_Most_ first-world countries already implement this, mostly without disastrous effects.
The strongest argument against this is probably that the US has unusually bad institutions - a more powerful argument in light of PRISM, etc. But it's not the case that a National ID card is indicative of instant tyranny.
Many first world countries are absent from that list, as well as all developed Common Law countries (e.g. UK, Australia, Canada, etc). I don't think US should be on that list either. While a National ID is indeed not an instant tyranny, it may well be a step in that direction.
One document conceeds "Surely this [laws mandating checks of people's ID cards] will be opposed by employers on the basis that it is not their duty to control entry into Australia" http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/NAAMedia/ShowImage.asp?B=3142...
The project was eventually scrapped due to privacy concerns and swung so far that there are now laws preventing certain government agencies (Taxation/Immigration/Welfare/Health Insurance etc.) from doing JOIN on each others databases unless it's overseen by a third party http://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-act/government-data-m... http://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-act/medicare-and-phar...
To make it worse, common documents like European driving license are sometimes rejected because they don't have labels in local language (that's why field numbers always match up!!!). So that's it, I really don't get why people don't want a common id for their own benefit. Tyranny can be there with or without ids.