6 ms·

Why are Americans so against a national registry? What are the actual arguments against it? Pretty every other developed country has one.

by chirau 2y ago

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Why are Americans so against a national registry? Literally this article. (Not saying it's consistent with our various national registries. But it's not some dumbshit concern.) > every other developed country has one American culture is uniquely individualistic. Our First Amendment, for instance, remains unique despite having hundreds of years of precedence.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
makeitdouble 2y ago
The core part of it: the US has much more vocal extremes in all directions, and they want to carve out niches where they can apply their own rules. That's where you see states that ban abortion and force religious views into education for instance, to take one extreme, and they sure don't want a ruling entity to tell them they can't do so. Same applies to any subject, including identifying people (I'm pretty sure there's a sizeable number of people who don't want any official ID at all, even limited to their town, under no circumstance) Basically, where some countries/federations will strive for unity and common values, the US keeps an idea of letting extremes run around in their own pockets of land and sometimes sit in the country's driver seat.
- bigstrat2003 2y ago
  > Basically, where some countries/federations will strive for unity and common values, the US keeps an idea of letting extremes run around in their own pockets of land and sometimes sit in the country's driver seat. That's close but not quite right. The idea is that by solving matters as locally as possible, it lets people with strongly held opinions on the government coexist more easily. One person thinks abortion is a fundamental right everyone should have, another thinks it's tantamount to murder and a moral abomination. Neither is budging, so instead of having half the country at each others' throats as they try to force their views on everyone, it can be better to let them solve these issues locally. Then we have a better chance at getting along as a whole, because we can each find a community where our values are upheld and "live and let live". That's the idea, at any rate. There are various flaws we see in practice, and perhaps the idea is untenable in this day and age. But it's fundamentally an attempt to gain unity where otherwise there would only be division. And of course it's also tied to a strong cultural mistrust of government (especially centralized government), as I mentioned in my other post.
  - yencabulator 2y ago
    > let them solve these issues locally Florida is 22.6M people. That's not very "local" if you ask me.
Larrikin 2y ago
The government will know about your assault gun purchases and possibly hamper your ability to overthrow the government is the main argument. It's usually packaged as State's rights to also make it seem like the civil war was justified among other things.
- bigstrat2003 2y ago
  > It's usually packaged as State's rights to also make it seem like the civil war was justified among other things. States' rights are a concept that people value for its own sake, and are not automatically an attempt "to make it seem like the civil war was justified".
bigstrat2003 2y ago
> Why are Americans so against a national registry? What are the actual arguments against it? For better or for worse, Americans have a strong distrust of government in our civic DNA - the more centralized, the more distrust. The very design of our country's government is intended to distribute power as much as feasible, while doing only the bare minimum of activities at a national level. This design has been eroded over time (the 20th century in particular did a huge number on it), but many Americans still hold that vision dear. Thus, any proposal of "let's do a centralized X" is automatically controversial in the US in a way which it simply would never be in many other countries. > Pretty every other developed country has one. This sort of argument is not a good reason for anyone to do anything, but it's especially not a good reason for countries to base their national policies on.
- bigbacaloa 2y ago
  [dead]

Why are Americans so against a national registry? What are the actual arguments against it? Pretty every other developed country has one.

by chirau 2y ago

Why are Americans so against a national registry? What are the actual arguments against it? Pretty every other developed country has one.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> Why are Americans so against a national registry? Literally this article. (Not saying it's consistent with our various national registries. But it's not some dumbshit concern.) > every other developed country has one American culture is uniquely individualistic. Our First Amendment, for instance, remains unique despite having hundreds of years of precedence.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

makeitdouble 2y ago

The core part of it: the US has much more vocal extremes in all directions, and they want to carve out niches where they can apply their own rules. That's where you see states that ban abortion and force religious views into education for instance, to take one extreme, and they sure don't want a ruling entity to tell them they can't do so. Same applies to any subject, including identifying people (I'm pretty sure there's a sizeable number of people who don't want any official ID at all, even limited to their town, under no circumstance) Basically, where some countries/federations will strive for unity and common values, the US keeps an idea of letting extremes run around in their own pockets of land and sometimes sit in the country's driver seat.

bigstrat2003 2y ago
> Basically, where some countries/federations will strive for unity and common values, the US keeps an idea of letting extremes run around in their own pockets of land and sometimes sit in the country's driver seat. That's close but not quite right. The idea is that by solving matters as locally as possible, it lets people with strongly held opinions on the government coexist more easily. One person thinks abortion is a fundamental right everyone should have, another thinks it's tantamount to murder and a moral abomination. Neither is budging, so instead of having half the country at each others' throats as they try to force their views on everyone, it can be better to let them solve these issues locally. Then we have a better chance at getting along as a whole, because we can each find a community where our values are upheld and "live and let live". That's the idea, at any rate. There are various flaws we see in practice, and perhaps the idea is untenable in this day and age. But it's fundamentally an attempt to gain unity where otherwise there would only be division. And of course it's also tied to a strong cultural mistrust of government (especially centralized government), as I mentioned in my other post.
- yencabulator 2y ago
  > let them solve these issues locally Florida is 22.6M people. That's not very "local" if you ask me.

Larrikin 2y ago

The government will know about your assault gun purchases and possibly hamper your ability to overthrow the government is the main argument. It's usually packaged as State's rights to also make it seem like the civil war was justified among other things.

bigstrat2003 2y ago
> It's usually packaged as State's rights to also make it seem like the civil war was justified among other things. States' rights are a concept that people value for its own sake, and are not automatically an attempt "to make it seem like the civil war was justified".

bigstrat2003 2y ago

> Why are Americans so against a national registry? What are the actual arguments against it? For better or for worse, Americans have a strong distrust of government in our civic DNA - the more centralized, the more distrust. The very design of our country's government is intended to distribute power as much as feasible, while doing only the bare minimum of activities at a national level. This design has been eroded over time (the 20th century in particular did a huge number on it), but many Americans still hold that vision dear. Thus, any proposal of "let's do a centralized X" is automatically controversial in the US in a way which it simply would never be in many other countries. > Pretty every other developed country has one. This sort of argument is not a good reason for anyone to do anything, but it's especially not a good reason for countries to base their national policies on.

bigbacaloa 2y ago
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