From: roger@hayter.org 
  
 On 5 Sep 2025 at 19:25:21 BST, "Martin Harran"  
 wrote: 
  
 > On 4 Sep 2025 21:13:57 GMT, Spike  wrote: 
 > 
 >> Martin Harran  wrote: 
 >>> On 3 Sep 2025 10:15:20 GMT, Spike  wrote: 
 >> 
 >>>> With the news today that a mandatory so-called Digital ID Card is being 
 >>>> considered by the government, on the grounds that it will discourage 
 >>>> illegal migration by making it harder to such migrants to get jobs, 
 perhaps 
 >>>> we should look back to the last time ID cards were compulsory and see 
 just 
 >>>> how intrusive they became and how they were used for extra-judicial 
 >>>> harassment by minor State functionaries such as local government and the 
 >>>> police, finally coming to the fore in the Harry Willcock case. 
 >> 
 >>>> It has been said that the defining characteristic of Socialist 
 governments 
 >>>> is the equal spreading of misery, and this latest ID scheme punishes us 
 all 
 >>>> for the sins of the illegal immigrants. 
 >> 
 >>> How are ID cards a *punishment*? 
 >> 
 >> Look back to the last time we had ID cards, with petty officials, the 
 >> police, and others peremptorily demanding ID simply because they could. 
 >> Plus the huge mission creep, of course. Little wonder that Harry Willcock 
 >> made a stand. 
 >> 
 >> Starmer is talking it up today saying that things have moved on in the 
 last 
 >> 20 years, we all carry digital ID (do we really?), so essentially it 
 isn€€€t 
 >> an imposition. 
 >> 
 >> So everybody will have to carry either an ID capable phone or whatever 
 >> device  it might be that the phoneless get foisted on them, at their 
 >> expense, of course. 
 >> 
 >>> Are the people of the many countries 
 >>> who already have them being collectively *punished*by their 
 >>> governments? 
 >> 
 >> It depends on the effectiveness of the checks and balances that are put in 
 >> place, always assuming there are any, and whether they are enforceable in 
 >> fact. 
 >> 
 >> Will digital ID cards stop the current wave of shoplifting? Or burglaries? 
 >> Or the hundred other crimes that now don€€€t get investigated? 
 >> 
 >> PS: I can remember my National Identity number€€€ 
 > 
 > 
 > Poor attempt at a swerve. Let me remind you of the questions I 
 > actually asked: 
 > 
 > "How are ID cards a *punishment*? Are the people of the many countries 
 > who already have them being collectively *punished* by their 
 > governments?" 
  
 Before that is answered I demand you answer my question: "Why do posters 
 suppose that they are in a position to have their leading (or largely 
 rhetorical) questions answered, just because they say so?" 
  
  
 -- 
  
 Roger Hayter 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)