Driver’s License, American Express and National ID
Don’t leave home without it!
That famous tag-line for American Express has become a part of the cultural history of the country. What it means for us as Americans, that our cultural history is defined by Madison Avenue ad-writers, I don’t know. But hardly anyone would equate American Express or the need of a state driver’s license (or, for that matter a Social Security card) with Nazi Germany.
Except for Edward Roybal, a Mexican-American member of the House of Representatives from California. Roybal was 70 years old in 1986, the year he threw his semantic monkey-wrench into the landmark Immigration Bill and thereby gutted it.
"We may face the danger of ending up like Nazi Germany," said Roybal, a Mexican American. "I do not say that we are going to go back to the Nazi regime, but . . . it will be the beginning of the violation of rights, and we . . . in this nation may be known by numbers."
By that handy piece of demagoguery, Roybal assured the toothlessness of carefully arranged and nego…