And the very place where that happened now has a database again but without any of that information in it. The lesson that no database at all can exist seems like the wrong one. Pretty much every EU country has a database of citizens that is also then used to define who can vote where. It works fine. Those same places also do a census as a completely different effort for different reasons.

We are not Europe and modern society has existed for but a brief moment in the long history of the world. I have no desire to give the government any more of an advantage over me. There's no reason to think that it will never be used in the future.

Name, sex, parents, place and date of birth. That's all the government needs to know about you to prove you're a citizen.

Anything beyond that is just market research.

I think your point stands as for why we don’t want such a database but between Social Security which is now tied to the new federal driver’s licenses, taxes, and the census I think it’s a tough sell that the government couldn’t assemble the same data.

Agreed, but surely the More Evil Government could just buy a marketing database - or have NSA download it - and know everything down to what size underpants people wear and which specific businesses and organisations they support.

Facebook - without checking the specific details - can probably tell the locality and religious position of most of their users; certainly enough to direct the Neue Gestapo to arrest you. But they also have raw address and religion details, which makes it somewhat easier.

Such a database doesn't need to include religion or ethnicity. You can come a long way with just name and address.