4 ms·

See that's the thing people are upset about though - the fact that the documents you need are either an original certified copy of a thin sheet of paper from wh

See that's the thing people are upset about though - the fact that the documents you need are either an original certified copy of a thin sheet of paper from whatever random backwater you were born in's local government (birth cert), or an expensive time-consuming document that needs to be renewed on top of that (passport). In general, the people against these kinds of things aren't against the simple extra check of something that's theoretically already true (registered to vote / ID at voting place, citizenship at banks, etc). They're against forcing people to provide arcane, asterisk-ridden (including married women! a large demographic!) documents. If we just had a normal federal ID system like a normal country, where you just got one mailed to you when your kid was born just like their social security card manages to do, then this would all be much more fine. But noooo god forbid we be normal for once. Much better to keep using random bullshit in place of a national ID.

pjc50 6mo ago
Having been through this in the UK, what people want is: - a rigorous secure biometric identity system - .. but not for citizens, only for immigrants. (one of the weird consequences of this is that the final stage of naturalization was to send back / destroy your secure ID: https://www.gov.uk/biometric-residence-permits https://www.gov.uk/biometric-residence-permits ; we now have a purely online "share code" system, which everyone is much more scared of because you have no way to contradict the computer)
lo_zamoyski 6mo ago
Many Americans think mandatory ID is some kind of dystopian measure. It's part of an irrational cultural obsession with "government control" that believe that if something could hypothetically be used for oppressive purposes, then it will be and must be resisted. Never mind that in practice, you very often need to have a state-issued ID of some kind of do things. Mind you, I am not saying gov'ts cannot misbehave. I am merely saying that this categorical opposition is imprudent and irrational. It's like the idea that you shouldn't leave your basement, because bad things might happen to you outside. What kind of life is that? Yeah, something could, but you aren't living life by remaining cooped up. And news flash: you're going to die eventually.
- _DeadFred_ 6mo ago
  I mean one of the uses for something like this is to make it easier to de-bank people. That is, make it impossible for them to function financially. That sounds super dystopian to me and a power the government shouldn't have. They call it 'collateral damage' so that it fall outside of the constitutional protection/requirement that all punishments need to stem from a conviction and then a judge's determination the punishment is directly proportional to the conviction so it's also un-American.
  - jltsiren 6mo ago
    As a citizen of a small country with decently long democratic traditions, I've always found American attitudes like that weird. From my perspective, if you live in a free country, any government you have by definition reflects the will of the people. If you're afraid of what the government might do, you're really afraid of what your fellow citizens might do. Afraid that your fellow citizens don't share your values, or those of the constitution. When it comes to de-banking, the bigger threat seems to come from the banks than from the government. Your bank might choose to de-bank you, because it doesn't like you. Because you are too risky or too unpleasant, or because the computer says so. So if you're afraid of de-banking, you might want to pass a law that makes it illegal for a bank to refuse to offer basic services to you, unless one of the exceptions listed in the law applies.
    - _DeadFred_ 6mo ago
      Our ancestors came to the US because our neighbors in Europe decided they should die for following the wrong religion, be it catholic irish/germans or non-catholic french/jewish. So yes, our country is founded on not letting that happen, not letting your neighbors have that kind of power over your life, via the old world/European direct killing/starvation/exile from society or a modern world reimaged debanking that basically strangles you to death with the burden of just existing in the modern world without modern finance/electronic funds/card payment. In the US there are strict banks and then there are immigrant/human friendly banks like US Bank. I can easily change banks. I can't exist in a right to life/liberty/happiness way with no bank, and the government can't take that right away unless I have been convicted and a judge ruled that in my circumstances specifically it should be taken away.
JuniperMesos 6mo ago
Yeah the US should institute a normal federal ID system like a normal country. It might strictly be necessary to amend the constitution to do this, although plenty of other expansions of what the federal government does have happened without a formal amendment.

pjc50 6mo ago

Having been through this in the UK, what people want is: - a rigorous secure biometric identity system - .. but not for citizens, only for immigrants. (one of the weird consequences of this is that the final stage of naturalization was to send back / destroy your secure ID: https://www.gov.uk/biometric-residence-permits https://www.gov.uk/biometric-residence-permits ; we now have a purely online "share code" system, which everyone is much more scared of because you have no way to contradict the computer)

lo_zamoyski 6mo ago

Many Americans think mandatory ID is some kind of dystopian measure. It's part of an irrational cultural obsession with "government control" that believe that if something could hypothetically be used for oppressive purposes, then it will be and must be resisted. Never mind that in practice, you very often need to have a state-issued ID of some kind of do things. Mind you, I am not saying gov'ts cannot misbehave. I am merely saying that this categorical opposition is imprudent and irrational. It's like the idea that you shouldn't leave your basement, because bad things might happen to you outside. What kind of life is that? Yeah, something could, but you aren't living life by remaining cooped up. And news flash: you're going to die eventually.

_DeadFred_ 6mo ago
I mean one of the uses for something like this is to make it easier to de-bank people. That is, make it impossible for them to function financially. That sounds super dystopian to me and a power the government shouldn't have. They call it 'collateral damage' so that it fall outside of the constitutional protection/requirement that all punishments need to stem from a conviction and then a judge's determination the punishment is directly proportional to the conviction so it's also un-American.
- jltsiren 6mo ago
  As a citizen of a small country with decently long democratic traditions, I've always found American attitudes like that weird. From my perspective, if you live in a free country, any government you have by definition reflects the will of the people. If you're afraid of what the government might do, you're really afraid of what your fellow citizens might do. Afraid that your fellow citizens don't share your values, or those of the constitution. When it comes to de-banking, the bigger threat seems to come from the banks than from the government. Your bank might choose to de-bank you, because it doesn't like you. Because you are too risky or too unpleasant, or because the computer says so. So if you're afraid of de-banking, you might want to pass a law that makes it illegal for a bank to refuse to offer basic services to you, unless one of the exceptions listed in the law applies.
  - _DeadFred_ 6mo ago
    Our ancestors came to the US because our neighbors in Europe decided they should die for following the wrong religion, be it catholic irish/germans or non-catholic french/jewish. So yes, our country is founded on not letting that happen, not letting your neighbors have that kind of power over your life, via the old world/European direct killing/starvation/exile from society or a modern world reimaged debanking that basically strangles you to death with the burden of just existing in the modern world without modern finance/electronic funds/card payment. In the US there are strict banks and then there are immigrant/human friendly banks like US Bank. I can easily change banks. I can't exist in a right to life/liberty/happiness way with no bank, and the government can't take that right away unless I have been convicted and a judge ruled that in my circumstances specifically it should be taken away.

JuniperMesos 6mo ago

Yeah the US should institute a normal federal ID system like a normal country. It might strictly be necessary to amend the constitution to do this, although plenty of other expansions of what the federal government does have happened without a formal amendment.