Once again this year I'm coaching a couple of events for Science Olympiad, an event that my two oldest kids take part in. In the past few years, in order to volunteer for events like these in our school district, some forms must be filled out, along with a TB test. This year however, due to the passing of Act 153 by the Pennsylvania Legislature, I also have to get background checks by two different agencies, and get fingerprinted. (The instructions to be volunteer are here: http://www.qvsd.org/page.cfm?p=4734)
I understand the desire to have our kids in a safe environment, and I certainly wouldn't want to have a pedophile as one of my kids' coaches. But I'm a little agitated that I have to jump through so many hoops to volunteer, when I'm not a criminal, past or present.
In order to protect the police from "bad people", the government has lots of processes for filtering out these bad people with various 'checks'. Those checks make everyone fill out forms, wait in security lines, take tests, open up your backpack at various places, etc.
Couldn't we do this another way?
How about this: The government makes a 'skip the bureaucracy card', that everyone gets when they are born in the US. If you do anything bad (criminal in any way), they destroy your card. BUT, if you have the card, you don't have to fill out background check forms, wait in security lines, have your bag examined when you enter a sports arena, etc. They just scan your 'skip the bureaucracy card', and you're on your way...
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