I don't drink much beer, but a few days ago I had a hankering for some. At the counter the clerk asked for my ID. It is impossible for someone to believe I am less than 21. Still, I showed it to her. Then she began to type it into her register. This is the conversation that followed:
"Are you typing the information from my driver's license into your computer?"
"Just your birthdate. It's company policy. If I always typed my own into it they'd catch me."
She understood the stupidity of the whole thing, and would have just as soon used her birthdate. However, I will never shop there again for anything.
I am reminded from something by C.S. Lewis: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."