You say you "don't understand Americans" but your comments suggest that your goal isn't to understand Americans. Instead you seem aimed to convince them you are

You say you "don't understand Americans" but your comments suggest that your goal isn't to understand Americans. Instead you seem aimed to convince them you are right. As an American who has lived all over the country, i'd say every American subculture has a strange relationship with our government. The prospect of nationalizing, much less requiring, anything causes some cohort of the public to complain of government overreach or the trampling of liberties or that they didn't go far enough. There is an argument to be made for whether or not a national id constitutes any real harm, and i'm sure our hesitation seems foolish to people in other nations. For me, i consider it to be a healthy, if inefficient, debate. Our government moves very slowly with this stuff. Depending on your personal beliefs, you can thank/blame the general public for that.