On 8-2-2010 5:49, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> Indeed, although this might sound that it is a recent invention.
> 
> Not really. Wasn't Jesus supposedly traveling for the roman census? 
> There's a reason it's a latin word. :-)

Funny, I was referring to the idea that it is useful to register your 
children not the census.

>> Even a one century or more ago it was useful to register your 
>> children. It is easy to see that if you track children born and their 
>> parents for a few generations (and register all immigrants) you know 
>> every legal person in the country.
> 
> Yes. It's just not centralized. If you're born in Philadelphia, 
> Pennsylvania, people might have to actually travel to Philadelphia to 
> prove it. Just follow any of the Obama birth certificate nonsense.
> 
>> I have often wondered why the US do not track all citizens. E.g. why 
>> does one city not notify the city someone has come from when they go 
>> to live in that new city?
> 
> Because we have many levels of government. City, county, state, federal. 
> How would you recommend you get every city and town in the country doing 
> this? And yes, maybe now that everything is on computers, it might be 
> easier, but roll back 50 years when stuff was done on paper, and you can 
> see where the records today wouldn't be anywhere near accurate.

The Netherlands is no less complicated, yet we have been able to do it 
for about 200 years. Basically since Napoleon.

>> It would also be handy to get useful information like if someone was 
>> convicted for a serious crime and has therefore no right to vote. 
> 
> We have that information. It's just not given to the people who make up 
> jury lists, for example.
> 
> Plus, I just don't see where it's valuable for me, personally, to have 
> the government track where I live. The people in the government that 
> need to know about different parts of my life already get to know that: 
> the governments where I have to pay taxes know how much money I make, 
> the governments that run the schools know how many kids I have, the 
> governments where I own property know who owns the property, etc. What 
> benefit is it to me to have Texas know how much my house in San Diego 
> costs, or how many children I have and how old they are?

A very American remark. ;)

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