>Your plate is displayed because driving is a privilege, not a right (note that traveling is a right, but you can travel without driving).

But the 4th amendment is a right, that applies even when engaging in a "privilege." See also the fact police can't just willy nilly check your driver license while engaging in a "privilege."

>So your plate is really the proof that you've paid a bit for the infrastructure to drive on.

False.

Plates are required even on my own privately owned publicly accessible road, and a large portion of my trips happen on publicly available but 100% privately owned roads with 0 taxes to maintain them (in fact, I maintain a lot of the roads in my community myself because they are all private). In fact some of those roads, I 100% own and maintain, and yet since I legally can't bar anyone from driving on it the law in my state (AZ) requires a displayed plate (even for me).

>It's like having a wrist band to an event. You're not required to attend the event, but if you do attend it, you're required to wear the wrist band.

It's like citing me for not having a wrist band on my own owned road easement, which is the law in my state. There is no property right you are attempting to assert under which that makes sense. I can go about 90% of the way to "town" on privately owned roads in which none of the owners care if I have a "wrist band" yet the state can still cite me for not having it.

The fact that the road is legally accessible to the public makes it a public road for the sake of this discussion. You must have a license plate to drive on a public road. It really isn’t any more complicated than that.

It doesn’t matter whether the road in front of my house is owned by the federal government, state, county, city, or Bob, I and everyone else is allowed to drive on it, so it’s a public road.