We have enjoyed reading the many good quality European blogs as we follow the Ukrainian revolution. It is crucial to keep track of the state of things happening around the world. This is especially true for Europe, because they are usually a couple years ahead of us in moving to to the left.

Therefore it was very troubling to read in the Edge of England’s Sword that the Tories have decided to go along with a national ID card. According to Drake:

“The spin coming from the party leadership is that they have to do this because if the Tories opposed ID Cards they would look weak on Terrorism.”

Will the Republicans will be quick to travel this road too. . . .just to look tough on terrorism? The massive intelligence bill that Bush just signed has a lot of features that look awfully close, including national standards for driver’s license by 2006.

As the Edge of England’s Sword points out, this is entirely against the concept of “ancient liberties” or liberties that have been accorded to English-speaking world for centuries. NO2ID, a website devoted to stopping the national ID writes:

“. . .No Common law country in the world has ever accepted the idea of a peacetime ID card. The Australian and New Zealand public have rejected similar proposals outright. Following widespread criticism, Canada abandoned its proposed biometric ID card system in early 2004. ID card proposals have always been rejected by the United States Congress.”

Other non-common law countries do have stringent identification and registration requirements. In the Netherlands, to give an example, whenever you move you have to register with the authorities in the town you have moved to.

By requiring citizens to carry or have an ID, the government is saying you need permission to exist. In America, like all the English-speaking world, we have always had that right. Fortunately bloggers like Drake, Paul of Voice of the Future and John of England Project aren’t giving up without a fight.