I DON'T KNOW WHO ANONYMOUS IS | 2006-02-14
LibAnon used to call himself Anonymous. Then Anonymous changed his name to LibAnon.
This may be the only time in history when Anonymous changed his name.
So now I don't know who Anonymous is.
Now THAT appeals to my sense of humor.
So here is the comment from the present Anonymous:
"Now there is a movement underway to make the minimum driving age 18 or even 21."
Comment by Anonymous
As I say, the driving record of Europeans when I looked into it around 1960 was absolutely appallling, and the minimum driving age was 21. In Britain a person almost never got his license at the first test. One woman took it over a hundred times.
Meanwhile those mature and educated drivers slaughtered each other on the highways like dogs.
We were talking about my owrking in a prison. I do not like to give out exact dates in my life for reasons which, if I explained them, would involve saying in public precisely the information I am trying to keep back.
As I said, I got my driver's license at age fourteen. I was offended by one line written on it:
"Driving is a privilege, not a right."
I knew at that time, at age fourteen, that in a prison one had two rights: food and medical care.
Everything else in a prison was a "privilege." Exercise time was a "privilege" in prison. A five-minute shower once a week was a "privilege." Any outside-cell time was a "privilege," including yard or pacing area behind lockdown cells. Work was a "privilege."
I didn't like the SMELL of that line on my driver's license at age fourteen.
As always everybody laughed at me when I complained about this. Bob was being alarmist and paranoid again.
As always, my alarmism came true. There have been proposals to take licenses away from young people who don't finish high school. Guess what the motto of that movement was?
"Driving is a privilege, not a right."
As the fourteen-year-old alarmist Bob Whitaker SMELLED the first time he looked at his driver's license, to call anything a "privilege" means that you can only do it at the pleasure of some power above you, like the warden over a prisoner.
If driving is a "privilege" it means that you could have your license taken away from you for hate speech.
In America the first amendment guarantees you that no RIGHT can be taken from you expressing your opinion.
But, by definition, any "privilege" can be taken from you at the whim of the authorites who GAVE you, out of the goodness of their hearts, that "privilege."
To call having a driver's license today a "privilege" is EXACTLY like telling a ninteenth-century American that riding a horse is "privilege" only the government can grant.
"Driving is a privilege, not a right" is a POISONOUS phrase.