Bill McKee asked:

Why do you think it will remove the "the totally and dangerously
ignorant
from operating a boat"? Licensing has not stopped the the totally and
dangerously ignorant from operating a car.
Bill


*************

Let's begin by correcting your misquote. I never said it would "remove"
the totally and dangerously ignorant from operating a boat. The correct
word was "discourage".

The new regulation is not a license, so it's hard to find a similarity
to the driver's license argument on that basis. The regulation requires
that people either attend a USCG Aux or Power Squadron course or pass
an equivalency exam and carry a card demonstrating that they have done
so. The law sets the fee for the card at $10, and unless a boater loses
his or her card and needs to order a replacement that $10 is the total
lifetime expense.

Now lets look at your driver's license argument a little more closely.
Let's imagine that all one needed to do to operate an automobile on a
public street was to be able to afford to buy or rent one. Period.
Let's pretend that nobody had to know what yielding the right of way
meant, or how and when it was done. Let's pretend that nobody had to
know what red, yellow, or green lights meant or exactly what to do at a
stop sign. Sure some people would know, but the absence of any official
requirement mandating that same basic type of knowledge would increase-
not decrease, the number of clueless drivers.

The worst scofflaws will, of course, ignore the new regulation. Just as
the worst scofflaws ignore most regulations. The Boating Education bill
will be effective because it will motivate the vast *majority* of
people, who really want to do the right thing, to get some education
early on in their boating years.

Regulations against murder and robbery haven't eliminated killers and
thieves, just as driver's licenses haven't eliminated traffic
accidents, seat belt laws haven't eliminated vehicular deaths and
injuries, and just as boater education won't eliminate all of the
idiocy on the water. In all cases, it is the reduction that makes the
exercise worthwhile. If the performance standard for a regulation were
100% elmination of dangerous or anti-social activity, we might then
just as well take the laws against murder and robbery off the books as
these activities continue and therefore the laws must be failing.