On Oct 31, 9:28?am, John H. wrote:


I'm a believer in a national ID card, whether it helps ID boaters or not.
Of course, many who are in favor of illegal immigration are opposed to
same.

Your rationale could easily be applied to boat or vehicle registration or
birth certificates.

Europeans don't leave home without their national ID. We should be doing
the same.


There would be some practical applications. We have a strident but
influential voice in our community who keeps demanding laws that would
"put landlords in jail who rent to illegal immigrants!" As a landlord,
I can say there a couple of problems with his plan.....first there is
no exiting law that makes it a crime to rent shelter to a person based
on their immigration status and secondly there is no workable way to
sort out who is a legal resident and who is not. The illegals don't
volunteer the fact that they swam across the Rio Grande last week, and
citizens don't routinely carry any document that identifies them as
such. I know for a fact that I will find myself in deep dog doo if I
just summarily begin denying apartments to people simply because they
"look Hispanic". (There are *plenty* of existing laws that address
that!) There are illegal immigrants from Canada, Europe, etc....and
lots of legal Hispanic Americans.

Overall, I'm opposed to to asking people to carry general ID cards.
First you need to carry one, then you need to show it along with your
registration card to vote, then merchants begin demanding it for major
transactions, then pretty soon you need to show it to get on a bus,
cross a state border, buy an aspirin, etc.........

And odd aspect of the discussion, IMO, centers on the fact that so
many people who seem willing to form a militia and rise up against the
FEDGOV before consenting to federal registry of their firearms
apparently have very little difficulty with registering their persons.
You may not be one of those people, JohnH- but I have met a fair
number.

While a federal boater ID card doesn't seem that aggregious, it can be
a first step toward oppressive federal regulation.

"Going fishing this weekend, John?"

"Naw, dammit. Some government flunky lost my application for a 3-day
navigation permit. *******s cashed my check for the $50 processing
fee, however. Looks like I'll be back on the water for a weekend in
another 45 days, assuming they don't lose the paperwork again."

Wherever that is, I don't want to live there. :-)