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Other countries have national ID's and dont seem to have stumbled on these problems. Nations that had massive changes to territory and population in the few dec

Other countries have national ID's and dont seem to have stumbled on these problems. Nations that had massive changes to territory and population in the few decades have functional national ID's. If nations that didn't exist 30 years ago manage to pull it off then so can the US. There are enough examples now that all major pitfalls should be well understood and their successful mitigations known. Resistance to national ID is just FUD at this point.

jeffbee 5y ago
This is America. We don't learn from examples abroad. Just look at our transportation and health care systems. Anyway I'm not saying such a system is impossible. I am saying that you'd have to order it such that the requirement for presenting the national ID was not triggered until universality was achieved. I will add that there are abundant forces in national, state, and local politics who would fight universal national ID systems, which would range from deranged Libertarians to classic racial vote suppressors who support ID requirements but who at the same time fight against actually issuing IDs.
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  > This is America. We don't learn from examples abroad. So you're saying we won't therefore we shouldn't try? Somehow the Austrians and Hungarians and various Yugoslav republics and Latvia and Poland and Switzerland and basically every country in eastern and southern europe all can keep track of the people born within their borders even as the borders shifted but the US can't tell a black american? It just sounds like a very very weak argument to me.
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    I think you're underestimating the intransigence of various American political constituencies. None of those jurisdictions you mentioned would even be the largest American state, much less as large as the whole nation. In America, because of federal powers, states representing a minority of citizens can stop the federal government from doing things that seem easy and reasonable. They can also stop other states from doing those things. So, for example, if California decided to have a universal mandatory identification program, a federal department of justice that had been installed by a minority of voters from other states could sue, in federal court, to stop it. Same goes for, God forbid, address registries, that are common and unremarkable feature of almost every European jurisdiction. We don't have them here, and we will probably never have them, at least not without a revolution or constitutional reform. If you want to know why Latvia has national ID cards and America doesn't, just imagine if there was a venue where Montenegro could sue Latvia to stop it from having them. That's the American system!
  - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    As someone born in yugoslavia, now in slovenia (I haven't moved, the country has), i can say that it's perfectly managable, and I have no idea how americans can't do it.
jdavis703 5y ago
It’s taken us nearly 20 years to even implement Real ID. I don’t think the US has the institutional knowledge to build a national ID system without a multi-decade effort.

jeffbee 5y ago

This is America. We don't learn from examples abroad. Just look at our transportation and health care systems. Anyway I'm not saying such a system is impossible. I am saying that you'd have to order it such that the requirement for presenting the national ID was not triggered until universality was achieved. I will add that there are abundant forces in national, state, and local politics who would fight universal national ID systems, which would range from deranged Libertarians to classic racial vote suppressors who support ID requirements but who at the same time fight against actually issuing IDs.

betwixthewires 5y ago
> This is America. We don't learn from examples abroad. So you're saying we won't therefore we shouldn't try? Somehow the Austrians and Hungarians and various Yugoslav republics and Latvia and Poland and Switzerland and basically every country in eastern and southern europe all can keep track of the people born within their borders even as the borders shifted but the US can't tell a black american? It just sounds like a very very weak argument to me.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  I think you're underestimating the intransigence of various American political constituencies. None of those jurisdictions you mentioned would even be the largest American state, much less as large as the whole nation. In America, because of federal powers, states representing a minority of citizens can stop the federal government from doing things that seem easy and reasonable. They can also stop other states from doing those things. So, for example, if California decided to have a universal mandatory identification program, a federal department of justice that had been installed by a minority of voters from other states could sue, in federal court, to stop it. Same goes for, God forbid, address registries, that are common and unremarkable feature of almost every European jurisdiction. We don't have them here, and we will probably never have them, at least not without a revolution or constitutional reform. If you want to know why Latvia has national ID cards and America doesn't, just imagine if there was a venue where Montenegro could sue Latvia to stop it from having them. That's the American system!
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  As someone born in yugoslavia, now in slovenia (I haven't moved, the country has), i can say that it's perfectly managable, and I have no idea how americans can't do it.

jdavis703 5y ago

It’s taken us nearly 20 years to even implement Real ID. I don’t think the US has the institutional knowledge to build a national ID system without a multi-decade effort.