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In the US, driver's licenses are issued by states. Aside from passports, we don't really have a national ID card. Historically, attempts at creating unified nat

In the US, driver's licenses are issued by states. Aside from passports, we don't really have a national ID card. Historically, attempts at creating unified national databases have run into opposition from religious fanatics whose end times mythology says that such things will literally be a tool of the Antichrist. EDIT: Yes, there are other groups/ideologies that also think that having fifty or so separate state databases for a basic administrative function is better than having one federal database. Not sure how much political power sovereign citizens or libertarians have compared to evangelicals, but consider yourself counted, I guess.

sandworm101 3y ago
>> creating unified national databases have run into opposition from religious fanatics And the gun people. And the sovereign citizens. And the "states rights" people. And the constitutional originalists. And the capital-L libertarians. If you don't want to carry an ID card, there is a variety of communities to help you amplify that opinion in the most annoying and disruptive ways possible.
- darth_avocado 3y ago
  Including the ones that argue you shouldn't need an ID to vote.
- luddit3 3y ago
  Except if you want to vote without an id.
Muromec 3y ago
Just don't issue a number to identify a person, issue a number to identify a record which has their god-given and church blessed christian name. Problem solved. Seriously, the number on my government id is called "record number", as personal number is too haram. Unless of course the real push to sabotage it comes from people actively interested in having fraudlent ids in circulation or rely on undocumented people to do low-paying jobs, or something.
- sandworm101 3y ago
  So an indexed online database that doesn't use numbers. Sounds almost worse than the ATF gun sales database that is forbidden from keeping electronic records.
  - rpmisms 3y ago
    The ATF being required to keep paper records only is a feature, not a bug, specifically mandated after the absolute fiascos of Ruby Ridge and Waco. Regulators decided that giving them less power was probably wise.
  - Muromec 3y ago
    Well, it does use numbers and they are permanent once issued. The difference is what you call those numbers, how you issue them and what is the UX around them. Don't want to have a federal id? Sure, here is your federated id prefixed with TX-, with all the PII stored in a datacenter in your state. Don't want to have another id issued? Sure, type in the number of your driver license issued when you were 16 years old. Don't like numbers at all? Okey, type in your baptism name, dob and the name of the church or apply through a snail mail. It's not like Europe has a pan-european id issuing authority or a single unique number to identify a person through all of the databases on a continent. Even if did, some people would still have another identity number in US to open an account there.
PoignardAzur 3y ago
This isn't especially relevant or important, but fun trivia: in France the National Identity Card was put in place by the Vichy regime. (Along with a surprising amount of stuff we still have like National Police, Mother's day, being on the UTC+1 timezone, the alarm siren we get every first wednesday of the month, Licence IV for opening bars, etc)
- JetSpiegel 3y ago
  Just because the Nazis did it, doesn't mean it's automatically bad. "Say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it's an ethos."
  - PoignardAzur 3y ago
    Yes, this is what I meant by "fun trivia". (Although a lot of these measures were pretty police-state-ish.)
- PrimeMcFly 3y ago
  > the alarm siren we get every first wednesday of the month, Well that sounds as useless as it would be frustrating.
  - PoignardAzur 3y ago
    Nah, it's not too loud. I keep wondering what foreigners make of it the first time they're present on a first-wednesday-of-a-month, though. And yeah, the usefulness is dubious.
    - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
      So it's just something you've learned to live with and can kind of tune out?
      - PoignardAzur 3y ago
        I mean, it's just an alarm you hear for 30 seconds once per month. Compared to living next to a train line or an airport, that's nothing. (Though I've never lived closed to one of the sirens, maybe that's worse.)
Turing_Machine 3y ago
> into opposition from religious fanatics Or opposition who know just how many times national IDs have been used as a tool for oppression and murder. Hint: a lot. Not just in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, either. The Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda look pretty much the same, and even speak the same language. Rwanda had a national ID card system that identified which one you were, which made matters much simpler for the genocidal murders. South Africa had "passbooks", used to enforce the infamous "pass laws". And so on. Dismissing those concerned about privacy as "religious fanatics" is both unfair and incorrect.
- AdamH12113 3y ago
  I am not "dismissing" anyone as anything. I am talking about literal religious fanatics who have the same opposition to things like UPC codes[1] and credit cards[2] and COVID vaccines[3] and who knows what else. I'm not sure how a state-level database is supposed to be safer in real life. The idea that state governments are somehow less dangerous to minority groups than the federal government conflicts with large swaths of US history. [1] https://www.wired.com/2012/12/upc-mark-of-the-beast/ https://www.wired.com/2012/12/upc-mark-of-the-beast/ [2] https://www2.cbn.com/article/finances/are-credit-cards-associated-mark-beast https://www2.cbn.com/article/finances/are-credit-cards-assoc... [3] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/09/26/covid-vaccine-mark-beast-what-book-revelation-says/8255268002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/09/26/covid-...
  - Muromec 3y ago
    >I'm not sure how a state-level database is supposed to be safer in real life. It will be relevant in a very improbable case the states would be at war with each other. It's an odd threat scenario to optimize for, but maybe something like that happened already and people are still not happy about the result. I dunno.
    - Turing_Machine 3y ago
      > It will be relevant in a very improbable case the states would be at war with each other. You do realize that's actually happened before, right?
tastyfreeze 3y ago
>> Historically, attempts at creating unified national databases have run into opposition from religious fanatics whose end times mythology says that such things will literally be a tool of the Antichrist. That is an extreme exaggeration and not even close to true. There a myriad of legitimate reasons to not want a national ID. My reason, for example, is that States are sovereign and identifying citizens is not a Constitutional power given to the Federal government. I would also argue that the Federal government has sneakily made a national ID with the RealID initiative.
- PrimeMcFly 3y ago
  > identifying citizens is not a Constitutional power given to the Federal government lol. come on. Passports the IRS, etc. The federal government implicitly and explicitly has the right to identify you.
  - tastyfreeze 3y ago
    Please show me the excerpt from the Constitution that gives the Federal government any power to implicitly or explicitly identify anybody. The people belong to the States that created the Federal government. It is a power of States to require identification of their people if the people of that State so desire.
    - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
      > Please show me the excerpt from the Constitution that gives the Federal government any power to implicitly or explicitly identify anybody. Are you aware that not all rights granted to the government are in the constitution? I can tell you are going to want to dispute that, but doing so would only be a display of ignorance. Plenty of rights the government has are are a result of later caselaw or legislation, and not outlined in the constitution. If you want to say those don't count, then you're probably a 'sovereign citizen' type.
      - tastyfreeze 3y ago
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
Americans just use SSN for that purpose.

sandworm101 3y ago

>> creating unified national databases have run into opposition from religious fanatics And the gun people. And the sovereign citizens. And the "states rights" people. And the constitutional originalists. And the capital-L libertarians. If you don't want to carry an ID card, there is a variety of communities to help you amplify that opinion in the most annoying and disruptive ways possible.

darth_avocado 3y ago
Including the ones that argue you shouldn't need an ID to vote.
luddit3 3y ago
Except if you want to vote without an id.

Muromec 3y ago

Just don't issue a number to identify a person, issue a number to identify a record which has their god-given and church blessed christian name. Problem solved. Seriously, the number on my government id is called "record number", as personal number is too haram. Unless of course the real push to sabotage it comes from people actively interested in having fraudlent ids in circulation or rely on undocumented people to do low-paying jobs, or something.

sandworm101 3y ago
So an indexed online database that doesn't use numbers. Sounds almost worse than the ATF gun sales database that is forbidden from keeping electronic records.
- rpmisms 3y ago
  The ATF being required to keep paper records only is a feature, not a bug, specifically mandated after the absolute fiascos of Ruby Ridge and Waco. Regulators decided that giving them less power was probably wise.
- Muromec 3y ago
  Well, it does use numbers and they are permanent once issued. The difference is what you call those numbers, how you issue them and what is the UX around them. Don't want to have a federal id? Sure, here is your federated id prefixed with TX-, with all the PII stored in a datacenter in your state. Don't want to have another id issued? Sure, type in the number of your driver license issued when you were 16 years old. Don't like numbers at all? Okey, type in your baptism name, dob and the name of the church or apply through a snail mail. It's not like Europe has a pan-european id issuing authority or a single unique number to identify a person through all of the databases on a continent. Even if did, some people would still have another identity number in US to open an account there.

PoignardAzur 3y ago

This isn't especially relevant or important, but fun trivia: in France the National Identity Card was put in place by the Vichy regime. (Along with a surprising amount of stuff we still have like National Police, Mother's day, being on the UTC+1 timezone, the alarm siren we get every first wednesday of the month, Licence IV for opening bars, etc)

JetSpiegel 3y ago
Just because the Nazis did it, doesn't mean it's automatically bad. "Say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it's an ethos."
- PoignardAzur 3y ago
  Yes, this is what I meant by "fun trivia". (Although a lot of these measures were pretty police-state-ish.)
PrimeMcFly 3y ago
> the alarm siren we get every first wednesday of the month, Well that sounds as useless as it would be frustrating.
- PoignardAzur 3y ago
  Nah, it's not too loud. I keep wondering what foreigners make of it the first time they're present on a first-wednesday-of-a-month, though. And yeah, the usefulness is dubious.
  - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
    So it's just something you've learned to live with and can kind of tune out?
    - PoignardAzur 3y ago
      I mean, it's just an alarm you hear for 30 seconds once per month. Compared to living next to a train line or an airport, that's nothing. (Though I've never lived closed to one of the sirens, maybe that's worse.)

Turing_Machine 3y ago

> into opposition from religious fanatics Or opposition who know just how many times national IDs have been used as a tool for oppression and murder. Hint: a lot. Not just in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, either. The Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda look pretty much the same, and even speak the same language. Rwanda had a national ID card system that identified which one you were, which made matters much simpler for the genocidal murders. South Africa had "passbooks", used to enforce the infamous "pass laws". And so on. Dismissing those concerned about privacy as "religious fanatics" is both unfair and incorrect.

AdamH12113 3y ago
I am not "dismissing" anyone as anything. I am talking about literal religious fanatics who have the same opposition to things like UPC codes[1] and credit cards[2] and COVID vaccines[3] and who knows what else. I'm not sure how a state-level database is supposed to be safer in real life. The idea that state governments are somehow less dangerous to minority groups than the federal government conflicts with large swaths of US history. [1] https://www.wired.com/2012/12/upc-mark-of-the-beast/ https://www.wired.com/2012/12/upc-mark-of-the-beast/ [2] https://www2.cbn.com/article/finances/are-credit-cards-associated-mark-beast https://www2.cbn.com/article/finances/are-credit-cards-assoc... [3] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/09/26/covid-vaccine-mark-beast-what-book-revelation-says/8255268002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/09/26/covid-...
- Muromec 3y ago
  >I'm not sure how a state-level database is supposed to be safer in real life. It will be relevant in a very improbable case the states would be at war with each other. It's an odd threat scenario to optimize for, but maybe something like that happened already and people are still not happy about the result. I dunno.
  - Turing_Machine 3y ago
    > It will be relevant in a very improbable case the states would be at war with each other. You do realize that's actually happened before, right?

tastyfreeze 3y ago

>> Historically, attempts at creating unified national databases have run into opposition from religious fanatics whose end times mythology says that such things will literally be a tool of the Antichrist. That is an extreme exaggeration and not even close to true. There a myriad of legitimate reasons to not want a national ID. My reason, for example, is that States are sovereign and identifying citizens is not a Constitutional power given to the Federal government. I would also argue that the Federal government has sneakily made a national ID with the RealID initiative.

PrimeMcFly 3y ago
> identifying citizens is not a Constitutional power given to the Federal government lol. come on. Passports the IRS, etc. The federal government implicitly and explicitly has the right to identify you.
- tastyfreeze 3y ago
  Please show me the excerpt from the Constitution that gives the Federal government any power to implicitly or explicitly identify anybody. The people belong to the States that created the Federal government. It is a power of States to require identification of their people if the people of that State so desire.
  - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
    > Please show me the excerpt from the Constitution that gives the Federal government any power to implicitly or explicitly identify anybody. Are you aware that not all rights granted to the government are in the constitution? I can tell you are going to want to dispute that, but doing so would only be a display of ignorance. Plenty of rights the government has are are a result of later caselaw or legislation, and not outlined in the constitution. If you want to say those don't count, then you're probably a 'sovereign citizen' type.
    - tastyfreeze 3y ago

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago

Americans just use SSN for that purpose.