Immigrants and free citizens who use the roads without driver’s licenses are charged with a crime under Title 55 of the Tennessee Code Annotated.
[I have been giving time to digesting Tennessee Code Annotated Title 55, covering “motor and other vehicles.” It seems to pose no threat to Hispanics and immigrants in Tennessee who use the road without the privilege of a driver’s license. The state’s driver license scheme appears voluntary, standing apart from any user of the road until he enters that system by a voluntary application. If I am right, Hispanic residents of Chattanooga who don’t have driver licenses are freer of any of us who do, because they are exercising a right to travel by car whereas everyone else exercises a state grant and privilege. John Ballinger, a man who has litigated the driver’s license in Tennessee, makes a distinction as to the nature of the governmental privilege of a driver’s license. He places it in an area of governmental action and policy that is BEYOND that of privilege such as that enjoyed by hair dressers, dietitians and engineers. These professions have privileges for which they are held to account by the state. The driver’s license, he says, is a government privilege. — DJT]
By John Ballinger
The article,“The Orphaned Right: The Right to Travel by Automobile, 1890-1950,” a fairly good history of the evolution of the driver’s license. The fact that there were millions of autos of every description and individuals operating them cried out for a regulatory scheme.
It is said driving a motor vehicle is a privilege granted by the state, and that no one had a right to use a car on the road because of the state’s concern for public safety. Despite state claims, the driver’s license system is outside the rights-privilege framework in American law. Both right and privilege come under the protection of constitutional law. Just because government bureaucrats make a big distinction between right and privilege does not make it so. Privileges are not created by the whims of man any more than man’s God-given rights are.
The modern day driver’s license is not based on a scheme of right or privilege. It is based on a scheme known as a “government license/privilege.” I would not propose this distinction if I had not studied, read and researched it in the Knoxville law library for 20-plus years. A privilege comes under the laws of due process — the same as rights.
In contrast, a government license is a scheme whereby the government gets your consent to allow it to do something it has no law or authority to do. With your consent government needs no law. It operates under the theory — the legal fiction — that you can’t be harmed by your own consent. The scheme operates for the benefit and convenience of the state and its system. If drivers and autos were regulated under genuine rights/privileges due process of law, the court system would be so clogged with cases it would never be able to see the light of day.
Today the way people challenge the driver’s license issue is so far out of bounds it is like pissing into the wind. There is only one way to handle this problem of criminal prosecution. Don’t consent to the scheme. What happened to the laws during Prohibition in the 1920s? People simply refused to go along with that law. They got their booze back.
You want your rights? Don’t consent to a scheme that relieves you of your rights. Say no at the door; don’t go in. Challenging the driver’s license in the government’s court system, especially when most people believe the driver’s license is compulsory, will never result in a decision unfavorable to the government.
If the rights I have as a human being are giving to me by God, would it be a sin if I swapped those rights for the will and whims of man? I don’t trade my God-given rights for any reason.
The driver’s license has become a convoluted scheme. The only purpose it has is to replace God’s will for the whim and godless will of man. Like I say, the government license/privilege is not a privilege based on due process of law. The scheme deleting your right to travel is based on your consent. Of your own volition you go to the designated location at the Department of Safety and Homeland Security and made an application to get the government license.
John Ballinger is a carpenter.
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God has, in fact, designated some men to rule over other. Romans 13 is a pithy defense of the office of magistrate and judge, whose task is to oppress evildoers and encourage the good. Licensing regimes take accidents on the road and convert them into causes of state action. They take prospective accidents, envisioned in their rules, and convert these into state action as well, giving us modern roads that are the most highly regulated area of modern life, as Professor Roots says.
What about legitimate exercise of commerce? Come on, J. Ballinger, w/o gov’t driver licensed “persons” delivering passengers and goods nationwide, we would all be in deep trouble. Or are you advocating that the gov’t abdicate this area of regulation and just allow everyone who wants to deal in commerce w/o licensing? To say that you are out of God’s will to take a commercial driver’s license sounds just plain extreme and wrong. To voluntarily take a driver’s license for private travel by car is a horse of another color.
My question is to the second “add comment” entered above. It appears to me that you don’t know what you’re talking about. It is obvious that the U.S. constitution does support only to lawfully licensing those “drivers” involved with some sort of “commerce.”
Those not involved in “commerce” should be free to travel upon any/all highways and streets of the entire country if they want without the politician and police departments are concerned. The Constitution protects the citizens of this country against the “government’s” infringing on our rights as recorded in the constitution.
Your are confused concerning whether the “government” should “license” those “drivers” involved in “commerce” compared with those “citizens” being free to “travel” from point A to point B using any of our highways or streets without having to worry about the local “police” harassing us about our choosing to opt out of the “commercial” use of the highways and streets. Regarding the “police”, most stops are intended purely as revenue generation and have no basis in either “protecting” and “serving” the public.
If there is no one injured by another person there is no violation. The same applies to such “infractions” as “speeding.” If there is no one injured or having their “property” being negatively affected, there is no crime.
In all cases, the parties involved should have the option to work the damages out. There is no need for the inadvertence of any/all “police” agencies both at the municipal level, the state level or the “governments'” sticking their noses where they should not.
On your getting “God” involved, He is involved in all human activities 24/7. Please read our “Declaration of Independence” and the “U.S. constitution as well as your state’s constitution. In all these “statements” there are certain “rights” that are understood as being “inalienable” and God given, the “INALIENABLE RIGHT” to life, liberty and property (aka pursuit of happiness).
It is understood that these “Rights” are “God Given” and governments at any level are not permitted infringement thereof. If you take the time to find a copy of “Black’s Law Dictionary” at your local library or at the local law library and find the LEGAL definitions of those words italicized above. You will be surprised to see what the “law” defines.
Anyone who “drives” is involved in “commerce” and because of this are responsibility to be “licensed” to operate their business upon the people’s highways and streets. To them, using the highways and streets is a “privilege” compared to the non-commercial people “traveling” on their own highways.
The latter are enjoying their freedom to travel from point “a” to point “b” without having the police at any level infringing upon their enjoyment of this INALIENABLE right to travel unencumbered.
There are definitions of the difference between “driving” and “traveling” in Black’s Law Dictionary (or any other legal dictionary). I’m sure that answers your “horse of another color” (??????).
As far as our “freedom” to travel our highways unencumbered or “abdicating” government’s regulation” of “rules” deciding who would be licensed is quite clear: If you are involved in any form of “commerce” you have to be licensed. If not, you are not responsible to go through all the hassle. You should also be FREED from any necessity to register you automobile or be forced to buy insurance.
You would find that drivers and travelers as a whole would lower the number of accidents knowing that they would have to be responsible for their poor driving skills.
As far as “registration” of your private automobiles is concerned, since when should the government get its cut out of your own private conveyance?
The government should be restricted from getting its nose where it does not belong!
Did the government (at any level!) help you with your monthly payments, paying for a portion of your monthly insurance bills or paying for a portion of your registration fee? Of course it did nothing of the like. So why should we be forced to pay for something that should be an “INALIENABLE RIGHT”???
Finally, I’m not sure if I misread J. Ballinger’s post or whether you did. Of course “professional drivers” should be licensed because they are involved in “commerce”…as well as the safety of the passengers they are transporting from Point A to Point B. The same responsibility goes to all those involved in some sort of “commerce” on our highways and streets.