Yet bank accounts typically require at least a copy of state-issued ID to open, all without national ID!

Part of the resistance to national ID is also a question of federalism - we do not officially have a 'national government' - we have a 'federal government', even though in practice it is hardly federal anymore.

You don't need national ID if every state issues a real ID document. There's no European wide ID but national IDs of all EU countries are accepted everywhere by law and it works.

I don't think mrweasel's comment was proposing national ID as a solution to "identity theft". It was just positing that solutions must exist other than keeping identifying information secret.

You seem to be under the impression that the national ID in Sweden is in the form of some kind of tattoo?

> receive a mark in their right hand

I guess if you got your ID by picking it up with your right hand it still is the mark of the beast.

I thought barcodes are already the mark of the beast.

https://www.wired.com/2012/12/upc-mark-of-the-beast/

Then it was RFIDs, then Obamacare, then...

God's perfect wisdom just keeps getting lost in translation, what a shame!

US already has national IDs. They're called Social Security Numbers.

CGPGrey did an excellent video on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erp8IAUouus

Well shit thats what peope don't get. You accept a shitty system that kinda works or a national system that works super well that looks like modern fascism with good biometrics.

Choose your poison. Carefully.

Since when is providing a way to identify people facism? This isn't the 18th century. Economics are global. You cannot just use the fact you've known the shopkeep your whole life as an authentication service.

Either we have a good functioning way to uniquely identify people or we don't. If you have the former, you could use it for evil, in much the same way as how with the later it is used for evil a lot with the various frauds talked about in the OP.

If the government wants to do evil it will do so with or without national ID, but the ability for fraudsters to do evil is dependent on there being no effective and secure universal identification.

I'm going to guarantee that the NSA tracking profiles on every US citizen don't need national ID cards to pick you out of a crowd. They could build a comprehensive identity database from CCTV and store cameras whenever you buy something to build a complete and hardened profile to identify you with. They have access to way more than enough material to start branding the "undesirables" and having them carted off to gas chambers within a week. We just suffer in the meantime under this false belief that ID cards are the make or break of liberty.

I upvoted you and I think you made your point well, I just feel the opposite way to you. Thanks btw :)

I would prefer shitty nonfunctioning systems which still allow me to use cash and buy a bowl of noodles to the alternative where I need to be more or less authorised to make that transaction. But thats just me.