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A glorious morning, one in which I must decide how to
divide my time into productive allotments of usefulness.
It is just 5:30 and the sun is peeking over the
mountains in my horizontal view. I have already taken
all of my medication and, well not quite all. I had to
delete the Lasix pills because I must travel about 15
miles to the American Embassy as soon as the traffic
diminishes a bit.
Here in
Costa Rica as with most locations around the globe you
must have your papers; passport, drivers license,
residency card etc. to prove who you are and it is
someone’s business where you are going and how long
you will be there;
As
Americans we are all spoiled, there is no reason to
carry identification in the US, just so the authorities
can check to see if you belong there. Oh sure you need
your drivers license available when driving a vehicle,
you might also need it to provide ID when cashing a
check or using a credit card. Although I have used my
passport for many more years than I like to admit to I
have never once been asked for a passport while in the
states except for customs at ports of entry. There are
rules and regulations of course, most of them are geared
towards a goal of some sort like the drivers license, it
is protection for everyone else on the road because you
have proven you know how to operate a vehicle on the
road and you have insurance coverage in case of an
accident.
All of
this is brought about by the governmental agencies need
for money and the license is tax based funding. Easy
money for the gov’t. and easy identification of the
subjects under control! Unless you are an obvious
foreigner no one is going to ask you for proof of
citizenship or your passport. I doubt if ten percent of
all Americans have even thought of applying for one.
Even traveling within a thousand miles or so can be done
with a driver’s license and a birth certificate for a
Native American. People from other lands must travel
with a passport to attain entrance anywhere including
the US and its territories. Most of this is governmental
intrusion into your life and lifestyle. In the last few
years with the advent of computer databases everywhere
your ‘number’ is logged and to be sure ‘big
brother’ either knows where you are or can find out
within a very short period of time. That is ‘if’ the
system is designed properly and your ‘number’ has
been programmed properly. Escaping this process is not
difficult if you never did anything noteworthy, worked
for the same company that paid you cash all your life,
you have no credit cards and your home was a cash deal,
you were lucky enough to not have to register for the
draft, and never paid taxes. The only database you would
be likely to appear on would be the birth and death
rolls which if you are an old fart like me, they did not
bother to update those files. In order to get a new
birth certificate some time ago they provided one
without the city or hospital records. It just said born
in Florida in the year of 19??. I was born in a navy
hospital, run by the government that kept no real
records evidently. My driver’s license actually
provided the information.
I lost
my passport a while ago and had to apply for a
replacement one so that I could leave this country for a
few days. You see, here you need the passport to leave
or enter unless you have a ‘green card’ [visa] and
that is only good for a specific time period. If you are
not a legal resident here you must posess an extended
visa or leave the country every 90 days and get a new
90-day stamp on the passport again when you come back.
This process is for record keeping I’m told but in
actuality it is just another tax-based nuisance.
‘they’, the immigration people don’t have a real
sophisticated computer system that can tell them who is
or is not here in the country at any specific time
period, it can only really tell them how many might be
here. The information collected today when you arrive
here probably will not enter the system for many weeks,
in fact when I wanted information as to my last arrival
and stamps they could not find any record of me being
here at all.
I
don’t exist here even though my existence is rather
high profile in news circles
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