|
|
|
|
|
|
by saltcured
60 days ago
|
|
|
The US cultural thing is really the opposite of cowering in your basement, at least in my generation and older. We were steeped in propaganda about the "papers, please" police state in other parts of the world, versus our freedom to travel. It's this idea that you are not allowed to leave your basement without an exit visa which is horrifying. There is also the religious angle, with some believing that a national ID would be the "mark of the beast" from the bible. Ironically, these days the US religious right seems excited by the prospects of fascist control, rather than rebelling against it. I'm honestly not sure if that is just hypocrisy or if, in their minds, they are gleefully accelerating us towards the "end times" now. |
|
|
That wasn't the purpose of my basement remark. The point is that you can't argue against something simply because it can be abused or simply because it can have bad effects. There is a thread running through American culture that is absolutely paranoid about the slightest possibility of abuse. What I think more people realize today is that gov't is easier to restrain than corporations, because of their officially public status and the attending constraints, while corporations are in many ways at greater liberty to do whatever they want and attain power and influence that gov'ts don't have.
> There is also the religious angle, with some believing that a national ID would be the "mark of the beast" from the bible.
I don't know how influential this religious element is where IDs are concerned, but I would agree that dispensationalist Evangelical nuttery - a blatant Christian heresy - is a danger to the US. However, I think it is a danger, because it is nuts.