> 20 years later after REAL ID passed, you still don't need it unless you want to get on a plane

... or shop at Home Depot.

> It is highly ironic that the very same humans brains that constitute the right wing which railed against the REAL ID act are now basically demanding REAL ID Act

Ironic, coincidence, or all according to plan?

The so-called right wing has been being led around by the corporate lobbyist agenda for decades now. It's not a terrible stretch to imagine the same corpo political operatives that were behind the ratcheting authoritarian ID requirements are now behind the fascist kidnap squads as they tighten the noose around our society.

A bit paranoid and non-actionable, of course.

If I'm understanding correctly, I think you have this a bit backwards.

The 1990's "right wing milieu" I was referring to were vehemently opposed to national ID laws. I don't see a lot of corpo lobbying in that older pre-NeoCon subgroup of what we just call "the right" and a deep delve would be pretty off topic I'd say, but we definitely see threads carrying forward from the post-9/11 era when civil unions/gay rights, reproductive health access, and a growing fear of immigration (See: South Park's Darryl Weathers "Dey turk `er jerbs!") and the corpo-lobbyist, as it were, got their start (it seems) during W Bush's 2nd term. The gay and abortion stuff proved effective for their base then. To bring it back to evangelicals, just consider Candice Owens (Not a politician, but is the continuation of the Rush Limbaugh/AM radio scene) who is out there talking about speaking to Charlie Kirk's ghost in a dream. She converted to Catholicism in '24, but previously self-identified as evangelical.

So I would say that no, the same corpo political operatives aren't behind this. The truth is likely far more interesting.

I just realized I inverted the sense of what you were saying about opposition to REAL ID. The way I remember it, it was the right wing cheering on the "Patriot" act, "REAL ID", and all those general "homeland security" laws back then. Yes, there was red tribe grassroots opposition in general terms, but that kind of thing always gets brushed aside when "their" team is doing it. See also the 2nd amendment - individual liberty and "from my cold dead hands", but then zero reservations about actively cheering the government agents who summarily executed Breonna Taylor. Or these masked abduction squads currently roaming the streets - blatantly anti-American anti-Constitutional, and if JOEBIDEN had done anything resembling this we would have never heard the end of it. But since it's "their guys" doing it it's just framed as some noble exercise of the government agents' own liberty to cleanse the undesirables.

No, the right wing fielded opposition to the real ID laws. See this 2008 CATO report[0]. There was a bipartisan movement against this at the time.

But yes, far less bothered by stingrays, ALPR national surveillance, etc in more recent times.

I just want to give people their dues on this. For example Rand Paul introduced the Justice for Breonna Taylor Act which would have banned no-knock warrants if it had passed.[1]

[0] https://www.cato.org/policy-report/july/august-2008/real-id-...

[1] https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/116/s3955

> Rand Paul introduced the Justice for Breonna Taylor Act which would have banned no-knock warrants if it had passed

Yes, Rand Paul deserves credit for this. But isn't he basically like an exception that proves the rule?

The 2005 vote on the REAL ID ACT was 218 Yea 9 Nay for Republicans, and 42 Yea 152 Nay for Democrats. Ron Paul was one of those Nays. He deserves credit along with the other 8. But overall, it was still a Republican bill. That's what my original comment was referring to.

And it's great that Republican opposition to REAL ID built. But of course the immediate question is how much of that opposition was due to being bored with Bush, and having a Democratic administration on the horizon? Just like the dishonest appeals to fiscal responsibility during Democratic administrations.

Because while it's important to give credit and look to build pro-freedom coalitions, it's also important to call out the rank hypocrisy. And rank hypocrisy seems to be the entire platform of the Republican party these days. For example, I don't see any of these purported 2nd amendment enthusiasts forming militias to defend their states against the federalized abduction squads.

Yeah I feel ya, but a year into GW bush part 2 isn’t on the horizon of a democrat administration it was a year into the reelection, the weirdos in the Mark of the Beast camp weren’t the party yet.

This is part of the thread that became FEMA camp conspiracies and birtherism after Cambridge Analytica helped make conspiracy theorists the mainstream. What I’m asking is where are the mark of the beast weirdos now?

Well, they’re telling themselves that Domald Turmp was sent by God!