A woman with an identity

I am no longer documentless. Do you like that word? I do because it means that I am now the proud owner of an identity card (for foreigners) in Brazil. I have been waiting and waiting for ever so long for my new card. Well, actually it's been only 18 months, since it took some months for my actual permanent residence to be approved. I had lost my permanent resident status after my 5 years out of the country. I periodically check online to see if the card was ready, but always got an instant no. When a new screen flashed up yesterday, I was in a state of shock, I was so surprised. Today we went out to the airport, headquarters of the immigration police, and picked up my card. There had been a big bru-ha-ha when I did my application back in 2006 that there was a discrepency between the application and my marriage certificate in the spelling of Dad's name. They had William with an "N" on the certificate and they went round and round with me and I finally told them to spell it however they wanted. Then they said that if it wasn't right I would have all kinds of problems later. I told them I would fix that later. So I fully expected to have his name spelled wrong and have to pay a correction fee and then wait another 18 months for a corrected card. But what do you know? It was spelled correctly, just like on my previous card, before I went to Canada. I even had the same number. One less thing to remember. That means all I have to do is go and get another copy of my marriage certificate, as we were able to verify that in the original register it is actually spelled correctly - back in 1993 (surely sounds weird to think of 1993 as "back then"), they actually hand typed the certificate copies and someone made a small typing mistake that turned out to be a big pain in the neck for me. The bureaucracy here drives me nuts sometimes, but today I am happy.
On that note, however, I must add that something that concerns me is that I am seeing the USA turn into a bureaucratic state. I have been shocked at how complicated things have become there. There is talk of a national identity card. I HATE that idea and consider it very anti-democratic as well as repressive on the part of the government. I am frustrated by the fact that a few years ago I could renew my driver's license based on my Brazilian license with no red tape whatsoever and recently I was refused to renew that license (in the same state of Kentucky in the same Boone County) because I didn't have a birth certificate (but I did have a passport, the idiots) and a current Social Security Card (I do have one, but it was in Brazil at the time). What has happened to the days when a man's word was his bond. I now hate entering the US via airports as everyone is treated not only as a terrorist suspect, but with outright rudeness and disrespect. I miss smiles, politeness and common courtesy. I know that makes me sound old and stodgy. I love change, innovation, gadgets, gimmicks, electronics and new things in general. Really I do. But I hate change for the worse and that's what I think is happening. So if your candidate is proposing or supporting a national identity card, think twice about voting for him. Trust me, additional paperwork is NEVER a good thing.