Thus, from BoingBoing:
UK campaigners NO2ID this morning enlisted the help of bloggers across the world to spread a leaked government document describing how the British government intends to go about “coercing” its citizens onto a National Identity Register. The ‘ID card’ is revealed as little more than a cover to create a official dossier and trackable ID for every UK resident – creating what NO2ID calls ‘the database state’.
Uh, “creating” a “database state”? This is rather old news.
The bit that gets me about BoingBoing’s (well, really “NO2ID”’s) mildly hysterical “call to action” is the naive shock therein. “Oh my! Government really isn’t my friend after all! They’re invading my privacy and stuff!” It’s kind of cute, really; like watching a six-year-old’s face fall when he realizes that Santa is a lie told by the Coca-Cola Corporation and his parents are the ones stuffing gift-wrapped consumer goods under the tree.
“Yes, Virginia, there is a Leviathan State. It exists as certainly as avarice and envy and lust for power exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its darkest suffering and helplessness. Alas! How beautiful would be the world if there were no Statists! It would be as beautiful as if there were no Presidents! There would be no lock-stepping party politics then, no legislation, no gunpoint taxation to sap the fruits of this existence. We should have but liberty, in thought and deed. The baleful fire with which arbitrary authority scorches this world would be extinguished.”
Grow the fuck up, children. This is what happens when we give up essential liberty for a little temporary security.
“Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
– George Washington
Oh yes; here’s that document:
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