When I was a kid, I sometimes heard folks express worry that Social Security numbers, or even the Social Security cards themselves, would some day be used as a national I.D. The most enthusiastic supporters of FDR and LBJ and that ilk would mock such worries. “Tut tut, you conspiracy-minded paranoiacs, we have laws preventing that!”
Nowadays, one’s social security number is required to establish bank accounts as well as do labor transactions etc. It is a de facto national I.D. number, and will no doubt soon be the basis of a full-blown card system.
And it is not just the technocrats on the left who enthuse about such a development. Conservatives worrying about illegal aliens demand such a system, and glare at you if you say anything critical about E-Verify, an online identity-check system designed to prevent businesses from hiring illegal aliens.
It only took about a generation. But, decade by decade, the frog was boiled.
American society is servile.
Liberty? Croak.
twv
Wirkman Comment 