All Forms of ID Go Against My Religious Beliefs

(In response to this article)

About M J Shepherd


  • keddaw

    Why are you pulling me over and interrogating me officer? Was I breaking the law in any way, endangering other people?

    No? Then you have no business interfering with me going about my lawful business.

    • M J Shepherd

      That’s a mighty big conclusion to which you’re jumping.

      • keddaw

        In the UK you don’t need ID when you’re driving a car. (Okay, the car needs a license plate, but that’s no different to a house having a number or a school having a name).

        If you are pulled over you have to present your details (license and insurance) at a police station within 7 days.

        If you commit an offence you have to get ID’d somehow, but not having any is NOT an offence.

        • M J Shepherd

          It is where the story and I, and by extension the cartoon, happen to be based.

          • keddaw

            I know, you’re ridiculing someone for making the right stand for completely stupid reasons, but should we not be more concerned with a school’s desire to tag and track students? (Against their, and their parents’ will ffs!)

        • jdm8

          I don’t understand how that works. Without ID, how do they know you are who you say you are?

          • keddaw

            They don’t, and they have no business knowing if you haven’t done anything wrong.

            However, giving false information is an offence and if they’re suspicious of your answers (name, address, who owns the car) then they can ask you to present ID to them, or call the owner to see if you have permission to have it, but that almost never happens if you give a real name and address and know whose car it is.

    • Greg G.

      You were going 50 mph through a school zone, you didn’t slow down at the last red light, and your invisible co-pilot has a transubstatiated blood-alcohol content that is off the chart.

  • CelticWhisper

    Forcing a child to carry a tracking device AND, atop that, forcing them to speak out publcly in support of it against their own conscience is not something to be praised or taken lightly. I do worry about that school tracking-badge case. It seems kids are being taught less and less about the value of privacy and the right to go about one’s life without being tracked, cataloged, monitored, tagged and otherwise constantly looked at by government authorities or business interests.

    The problem, to me, is that kids are going to grow up assuming that being monitored is the norm and so they will see less and less wrong with it. “Oh, it’s for your safety. Remember, kids, safety is the most important thing in the world, ever.” “For Safety” is becoming more and more like “9/11″ in how it’s being used to excuse an ever-growing list of privacy and individual-rights violations. As I said in the discussion about Sam Harris and gun control, the fact of the matter is that there are things in life that are more important than safety, and things whose sacrifice is too great a cost even for safety that can save lives. The right to privacy is one of those things.

    The excuse may differ from “safety,” (“to fight truancy,” “to protect the school’s budget,” “for legal reasons”) but I cannot think of anything that justifies conditioning people to being tagged and tracked.

    However, none of this has anything to do with religious zealotry – privacy is a cause worth fighting for on its own. Satan, nothing – these badges are a violation of human dignity. That said, I DO think this comic is hilarious, because it’s sad and maddeningly frustrating to see christians argue the right cause for such a mind-bogglingly wrong reason.

    • jdm8

      Who is being forced to speak in support of something they disagree with?

      • CelticWhisper

        Never mind – re-reading an earlier article on this topic, it looks like her father was being a bit sensationalist when he claimed that the school was demanding that he, Andrea, and his wife publicly support the RFID program. The school said “consenting to wear the RFID badge will constitute sufficient public support of the program.”

        I stand by the rest of my comment though.

    • baal

      Being tagged and tracked is a lot like being a prisoner. The person in charge will know where you are at all times. I would be annoyed (mildly put) if my wife or (creeped out) my friends put a tracking ap on my phone and then looked to see if I only went to the store or if I deviated off to somewhere else or used the info to spring something etc.