If someone walks into a bank and says, “I’m John Doe and I want to withdraw $10,000 from my account,” I’m sure John Doe would be upset if it wasn’t John Doe who withdrew the money and the teller didn’t ask for identification.

Rep. James Clyburn, a Democrat from South Carolina is leading an effort to stop voter ID requirements. It seems that Coke and Wal-Mart support an organization that is pushing for ID laws and he wants. Clyburn is calling for a boycott of the companies, and the latest news is that Coke has caved by pulling support from the targeted group just five hours after it was called. Here’s what I think we should do. Let’s find out where Rep. Clyburn does his banking, claim to be James Clyburn, and when the teller asks for identification explain to him that if we don’t need an ID to vote we shouldn’t need an ID to bank.

Clyburn compared voter ID laws to segregation era “Jim Crow” laws. No, voter ID laws are designed to keep dishonest people from voting. They don’t have anything to do with Jim Crow laws since the ID requirement applies to everybody. There’s no test to get an ID, and blacks aren’t the only people who might not be able to afford to get one. If a person can’t afford to pay for an ID, the ID is free.

Democrats like Clyburn are political paternalists. They believe blacks are children that need to be coddled and made excuses for. In time, blacks begin to believe that they can’t do anything until the “Daddy State” steps in to help them. Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) had their kind in mind more than a century ago:

“I am afraid that there is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don’t want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public.”

Herbert Schlossberg’s masterful study of power in his book Idols for Destruction describes perfectly what Washington saw in his day:

The paternal state not only feeds its children, but nurtures, educates, comforts, and disciplines them, providing all they need for their security. This appears to be a mildly insulting way to treat adults, but it is really a great crime because it transforms the state from being a gift of God, given to protect us against violence, into an idol. . . . The paternalism of the state is that of the bad parent who wants his children dependent on him forever. That is an evil impulse. The good parent prepares his children for independence, trains them to make responsible decisions, knows that he harms them by not helping them to break loose. The paternal state thrives on dependency. When the dependents free themselves, it loses power. It is, therefore, parasitic on the very persons whom it turns into parasites.

Liberals need dependent voters; it’s the only way they can stay in power. “Because the state can only be a bad imitation of a father, as a dancing bear act is of a ballerina, the protection of this Leviathan of a father turns out to be a bear hug.”

UPDATE: Coke pulls support of voter ID law group 5 hours after being threatened with a boycott.