…I guess that’s encouraging in a faint-praise sort of way.
Seven-year-old Loki Skywalker Mowbray, pictured above, was recently denied a passport to accompany his parents on a family vacation to the Dominican Republic because the British Home Office, which is in charge of the nation’s immigration, security, and law and order, claimed it couldn’t print “Skywalker” on the document because of Disney’s copyright on the name. Some idiot told the shocked parents they either had to change the child’s name or get permission from Disney to use “Skywalker”—and we all know how reasonable Disney is about such things.
After an initial scare, non-morons in the Home Office prevailed eventually. The vacation wasn’t wrecked, and the child got to keep his name (Now watch Disney try to sue the parents.)
A more justified instance of government over-reach would have been questioning the fitness and judgment of parents who name their child after a Marvel villain (even in Norse Mythology Loki is a bad guy) and who feel compelled to saddle a kid with “Skywalker” because he happened to be born on May the 4th, as in “May the forthe be with you,” which is how Obi Wan said it after his front teeth fell out.
At least they didn’t name him “Chewbacca” or “Darth.”
Final tangential thought: Not too long ago Ethics Alarms used to have an entertainingly didactic British commenter whom I could count on to “pounce” on posts like this. I miss him…
Ethics Alarms 
England is, after all, the home of The Department of Funny Walks.
I bet the guy who came up with the copyright violation idea is an addled and marginally employed law school graduate who has taken and failed the bar exam more than once. He spends all his waking hours “spotting the issues.”
Oh, I don’t know. I once had a government employee argue emphatically that social security numbers do not begin with zero. I informed her that those of us who had our number assigned by the state of Massachusetts (this was prior to 2011) would beg to differ. She really fought me on it, too.
Yes, that would be my SS# as well.
And the lovely Mrs. OB as well. 011 et cetera… 1952.
Kinda like zip codes.
PWS
Until 2011, yes. (I Googled it.) SS #s assigned after June-something 2011 are no longer geographically specific; in an attempt to protect the integrity of the number. Who knew?
How does that protect the integrity of the number? I would think geographical numbering helps because a birthplace then has to be consistent with the number.
Except that I was not born in MA but happened to live there when the number was assigned. I’m old enough that I when I was born ss#s were not automatically applied for at birth. In fact, I was in my early teens, had landed a job bussing tables in a restaurant and therefore needed a social. I’m not sure what my parents did on their tax returns. I’ll have to ask them.
That is odd. Mine was issued for my birth city, but I lived in a different state when I got the number. Maybe they stopped doing it because they were incapable of being consistent? It still doesn’t help the integrity, though.
I do not think they required the SSN for your taxes always.
I believe (without actual evidence) that Social Security offices were issued sheets of Social Security cards to hand out to people getting SS numbers.
Perhaps not actual sheets, but something similar, and thus an office might have Social Security cards with numbers ranging from xxx-xx-x000 to xxx-xx-x499, or something like that.
Also keep in mind that you used to get an actual card when you got your SS number.
Bureaucracies being bureaucratic, thus they would print cards for Massachusetts from 011-00-0000 to 011-99-9999 and distribute them to all the offices in Massachusetts.
I don’t know the actual numbers but Social security numbers starting with ‘0’ used to come from New England.
One bit of evidence for this that I can cite: My sister and I went down together to get our Social Security cards when I was perhaps 14 or 15. We went in together and they assigned us consecutive Social Security numbers. Honest!
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As far as what your parents put on their tax returns, they did not have to provide SS numbers for dependents — all the form asked for was name and relationship, possibly age.
Not until around the 80s or so did we have to have Social Security numbers for dependents — not coincidentally that would have been about the time newborns started getting SS numbers.
I believe the change was a result of the Earned Income Credit. Without an SSN it was too easy to invent children to get that tax credit.
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A fun fact about IRS audits (or would ‘fun fact’ be a contradiction in terms). When they came to your home for an audit, one thing revenue agents looked for was signs that kids lived in the house. Any of you who are parents know that raising kids results in telltale debris lying around the house.
So if a taxpayer claimed 4 kids, but somehow had an immaculate house with no signs of juvenile infestation, it would be a red flag for the revenue agent. “Can you show me your son’s birth certificate?”
Yes, people really did do that sort of thing.
Like auto dealerships being issued a stack of license plates. I remember the salesman pulling out a plate for the car I had just purchased. The letters spelled out something stupid so I said “Ew. Can I have something else?” – and so he pulled out something equally as bad because they were sequential.
This being the UK, I’m surprised they didn’t charge the parents with some sort of child abuse crime; they’ve been stomping on free expression for some time now. Remember the guy who was charged and fined for teaching a dog a stupid trick:
For some reason, link didn’t take: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/23/man-who-filmed-dog-giving-nazi-salutes-fined
Well, at least they didn’t require that the child die.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/25/health/alfie-evans-appeal-bn/index.html
The worst part of the above case is that the hospital would’t allow the parents in the hospital unless they agreed to bow to the state’s wishes. Unless they dropped their challenges, they would not allowed to be present when their son died.
Here in New Zealand, some ridiculous idiot complained about a car number plate that read ‘KAREN’ saying that it was offensive. So Karen who had had her number plate for nearly fifteen years had to try to explain to the department why she be able to keep her number plate otherwise she would have to change it. How come no-one at the Transport Department could reject the complaint immediately? And how come it just needs one idiot to complain about anything and label it offensive in order to make something illegal? Surely for something to be deemed offensive there should a large majority of people who find it offensive otherwise it is not legally offensive.
The ironic part is that the person who complained about the tag has, by doing so, essentially declared her/himself a “Karen”.