On 8-2-2010 18:55, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> The Netherlands is no less complicated, yet we have been able to do it 
>> for about 200 years. Basically since Napoleon.
> 
> Actually, I think the difference is two-fold:
> 
> 1) People actually get a benefit out of reporting to a central authority 
> immediately when they move. Here, the government only knows where you 
> live after you've moved, when you file taxes or register your car or 
> whatever.
> 
> 2) And this is the big one: That info is made available to everyone 
> else. I tell lots of people inside and not inside the government where I 
> live. There's just no central repository that's authoritative and that 
> is generally available to the public, such that others could use that 
> information for purposes other than why it was collected.
> 
> That latter point is more my statement. It's not that we have lots of 
> jurisdictions. It's that we have lots of competing governments. The 
> federal government often has to threaten the state governments to pass 
> laws the federal government isn't allowed to pass. And there's 
> constantly battles, threats by the states to overthrow the federal 
> government, relatively little cooperation between distant states, etc. 
> For example, most states have agreements with their neighbors that if I 
> get a traffic ticket in (say) New York, Pennsylvania will be informed. 
> But if I get a traffic ticket in New York, chances are good California 
> will never hear about it.  So it's not just that "the government" 
> doesn't know where I am, but that there's no part of the government 
> specifically assigned the duty of tracking where I am. And there's 
> nothing in the constitution (quite to the contrary, actually) that says 
> the federal government is allowed to provide that service, and doing it 
> on a state level would only work for the states.

Indeed mind boggling but very American.

Post a reply to this message