Papers, please

When the police can stop you for no specific cause and, under threat of suspension of your driver's license, force you into a Breathalyzer test, the difference between America and a police state is - politeness. Yeah, there's a difference of degree, too, but that's easy to change when everyone in politics periodically goes through a paroxysm of "toughness", which the voters lap up eagerly. (Witness Iraq.)

I've been through two internal domestic checkpoints, one in Maine looking for drunk drivers, the other in New Hampshire looking for illegal aliens. I didn't match either target, but I still felt the hot breath of the law on the back of my neck.