December 16, 2000
My Experience with the DMV

by Robert H. Moody II ( robmoody@juno.com )
Robert Moody is a financial planner in Atlanta.

I'd like to tell you about the experience I had with government today.
Yesterday I realized that I had not received my vehicle registration
renewal packet in the mail from the Department of Motor Vehicles even
though my birthday was a couple of weeks ago. So I checked my tag, and
sure enough, it had expired. I called the DMV and had to wade through a
long automated menu until I heard something that might help me: "Press 3
to have a reprint of your bill sent to you in the mail." After pressing
3, I heard, "We're sorry, this option is not available." I finally got a
human being on the line, who told me what I needed to do. She informed
me that I would have to pay a 10% penalty since my registration had
expired. I said, "Let me get this straight: The government has the right
to seize my money, and if I'm a few days late in forking it over because
the government never informed me that it wanted to take my money, it has
the right to seize 10% more?" "We send out renewals only as a courtesy,"
she explained.

I had to get an emissions test ($25) since the state of Georgia now
requires all but the newest cars to be tested every year. Georgia has
been denied federal highway funds for years because the air quality in
Atlanta doesn't pass federal muster. I suppose the federal taxes that
Georgians pay are better spent in states that don't have a shortage of
government roads, perhaps in the district of Rep. Bud Shuster, Chairman
of the House Transportation Committee. Hey, I got an idea! During "the
largest explosion in human history," let's not build any new roads until
those Atlantans clean up their air, and then let's see what happens to
their air quality! I asked the mechanic what percentage of the cars
fails the emissions test. He said 5%, but a lot of the cars they test
have been brought to them for work after failing a test elsewhere. "I
don't think they [the government] realized just how few dirty cars they
would catch." Duh. I noticed that the price of the test had mushroomed
since I paid $15 two years ago, so I asked the mechanic if the state
still regulated the price. He said yes, but the service stations that do
the inspections would like the price to be deregulated because the
equipment and its maintenance was getting so expensive. It occurred to
me that one of the only ways he could increase his profit margin is by
accepting a bribe.

I arrived at the tag office at 11:45, thinking I would beat the
bureaucrats before they left for lunch. I discovered that the office
closed at 11:15 and wouldn't reopen until 12:30. 11:15? Who goes to
lunch at 11:15? Obviously no one in the private sector. The DMV employee
who I had spoken with on the phone hadn't warned me about this. So I
walked next door to a pet store and killed some time. When I came back
at 12:23, there were already 13 people in line. You would have thought
that they were selling Sony Playstations in there. I asked four people
if they had received a renewal notice in the mail. All of them said no,
and one man said he hadn't received one in four years.

Only six people were allowed to stand in line inside the tag office;
everyone else had to stand outside in the cold. There was an armed
sheriff's deputy sitting at a little desk near the line inside the
office whose job seemed to be enforcing the six-person limit. Why does
there always seem to be an armed guard in these government offices? I
think there are two reasons. First, the government knows that its
bureaucracy is enough to drive a few citizens over the edge. And second,
the pistol in plain view serves as a reminder of what you will
ultimately come face-to-face with if you don't pay up. The deputy was
sitting there reading a paperback, his mouth slightly ajar in a
dunce-like trance. How much was this parasite costing the taxpayers?
$40,000 per year? The walls were painted pink, presumably to pacify the
taxpayers, and the cubicles were government gray. There was a lavishly
decorated Christmas tree in the lobby and a miniature Christmas tree and
gifts on each bureaucrat's desk.

All in all, I had to jump through a hell of a lot of hoops just so the
government could take $106.63 from me. Of course the value of my time
(my billing rate is $150 per hour) meant nothing to them. As I look back
on my experience, the tag office and the private businesses on either
side of it stand in stark contrast. First, the businesses remained open
during lunch, eager to serve their fellow man, while the tag office was
closed for an hour and 15 minutes. Second, there was a long line at the
tag office but no lines at the businesses. Third, at least the patrons
of the businesses got something for their money. And finally, no
customers of the businesses were greeted by a jackbooted thug with a
gun.


December 23, 2000
My Experience with the DMV, Part II

by Robert H. Moody II ( robmoody@juno.com )

Last week I told you about the experience I had when I renewed my
vehicle registration, so this week I thought I’d tell you about the
experience I had last year when I renewed my driver’s license. It began
the same way, with my discovery that my driver’s license had expired,
with no reminder from the DMV. I called and found out where I needed to
go. Upon arriving at the strip mall where the DMV office was supposed to
be, I couldn’t find it. I drove around looking for it for about ten
minutes before discovering that it was inside a Kroger, with no sign on
the outside. Only the government could remain in business after failing
to inform its customers of its location.

I stood in line for well over an hour, but at least this time I got to
wait inside. Could you imagine having to stand in line for an hour at
Kroger or any other business? You would be outraged, and rightfully so.
I recently witnessed this very thing when a Kroger customer asked a slow
cashier, “What’s the deal?” But with government, long lines are par for
the course, so there is nary a peep from subjects in a queue.

There was a TV in the waiting area that was tuned to the Montel Williams
Show. During a commercial break, I was surprised and kind of horrified
when I saw an ad for WIC, the federal welfare program. The government
was using my tax dollars to advertise the financial equivalent of crack
cocaine. Surely this is a signpost of a society headed for the abyss. I
noted that the welfare bureaucrats had done a good job with their
marketing research; they knew when their potential “clients” would be
home and what they’d be doing and watching.

I soon learned that if I didn’t want to be an organ donor, I’d have to
pay an additional $8. This is the government’s feeble attempt at
alleviating the shortage of organs caused by its own laws that prohibit
people from selling their organs. Well, if they weren’t going to allow
me to sell my own organs, I sure as heck was not going to give them away
just so I could save $8 every four years. So I had to pay an additional
$8 for the privilege of keeping my own organs. After effectively setting
a maximum price of $8 for all of a person’s organs, the government
wonders why there is a shortage of them.

Then came the part that I had been dreading: I had to place my index
finger on an inkless scanning device and give the state a copy of my
fingerprint. Obviously, my fingerprint has nothing to do with my ability
to drive. The state uses the driver’s license as a vehicle to gather
information about you that you would otherwise never provide. I believe
that in the future, the state will use driver’s licenses, income tax
returns and census forms to gather more and more personal information
about you to populate its databases and control your life.

As I understand it, the language that allows (but does not require) the
DMV to collect fingerprints was slipped into a bill at the last minute,
and few legislators had read it or were even aware that it had been
added to the bill. Not surprisingly, law enforcement favored this
provision and has opposed efforts to repeal it. Some argue that having
everyone’s fingerprint on file makes the police’s job easier. Well, law
enforcement was not necessarily meant to be easy, and in countries where
it is, it’s called a police state. It would make it easier for the
police if we scrapped the Fourth Amendment, so should we do that, too?

I actually know a woman who gave up her right to drive just so she
wouldn’t have to provide a copy of her fingerprint to the state. She has
since led a one-woman crusade to have this law repealed (Go to her
website ( http://www.fingerprintsayno.com/ ) to see a chilling photo of
how one government was using fingerprints in 1940). I only wish I had
her courage and spirit of resistance.

Back in July, there was a non-binding question on the ballot in the
Republican primary for my county asking whether the fingerprint law
should be repealed. I was heartened that someone was asking the question
but disappointed that Republican politicians had to test the political
winds to find out where they should stand on the issue. Surprisingly (or
not?), 47% of the voters in my county’s Republican primary thought the
fingerprint law should not be repealed. Yet another mile marker on the
road to tyranny. Sixty years ago, they tattooed a serial number on your
forearm to identify you; today they use an inkless scanning device to
get your fingerprint. When I called my state representative to complain
about having to provide my fingerprint to renew my driver’s license, he
told me about all of the new features on the license, one of which is a
hologram. He was trying to think of the word “hologram” when he asked
me, “Is it…holocaust?” I said, “No, that’s what’s going to happen after
we give the state a copy of our fingerprints.”

And then it was on to the final station: the photograph, yet another
item that has nothing to do with my ability to drive. The driver’s
license has become a de facto ID card. Currently, it contains your
picture, your digitized fingerprint, and other information about you.
Four years from now, it will also contain your retinal eye scan and a
sample of your DNA. After going through a process reminiscent of a
slaughterhouse, the DMV employee who was working the camera had the
audacity to tell me to smile. I felt like giving her a one-finger
salute, but not wanting to piss off the people who buy their bullets by
the case, I merely scowled.

Robert Moody is a financial planner in Atlanta.

Robert Moody