The Brits Don't Get It (Either)

There's a few years-old joke that explains the British political parties to an American by saying that Labour is equivalent to our Democratic Party, and Tory is equivalent to our Democratic Party. (I'd add that Conservative is equivalent to our southern Democrats.)

Here's some evidence in support of the lack of intellectual diversity, if not necessarily the analogy. It lays out the Tory objections to universal fingerprinting of children and national ID cards, fairly summed up by calling it "a 'Big Brother' scheme that is too expensive, poorly planned and unlikely to function efficiently." This, of course, wholly misses the point -- i.e. that national ID cards will make us less secure, increase the damage from identity thefts, and decrease the likelihood of detecting terrorists, illegal immigrants and whatever other bugaboo is waved as the reason we need to sacrifice civil liberties in this Time Of War™.