Commentary

Smart Cards, Silly People

Recently, I have spent an irrational amount of time trying to calculate the intrinsic value of a thinner wallet and a lighter purse (my wife’s purse, that is). This bothersome question arose as I followed the progress of New Jersey’s plans to implement the nation’s first government-issued smart card. The governor’s spirited initiative is entitled Access NJ, and it would establish a precedent-setting program that begins with a digitized driver’s license. Initially, a motorist’s picture, driving record, signature, and fingerprint would be stored on his or her individual card, and in subsequent stages, insurance, credit, bank records, medical information, and other personal data would be added. All of the specific-use plastic and paper cards we carry and the services they represent would be combined into one convenient—and very smart—personal identification card.

I work for a New Jersey legislator, so I was not unaware of the program that narrowly failed in June when controversy prevented the bill from being posted for a floor vote in either the senate or the assembly. The barrage of voices that rose from an unusual coalition of religious conservatives, free thinkers, and civil libertarians caused enough hesitancy in the legislature to put the program on hold.

Commercial smart cards are becoming more prevalent here and abroad, but they have been issued by private industry, predominantly banks or short-term authorities (like the one used by patrons at the Atlanta Olympics). To date, no state in the Union has produced a smart card.

When the smart-card headlines succumbed to fresher topics, I was left alone with my query concerning my wallet. I was trying to figure out exactly when our walk through the technology bazaar became a forced march. And I wondered how many questions we consider appropriate to raise before we make peace with the latest marvels.

Technology stop or yield signs are hard to define and defend, and we have yet to set the limits that would at least frame a thorough debate on things like smart cards. Invasion of privacy is certainly a valid argument, but it needs some persuasive allies in order to insert a persuasive wedge. A good starting point is the incongruity of a government producing a smart card.

The commercial interest in smart cards is clear enough; it has been reported that they reduce per-transaction costs from a quarter to a penny. Government enthusiasm is more difficult to understand. Indeed, the leaner, meaner efficiency such cards so proudly offer is noticeably incompatible with the bureaucracy that proposes to issue them.

We Americans are a diverse and cluttered people. The venerated wisdom arising from the colonies was decidedly in favor of inefficiency, even the sloppy, wasteful kind that prefers motion without effect to hasty accomplishments. The bicameral legislature and separation of powers conceptualized and created by this nation’s founders were not intended to be compact and always practical, and they are anything but efficient.

Obviously, they were designed to fracture governmental potency into less threatening pieces dependent on the intangibles of cooperation, and waiting. Our forefathers knew that budgets would be delayed, projects suspended, and energy wasted, and they understood the virtue of mandating such unbecoming safeguards.

The smart-card mentality doesn’t like such hindrances. It would argue for a single branch of government, a streamlined command unencumbered by prudence, protest, or delay. Separation of powers makes us clumsy; why not instead one orderly whole? Perhaps a single building could handle all of the affairs of government; though that may seem alarming, it really is not, and the savings are too great to ignore. We will be fine. Such consolidations are expressly prohibited by the Constitution, but a tidy restructuring is sure to simplify our lives, and we can rest assured that our technological prowess will provide a continuation of the independence we all expect. OK?

Debate on the smart cards will soon resume here and in other states close behind. In the meantime, I have promised myself that I will regularly extract a dollar bill from the limited assets within my impractical billfold and stare at it. I will contemplate anew the unique, stirring remainders of the beautiful inefficiencies of our freedom, and I will trust in God. I may count the numerous cards within and be grateful for little checks, little balances. I will let myself be inspired by remembering that a cluttered wallet is an ideology to be preserved and defended, and that one made thinner by being relieved of the bulkiness of liberty is none the better.

William Crew is director of communications for Assemblyman Jack Gibson (N.J.).

Dogma

“I sit there every Sunday and I feel nothing,” says Bethany. “I can remember sitting in church when I was a kid and being moved—like everything meant something, like I was important. And the stories of all these holy people were so inspiring. Now I sit there and think about my checking, and what I’m going to wear to work the next day.”

It sounds like something straight out of a Bill Hybels book. But it’s not. It’s from the script for Dogma, a forthcoming film by Kevin Smith, one of Hollywood’s coarsest—and most popular—directors. Smith’s previous film, Chasing Amy, centered on a young man’s love for a lesbian. Now he has turned his sights on the ills of religion—specifically, Catholicism.

Here’s the basic plotline: Once upon a time, the Angel of Death, at another angel’s prodding, decided to become a conscientious objector. For their insolence, God banished them to Wisconsin for the rest of history. But the angels (played by Hollywood darlings Ben Affleck and Matt Damon) find a “loophole” that may allow them to return to heaven. In an effort to get more people into church, one Catholic parish has reinstituted plenary indulgences, but only as a special, one-time offer. Those attending the church for the rededication ceremony will receive a clean slate morally, and all their previous sins will be forgiven. So the angels set out to enter the church.

There’s only one problem: God doesn’t allow loopholes. If the angels manage to finagle their way back into heaven, negating their banishment, all of God’s other decrees will be up for grabs as well, from “Let there be light” on down. Existence will be canceled. So the forces of God enlist humans to stop the angels.

First on their list is Bethany, a counselor at an abortion clinic (and a descendant of Joseph and Mary). She meets up with Silent Bob and Jay—lovable dope-dealing characters from the director’s past three movies—and Rufus, the thirteenth apostle (left out of gospel accounts because he was black). I won’t spoil more of the plot; those who want to read a version of the script can do so at the semiofficial Web site (http://www.newsaskew.com).

Thus far Dogma may sound like just another antireligion flick created by a pagan filmmaker. But there’s a wrinkle. The script is often critical of Christian (especially Catholic) practices, but not so much of Catholic doctrines. It has a deeply “inside” feel to it—as if it were written by an editor of the Door, if he were Catholic and potty-mouthed.

As Ben Affleck told the online entertainment magazine Mr. Showbiz, “Smith is a devoutly religious Catholic. This is a criticism of the Catholic Church by someone who was raised in it … and grew up within it. He’s a firm believer in Christianity and God and a believer in the Catholic doctrine.”

But Smith doesn’t make movies to preach. Instead, he makes them to deal with his own life. If he satirizes others, he satirizes himself even more. The inspiration for Chasing Amy, Smith has said, was his own struggle in dating a woman far more sexually experienced than he.

Likewise, in Dogma it’s clear that Smith is working through questions about his own faith. Unfortunately, while he regards the church with vigilant skepticism, he swallows Hollywood’s favorite religious dogmas without blinking.

“So if we’re so wrong, then what’s the right religion?” asks Bethany.

“When are you people going to learn?” comes the answer. “It’s not about right or wrong—it’s a question of faith. It doesn’t matter what you believe in—just that you believe.”

In Smith’s porno world, the church’s role is simply to inspire, and faith is simply a good, even necessary, thing to have, like a balanced diet, an exercise schedule, and the Star Wars movies on video.

And God? He hardly makes an appearance in the film, either in depiction or discussion. All we know is that he/she really likes to play Skee-Ball on the weekends (and he looks a lot like Alanis Morisette—don’t ask). Smith’s faith isn’t even based on belief. As Rufus (played by Chris Rock) puts it, God prefers ideas to beliefs:

I think it’s better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier. Life should be malleable and progressive; working from idea to idea permits that. Beliefs anchor you to certain points and limit growth; new ideas can’t generate.

What Smith is left with is a religion without claims to being right, one that changes its definition of sin with the times, one that is itself always changing, run by a God who’s absent because he/she’s off playing Skee-Ball.

In that case, I’ll be the one rooting for the Angel of Death.

Ted Olsen is assistant editor of Christian History.