get branded as an outlaw and put to jail.

Sunil is a graduate student in the Lyle School of Engineering.

Quote Worthy

“I look at what’s happening right now — I wish I were there. It kills me not to be there.

Not to be in the White House doing what needs to be done.” ­—Mitt Romney on Obama’s second-term performance

Courtesy of AP

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev. has been one of the many politicians exaggerating the negative effects of the sequester.

The dangers of political hyperbole Sequester not as bad as it was made out to be w. tucker keene Online Editor tkeene@smu.edu This past Friday, the world was supposed to end when the sequester went into effect.

The cuts in the sequester were supposed to be so extreme that air travel would become unsafe as Air Traffic Control was unable to do their job.

Education would take a massive hit as pre-schoolers were kicked out of Head Start. Cities would be up in flames after firefighters were laid off. Streets would be in danger as prisoners were set loose.

Of course this is all exaggeration, but this is what every fiscal debate in the modern Obama era has become: demagoguery, hyperbole and hype.

Let it be known that we will never see the reforms and cuts needed to promote long term

fiscal growth if every attempt at deficit reduction like the “Fiscal Cliff ” or the sequester is turned into this massive disaster that must be avoided at all costs. It has to be made known that we can live without some of this spending, and we will need to if we wish to return to responsible federal budgets in the future.

These cuts, which were part of the solution to the debt ceiling debate in 2011, were supposed to be so extreme and terrible for both sides that they would compel Congress to pass a “grand bargain” that would deal with cuts and reforms in a more responsible way than the blanket cut to discretionary domestic and defense spending.

Now of course this grand bargain remained out of reach for the typical reasons these things always stay out of reach: Democrats and Republicans

can’t agree on anything except that something needs to be done.

Obama has been one of the most outspoken critics of the sequester, and yet it was he who originally proposed it.

It passed Congress and was signed into law with substantial bipartisan support.

Now Obama is doing things to make Americans scared of his sequester, and has even used the budget cuts as an excuse to make policy.

He’s tackling the immigration problem by releasing waves of illegal immigrants from INS detention centers, saying that the sequester required him to do it.

No, it didn’t.

There were plenty of ways to meet the sequester cuts without scaring people into thinking there would be criminals running loose on

the streets.

The Democrats have had a lot to gain from the sequester being the end of the world. They don’t want Americans to realize that the cuts aren’t as bad as they were made out to be, because that means they’ll be less susceptible to the demagoguery next time a deficit reduction deal gets passed.

Their strategy could still work because Americans will likely forget about their experience with the sequester by the time the next budget battle begins. And then we’ll begin this same process all over again, with Democrats saying it will be the end of the world and Republicans saying it won’t be.

Keene is a junior majoring in political science, economics and public policy.

firing line

A thanks to the media for extensive coverage of bizarre news I don’t know if there is a genuine lack of news or if human interest is just on the bizarre side these days, but my newsfeed has me laughing out loud. For starters, there are rampant beavers on the loose, described by a reporter as “ginormous.” I’m no expert, but I don’t think that’s proper language for a news piece. Charlie Sheen is hoping to mentor Lindsay Lohan. No elaboration needed. A polar bear got a root canal. A boy was assaulted with a Taco Bell burrito. Dennis Rodman announced his affections for Kim Jong Eun. The list goes on. So keep drinking that Kool-Aid, media, because my expectations for excitement have been exceeded this week.

—Trevor Thrall, Opinion Editor

cartoon

“He’s a good guy to me. He’s my friend. I don’t condone what he does, but as a person to person, he’s my friend.”

—Dennis Rodman on North Korean leader Kim Jong Eun “There were moments, as there were throughout the history of the church, when the seas were rough and the wind blew against us and it seemed that the Lord was sleeping.” ­— Pope Benedict on difficult times during his papacy during his final address “One of the benefits of global warming is there hasn’t been as many icebergs in the North Atlantic these days.” ­— Australian Clive Palmer on the dangers of building a replica of the Titanic Courtesy of MCT Campus

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