# Should we support the mutant registration act? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 21, 2005, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-support-the-mutant-registration-act/309249 "2005-06-21T21:37:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-support-the-mutant-registration-act/309249/1 "2005-06-21T21:37:11Z")
All ready passed in the congress, the Mutant Registration Act is now up for debate in the senate. As many of you know the country is quite polarized on the issue with many leftist groups comparing it to the forced registration of Jews in Hitler’s Germany, while many on the right claiming it is necessary for our safety. Personally, I support the registration act. This is not a simple situation of bigotry as many on the left would like you to believe. These mutants often have strengths and abilities that are frighteningly powerful. Just as we do not allow people to freely own automatic weapons, high explosives, or nuclear armaments we cannot allow people to freely walk about with powers that would rival even our best artificial weapons. What is more, many of these mutants are quite young, and not able to reliably control their own powers. There was a story in the paper the other day of a girl in New Orleans that was randomly absorbing the “life force” of those around her. The poor thing did not even know what was going on herself, but in the end thirteen people are in the hospital, four in deep comas. Luckily the girl was safely apprehended and is now in a controlled safe environment. The rise of destructive and evil mutants makes this legislation even more necessary. We must begin genetic testing and registration of all new-borns and immigrants. For our good, and their own. ---
**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-support-the-mutant-registration-act/309249/2 "2005-06-21T21:40:45Z")
Wrong forum Bastion. You and the rest of the sentinels should try cafe society. And of course we shouldn’t support the registration act. Some of those mutants are crazy hawt. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-support-the-mutant-registration-act/309249/3 "2005-06-21T21:41:26Z")
Well, being a mutant myself (I can make really annoying things happen) I naturally oppose it. I don’t want to be ‘registered’ like a sex-offender. I want to annoy with annonymoniymonininity. ---
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-support-the-mutant-registration-act/309249/4 "2005-06-21T21:45:15Z")
> [@Harborwolf](#): > > Wrong forum Bastion. You and the rest of the sentinels should try cafe society. This is a serious discussion about the future of civil rights in America! If you can’t understand that maybe you should leave. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-support-the-mutant-registration-act/309249/5 "2005-06-21T21:48:34Z")
I think we need more mutants. They are the only ones who look really sexy in Spandex (unlike us “normals”). ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-support-the-mutant-registration-act/309249/6 "2005-06-21T21:54:57Z")
Can we get a definition of the word “mutant” first, though? I hear there’s a guy out there who can change a blue object into a yellow object- not a phenomenally useful power, and by no means dangerous, but he’s still technically a mutant. Should he have to register? ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-support-the-mutant-registration-act/309249/7 "2005-06-21T21:56:41Z")
I don’t see any proof these “mutants” are any real danger. They see themselves as responsab;le remember of society, like anyone else. Even if they were, should we then start register baseline human-norms who have a genetic proposition towards muscles, and height? After all, one of them is dangerous to “normals”. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-support-the-mutant-registration-act/309249/8 "2005-06-21T22:07:24Z")
I don’t support any legislation that stops Halle Berry or Famke Janssen walking around. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-support-the-mutant-registration-act/309249/9 "2005-06-21T22:12:06Z")
**glee** , I hope those people you just named are out n’ proud, becuause otherwise, you just violated their privacy bigtime. ---
**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-support-the-mutant-registration-act/309249/10 "2005-06-21T22:13:21Z")
> [@Scott Plaid](#): > > **glee** , I hope those people you just named are out n’ proud, becuause otherwise, you just violated their privacy bigtime. If you can’t tell that they are some sort of incredibly attractive superbabe just by looking at them, you need to have your ruby quartz visor adjusted. ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-support-the-mutant-registration-act/309249/11 "2005-06-21T22:14:36Z")
Down with the mutant registration act! [/cheers, whoops, hollers] ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-support-the-mutant-registration-act/309249/12 "2005-06-21T22:17:06Z")
I am fully aware of the fact that their is a rumor going around usenet that she is a mutant, but while she might not being called a babe, you are certainly implying that she is a member of the vigilanties know as “The X-People”, and I heard she took someone to court over this. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-support-the-mutant-registration-act/309249/13 "2005-06-21T22:57:06Z")
These mutants need help, some are dangerous to others, some are dangerous to themselves, and the fact that little is known about them means that normal people are often affraid of them and likely to react badly to them. We need to help them, but to be able to help them we need to know who they are. Is it wrong that government keeps lists of people found to be HIV+ve or people who have been administered to psychiatric institutes? No, of course it isn’t wrong. These people get the expensive drugs and counciling that they need because they are known about. Simply detecting and classifying mutants is a necessary step towards helping them become the valuable members of society that they wish to be. Anyone who opposes registration is an enimy of mutants, no better than the missled thugs who attack mutants out of fear of their powers. Only through study, classification, and where necessary medication can the mutants be propperly understood and become fully assimilated into our culture. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-support-the-mutant-registration-act/309249/14 "2005-06-21T23:00:18Z")
If there’s a serious discussion to be made of this, is there a chance that infertile couples of the late 21st century will have access to powerful genetic screening tools (as a routine matter, since all embryos produced through future-IVF therapy will be casually screened before implantation) which prove so advantageous that even fertile couples will seek to use them? ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-support-the-mutant-registration-act/309249/15 "2005-06-21T23:00:35Z")
We already have laws on the books. Enforce them. We punish actions in this country, and we punish people who commit those actions. We do not, and must not, punish people for who they are. We can only punish them for what they do. ---
**Author:** ![SisterCoyote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@SisterCoyote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SisterCoyote)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-support-the-mutant-registration-act/309249/16 "2005-06-21T23:15:50Z")
I second andros. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-support-the-mutant-registration-act/309249/17 "2005-06-21T23:18:48Z")
> [@andros](#): > > We punish actions in this country, and we punish people who commit those actions. We do not, and must not, punish people for who they are. We can only punish them for what they do. No punishment is implied by simple registration. These people need help and to give them help they need to be identified. Anti mutant feeling is high amongst ordinary people, this feeling can only be removed if we educate those people about mutants and their powers and show that the most dangerous mutants are being kept in an environment where they are both safe and not able to cause harm to others. In the same way that the insane are helped whenever possible but those who are dangerously insane and uncurable are kept in safe places where they can harm neither themselves nor others. ---
**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-support-the-mutant-registration-act/309249/18 "2005-06-21T23:22:35Z")
> [@Bippy the Beardless](#): > > No punishment is implied by simple registration. These people need help and to give them help they need to be identified. Anti mutant feeling is high amongst ordinary people, this feeling can only be removed if we educate those people about mutants and their powers and show that the most dangerous mutants are being kept in an environment where they are both safe and not able to cause harm to others. In the same way that the insane are helped whenever possible but those who are dangerously insane and uncurable are kept in safe places where they can harm neither themselves nor others. Give me a break. The only reason you want their names on the lists is so you can round them up later and lock them up regardless of sanity or danger to society. You people are just as bad as the nazis. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-support-the-mutant-registration-act/309249/19 "2005-06-21T23:23:04Z")
> [@Muad'Dib](#): > > Just as we do not allow people to freely own…nuclear armaments WTF? When did this start? Do I need to register them or something? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-support-the-mutant-registration-act/309249/20 "2005-06-21T23:23:34Z")
It’s unclear to me how merely registering individuals would create a problem. This legislation furthers a rational government interest and does not impact a suspect class. I’m perfectly aware of the slippery slope argument, and I would resist any attempts to do more than register. But given the powers that some of these individuals possess, and assuming that there is a clearly definable genetic state of being a mutant – contrary to what **Scott\_Plaid** suggests, the intrusion of their liberty and privacy is tiny, and the interest in public safety is served. I support the Act. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-support-the-mutant-registration-act/309249.md?page=2)