"Your analogy of government run entities, such as roads and elections, with privately run entities, such as banks, is a false one. The government owns the roads and the voting booths and thus may set standards for those items it owns. Banks and credit unions are private enterprises that are not owned by government. It is beyond the proper jurisdiction of government to force bankers to demand identification from customers before they can do business with said bank. The same could be said for other laws that interfere with the use and enjoyment of private property where such use and employment. Such laws are contrary to the teaching of Scripture in these matters."
You missed the point. Sure banks can decide whether to require ID. Why do they? Because they need to be sure you are who you say you are. Similarly, the police need to be sure who someone is when they are pulled over for a traffic violation.
If it is the job of government to punish theft, then that gives them the responsibility to protect property. Our nation is wealthy, in part, because of the respect for property ownership that is encoded into our laws (even if there has been an erosion). It is necessary in determining proper title to a property to have some way to ascertain the claimant is who they claim to be. This is what ID is.
Like I said, you missed the point. You stated that government owns voting booths and can regulate those. Yet you argue that a national ID violates the teachings of the Bible (if I understand what you are saying).
In answer to your question, no I do not consider anything Christ did "hysterical, overreaching, and misrepresenting Scripture". You said "No doubt his actions were in defiance of the civil statutes of His day." Actually, He cast out the money changers for fraudulently charging to exchange Roman money for Jewish currency at a profit AND setting up shop in the courtyard of the temple.
This area of the temple was the only place available for gentiles to worship and pray, as they were not allowed beyond it. So Gentiles who were seeking God would come to the courtyard of the temple to pray. The moneychangers had literally turned this area into a stinking zoo. What Christ did was to defend the honor of the temple and God's reputation - He is the God of all people. And so it says, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people, but you have made it a den of thieves."
To extrapolate this and other scriptures as a command not to have a national ID system, is to twist scripture to your own preferences.
Perhaps you are concerned that an ID will become required to buy and sell (like the mark of the beast). That is a reasonable concern for Christians and non-Christians alike. I would agree that this would be dangerous.
But I support standardizing state ID and drivers' licenses, and requiring positive identification when voting. I think having and presenting ID should be optional. For those who do not want an ID, or have lost their ID, on the spot fingerprinting could be used as positive identification without disenfranchising anyone. This would help stop voter fraud without encroaching on our liberties.
My concerns in this matter have nothing to do with eschatology. It is possible that a national ID card would lead to an implanted chip, which may in turn be "the mark of the beast." However, that is only speculation, not necessarily supported by Scripture. The issue rises above the positions of amillenialists, premillenialists (both dispensational and historic), and postmillenialists (both theonomist and historic) relative to end times events. Further, it should concern all citizens, Christian or not.
My concern relates to the proper role of government in human society. Would you argue that all governments are legitimate, irrespective of the degree to which they impinge on human liberty? How about Communist regimes like those of Mao, Stalin, and Pol Pot? Or Nazi Germany? Or nations under Islamic sharia law? Or various past tyrants like Ivan the Terrible, Genghis Khan, or Nero? If the moral law taught in the Bible is correct, these regimes were wildly immoral. The massive crimes of these governments are essentially those of murder and theft, performed on a grand scale.
The "Western democracies" have committed crimes against persons and property on a scale far less than those tyrannies. Nonetheless, the excessive tax rates, intrusion into areas to be left to the individual, the family, and the church, and interference in business and social affairs represent theft. A property owner who loses the best and highest use of his land because of an environmental regulation is the victim of theft as much as a person mugged by a criminal. A businessman who is compelled to hire less qualified people in order to comply with civil rights laws is the victim of coercion as much as is the store owner compelled by the Mafia to pay protection. The working man who is forced to pay a large portion of his wages in income, sales, and property taxes, much of which goes to line the pockets of government favored contractors, poor people (deserving or not), and an army of bureaucrats is as much abused as were the slaves and indentured servants of yore. A central banker who debases the currency through monetary inflation is a far more effective thief than the white collar criminal. Martha Stewart, Dennis Koslowski, Michael Milken, et. al, depreciated the stock value of a small group of individuals; inflation robs from all by devaluing the currency.
Simply put, governments (and I am talking about all levels of government: Federal, state, and local) cannot do what is forbidden to individuals. Government officials cannot baptize theft and coercion that would be forbidden to them acting as individuals if they act in the name of "the proletariat," "the Aryan Race," "the will of Allah," or "the people".
Going back to the issue of banks, if the management of a bank chooses to ask for a photo ID before a customer performs a transaction, that is the business of that bank. However, current statutes mandate that all banks require such identification irrespective of the decision of the bank management. Such compulsion is an unwarranted interference with the rights of property and self-governance of the bank and thus does constitute a form of theft, forbidden by the Eighth Commandment.
The issue of voter identification being equivalent to a national ID is incorrect. Local governments have conducted elections for several centuries. If not by personal recognizance, then other means, usually a voter registration card, has been used.
You may say that I am baptizing the political philosophy of John Locke and Thomas Jefferson. I recognize that these men were human and had erroneous thoughts in several areas of life. However, the limited government philosophy best comports with Biblical morality and its prohibition of theft and emphasis on a division of authority among various institutions in society.