Reddit mentions of Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America (America: a cultural history)

> can anyone ELI5 why americans are against an ID?

Concerns over Big Government “controlling” something sacred to (most) Americans: Their personal identity.

But where do these concerns come from?

Two points:

• America's frontier history.
  
  Many Americans, for better or worse, inherited a fierce and independent spirit from forefathers who survived by bloodily usurping native lands and then scratching away at them (or having their slaves scratch away at them) in the name of Manifest Destiny.
  
  These folk tended to regard all authority with great suspicion—even if said authorities were family and lived next door. We're talking about the Virginian Cavaliers and Appalachian Borderers, populations who valued personal liberty, independence, and pride above all else.
  
  
• America's Northeastern Puritan and Quaker origins.
  
  These folks weren't exactly fans of authority either, having fled from persecution themselves. They believed everyone was equal before God and no distinctions between lords or commoners should exist. They established tight-knit, well-ordered communities that rejected foreign kings and operated according to strict religious rules.
  
  In fact, many of our cherished ideals come from the Quakers' suspicion of earthly authority: separation of church and state, freedom of speech, trial by jury, and checks and balances.
  
  With growth, compromise was inevitable. After all, these lifestyles do a piss-poor job of scaling up. An overarching government is always necessary and the past 150 years have been a record of the begrudging dance between this newly-minted federal authority and the indomitable culture that both rejected and required it.
  
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  If you're interested in learning more about these migrations and their impact on American culture I suggest reading Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fischer.