Yesterday, according to CNN, the Supreme Court decided that you may not withhold your name from the police.
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, in the age of terrorism, there is a genuine need to keep track of people. We simply cannot rely on the innate goodness of people, mainly because the evidence increasingly shows that such goodness doesn’t exist to the degree that we thought it did. (Basic Christianity has been teaching this for centuries.)
On the other hand, I distrust the government’s ability to keep track of anyone. While at the present time, I strongly believe that the government’s motives are good; I don’t hold much hope that these good motives will continue indefinitely. History shows that when those in power have such methods at their disposal, sooner or later somebody’s going to take advantage of the situation.
What’s the solution? I have some ideas, which I will put into my next post.