At no time did I feel unduly repressed. Quite the contrary: when faced with the necessity of producing "two photo ID's" from time to time, 'twas a simple matter to whip out the AGO card and the (MI or VA or NC or TX) DL.
Furthermore, there are places and events where I want no one but citizens admitted...not even legal immigrants (polls, f'r'instance). To have to prove my citizenship before voting, and knowing that Jose and Xu and Bruce and Karl and Celeste had to do the same, would fill me with a confidence in the electoral system that I have not felt in many years. And that's just one example.
"Papers, please"... would have a welcome sound to me.
Especially the "please" part.
How am I wrong?
Historically, a society that accepts such a requirement soon goes very bad. 1930's German is a prime example.
Thing is, the laws and bureacracy end up replacing YOU with your ID. You can't do anything without your ID; conversely, anyone with your ID (suitably altered) is officially you. When "papers, please" becomes the norm, you can't work, drive, travel, buy, sell, rent, shop, communicate, etc. without ID. Every time you are required to flash your ID, your activity is recorded and subject to scrutiny. The ID itself is provided - and can be revoked - on the whim of the bureaucrats involved ... that means YOU can be revoked by a bureaucrat. Found lacking an ID on demand, governments quickly turn to throwing you in a cage until they can verify your identity and create a new ID for you - which they will not be in a hurry to do. "Guilty until proven innocent" becomes the norm.
It is all very contrary to the American way, by giving ever greater power to government and demeaning citizens in the process.
There are certainly times when an ID is appropriate. That ID should then be unique to the situation, and not required elsewhere. If you want to vote, have a Voter ID card as a matter of making that system viable - but don't require that card be used elsewhere. A SSN card is fine for participation in the Social Security pyramid scheme ... but should not be required for any other purpose.
Far too often the reason for a National ID has much more to do with advancing socialism. Calls for a National ID to fight illegal immigration is usually based on the problem of illegal immigrants getting financial handouts (or other bread-and-circuses, rob-peter-to-pay-paul unconstitutional actions) which the government should not be doing anyway.
Having to show my driver's license to rent an apartment, or give SSN to buy a pistol or open a bank account, etc. is absurd and contrary to the purpose of the ID used. Hijacking the driver's license to make a National ID is subversive. Soon you will need that National ID to do darn near anything, and lacking it will mean detainment until it is found or you are otherwise identified.
Outside of very narrow uses of specialized IDs, if my identity must be confirmed I do have a passport - but such use should only be in unusual cases where I have time to retrieve it. On the whole, an American citizen should be able to live comfortably in the USA without any ID. One's ID should be himself; only rarely should paper-type identification be consistent across multiple unrelated applications.
Pervasively requiring ID in a society destroys the individual, as one's social self becomes a piece of paper granted - and revoked - at the whim of a bureaucrat.
Laws don't make things legal, the lack of law does. Laws make things illegal.
National IDs are the result of law. They do what they do by making things illegal. Do you really want a small piece of paper, issued by a faceless bureaucrat, adding more illegality to pretty much everything? May be good for a few cases, but ... pervasively?