Rob's Blog

The folks at NO2ID are trying to get 10,000 people to pledge to refuse to register for an ID card when (because, lets face it, it’s only a matter of time) they’re introduced. Good on ‘em, I say.

I’d already planned to avoid ID cards for as long as possible. At some point, no doubt, I will be forced into it, kicking and screaming. But the kicking and screaming is imortant. Like Hank Rearden at his trial in Atlas Shrugged, I want “to let the nature of this procedure appear exactly for what it is.” In other words, if people don’t kick and scream, it might appear as if they are going voluntarily to register for their ID cards; it might appear as if they have a choice. Rearden continued:

I will not help you to pretend that I have a chance. I will not help you to preserve an appearance of righteousness where rights are not recognised. I will not help you to preserve an appearance of rationality be entering into a debate in which a gun is the final argument.

Rearden is talking about being compelled to defend himself in an illegitimate trial. But this is similar to being compelled to register for an illegitimate ID card:

If you choose to deal with men by means of compulsion, do so. But you will discover that you need the voluntary co-operation of your victims, in many more ways than you can see at present. And your victims should discover that it is their own volition — which you cannot force — that makes you possible. I choose to be consistent and I will obey you in the manner you demand. Whatever you wish me to do, I will do it at the point of a gun. If you sentence me to jail, you will have to send armed men to carry me there — I will not volunteer to move. If you fine me, you will have to seize my property to collect the fine — I will not volunteer to pay it. If you believe that you have the right to force me — use your guns openly. I will not help you to disguise the nature of your action.

And if they want to force us to register for ID cards, then let them force us. If enough of us refuse, we might just see that there are limits to their power: the whole scheme would, as NO2ID say, be doomed to failure.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 16th, 2005 at 7:46 pm and is filed under Civil Liberties. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.