Can’t add to it. You’ve said it all, eloquently. And I second John’s ‘thank you.’
~ joanie 
Posted on 11/20/2003 6:30:23 AM PST by William McKinley
Remember the story of the boy who cried wolf?
In the last two years, there have been several of these false alarms per day. It's not hard to imagine what the Secret Service are saying under their breath every time one of these calls comes in.
You know, it's inevitable that an innocent family in a private aircraft is going to be downed sooner or later for straying too close to the White House. I wonder how many of the folks on this thread will applaud.
Most likely if that's the case there's no alert in the first place. But I don't care if they know it's a Cessna or not. They'd be negligent to not take precautions.
You know, it's inevitable that an innocent family in a private aircraft is going to be downed sooner or later for straying too close to the White House.
Unfortunately you may be right. And while tragic, it will be the pilot's fault for violating restricted air space. Even "Free Flight" proponents know about restrictions.
When presented with the possiblity of pirates roaming about the land doing no good, he is likely to stand up against them as it is his, and our, duty, both civic and if necessary by muster, to come to somebody else's aid.
Of all the people who have ever graced this forum, snopercod is, plain and simple, a man who is selflessly determined to stand by what is the right thing to do.
In the case of a plane hitting your house, it would not be merely, as you say, a [your] family tragedy, because it would also be tragic for him and the rest of us who have sworn to mutually defend and protect our homes and lives, enduring, and bearing the spirit of 1776.
To which I should add, that the odds that your house will be struck, and your family will suffer tragedy at the hands of the present day pirates, is much closer to the odds of of the White House being struck.
In addition, the effects on the nation would be stunning when families are confronted with how the terrorists wish to make the struggle personal; they want to frighten the people, while the government employees, they could care less about, because they are all one and the same mindless enemy to these terrorists.
Instead, it's your house in particular that they want, and your kids' school, and your house or synagogue or "puppet"-mosque that is the target.
You and me, we're the target.
Snopercod is wise enough to know this, and he resents somewhat, the self-ful-ness of government officials who are looking out for themselves, under several guises that are powergrabs from extra-Constitutional space --- none of which are required.
We have confronted pirates before.
We have had established far better security around government facilities, before --- especially during World War II.
The problem some of us have, with the officialdom, is that they have not bothered to look it up, to learn from that past experience, for which no Department of Homeland Security was created nor needed.
The War Department powers set forth in the Constitution, included all the necessary authority to conduct a sound national defense within the borders of the country, but time has helped all to many people to think that the Department of Defense exists only to wage war at the border or beyond.
We have a tradition that we should eschew the establishment of a raised army patrolling within our borders for our defense, but it is exactly that tradition and its basis, with which we have the blessing to shut down such operations when we believe the times of terror and trouble have quieted down.
Such a shut down is not going to be easy under a body of caselaw, Constitutional or not, with which government bureaucrats seek to know the acitivities of, as you believe, free citizens that we must be ... because after all, you are free, so what is the threat?
Indeed. We are all as free as you.
No, we are not, but a body would have to be daring enough to read through the criminal intent passage-ry of the modern legislation that spews forth from the Congress, to see in the ever-increasingly regulatory environment, what once was not a crime, is not being laid out to be ensnared as one.
Don't take my word for it.
Just, please, keep reading the headlines for further evidence of how the Patriot Act is not what the people --- who think that they are free --- thought that they had agree to.
I wish you well and pray for your safety and that of your family and community. I think that if we become much more vigilant, that if the "bad guys" realize that our communities and neighbors are against them and determined to fight them, we will realize as good a defense as can be managed.
Our kids in uniform are doing their work, and we must do ours, if only the regulatory officialdom would not make our contributions to be something about which the public should fear.
When we need volunteers to train as reservists for when they may be needed, we are instead being led to believe that only government can solve this one; "plans" are in place.
Yes, they are. I checked. I went looking. I asked a lot of questions. I still am.
There's been a lot of planning by officialdom.
They expect to reach for the planning book when disaster strikes, and then go from there, contrary to what we know about surprise attacks, that they require a defense in breadth and depth that has been proven to be outside the view of government bureaucrats, time and again.
This problem has become so much worse, because officialdom is saturated with job requirements first owing their due to meeting the demands of societal engineerrs and political correctness, to which President Bush should have long ago, in this wartime, put a stop, because such practices are wasteful of time, money, and morale. People at responsible posts are still more worried about losing their jobs because they do or don't like "gay people," than they are worried about losing their jobs because they missed something on the RADAR.
Yet the paradox is that they are very much worried about missing something on the RADAR, because they have been led to fearfulness for their jobs for all the wrong reasons.
Washington, D.C., being the nation's capital, is most beset by this insecurity; and, the result is that people are making mistakes or omissions in ever more nervous ways. Much is expected of them from beyond the Beltway, but not much leadership that stands up for them and guides them to do the right thing, is provided for them inside the Beltway.
The amount of non-sense in the Bush [still running 42% of the Clnton] Administration --- especially in the defense system --- is causing more people to talk openly of going AWOL; and I am talking about people who are NOT in uniform.
We need to focus on our enemies and gathering up our arsenal of democracy against them. It is not a time to be wasting our resources on socialist paliative programming or fattening federal fiefdoms.
Yet the Patriot Act is being used to do just that.
Our allies watch as we lecture them about security and their responsibilities ... and our back doors remain wide open. That has been enough to make them halt their advance toward fighting alongside and instead enter a pattern of observing much caution about "those Americans" who obviously are not focused upon the problem of terrorism.
For surely in a world where we must go far, and quickly, and with tons of logistics, the Americans would be building aircraft at a mad pace.
Why aren't they, then?
Why isn't America, the industrial powerhouse, equipping itself to fight terrorism?
Because the Americans are being sold on the idea that they have no choice but to submit to whatever is the plan of the government for them, us, you, me, and snopercod ... who is wary of such subjigation.
I'm with him.
is now being laid out to be ensnared as one
If you're adroit, or have a co-pilot, you can pop over to the tower freq. and check in. But you know, at that point in a flight, you are really busy flying the aircraft and looking for traffic.
Been there, done that, got the sweat soaked t-shirt. It gets even more problematic when you've only got one comm. radio like I do. I Sure would like to get a second radio, but habitual cross-country flying keeps sucking my bank account dry.
We've seen attacks focused in the past couple days on British targets.
I heard a radio report last night that a British Arab 'in the know', some kind imam I believe, was yesterday advising Muslims to avoid the London protests because something big was scheduled to explode.
Could this have been done as a little insurance, just in case, to 'remind' the Brits that we are in the crosshairs as well?
A successful attack in downtown London during Bush's visit might be one of the few ways to drive a wedge between the UK and US. The AQ-supporting int'l press would just love to lay that one on Bush's lap, and you know they would, probably with some limited success.
You have two distinct kinds of aircraft: Big ones weighing 100,000 lbs., carrying 40,000 lbs. of fuel, and lots of victimspassengers. This kind has proven it can be used by terroists to destroy buildings and kill thousands of people.
Then you have little airplanes which weigh less than a volkswagen beetle, carry a family of four and have less than 60 gal. of fuel on board. Occasionally - very occasionally - some whacko tries to make a statement by stealing on of these and flying it into a building. Because they are so light and carry so little fuel, they always splat like a bug on a windshield. No fire, nobody killed (except the moron pilot).
But the government still allows the dangerous kind to fly anywhere without restriction, but has banned the non-dangerous kind from our nation's capital, many metropolitan areas, Disney World [add that one to the "things that make you go hmmmmmm" category], and an ever-increasing number of permanent and temporary areas around the US.
Thousands of aviation-related businesses have been destroyed over this absurd, misguided, knee-jerk bureaucratic jobs program: Banner-carriers, flight schools, sightseeing tours, fly-in resorts, aircraft manufacturers, etc.
The government has done nothing to ban pleasure boats, automobiles, and large trucks, all of which have been used by terrorists to carry explosives right into the heart of populous places.
But many folks around here seem willing to tolerate this selective injustice and cozy up to state tyranny in the name of safety, because it doesn't happen to affect them directly - they are not pilots.
Apparently, they have the Rev. Neimoller attitude: "I wasn't a jew, so I remained silent..."
Can’t add to it. You’ve said it all, eloquently. And I second John’s ‘thank you.’
~ joanie
I was talking to a friend of mine who is a pilot for Continental Airlines a while back -- shortly after one of the less recent White House/private plane incidents -- and he said exactly what you have said on this thread. He does not pilot a private plane (only the 100,000 lb/40,000 lbs of fuel type you referenced :), but he is still incredulous about the fact that your flying rights have been so severely restricted, while what he pilots can fly virtually anywhere.
And what's also sad is that you private pilots are so small a portion of the population that the rest of us invariably look the other way while your rights are being violated. It's the 'do what you want to my neighbor, but just don't gore my particular ox' syndrome. As your reference to Reverend Neimoller suggests, most of us won't become outraged until the government thugs are knocking on our particular door (maybe wanting to regulate the intensity of the sound produced by pianos so as to curb noise pollution, for instance. :) Far fetched? Yes. But I know many infuriated smokers who wouldn't think so.
And then there's the other side of the coin from the snopercod philosophy. The people who are actively seeking government overkill:
There is a Pepperidge Farm bakery plant about two miles from our home. It was built about ten years ago, and has been a 'model citizen' in our community. The plant itself is aesthetically pleasing, situated on about a hundred acres of beautifully landscaped ground, and contributes significantly to our tax base (thus reducing private property taxes). Pepperidge is also very community minded, donating money and products to countless area community projects and events. The only objection I have to the plant is that it sits on what used to be a hundred acres of prime farmland. But that's been ten years' water under the bridge, so my anger has subsided.
I run generally sometime between 11 PM and 1 AM every night, and the circuit I run takes me within about a hundred yards of the plant. Almost always, as I near that area, I am greeted by the scent -- slight, and not at all overpowering -- of fresh-baked bread or cookies. It's a wonderful smell! The smell of fresh baking generally lasts for three or four hours in the wee hours of each morning.
A few months ago, a very small group of local residents who live about a half mile from the plant attended one of our supervisors meetings to request that the supervisors pass an ordinance requiring the plant to install equipment in order to do away with the baking odor. These people have moved into our rural area from the Philadelphia and Harrisburg area, and they moved into beautiful, relatively new homes (built within the past two years), knowing full well that they were within eye- and nose-shot of the pre-existing plant.
The 'Get a life!' suggestion comes to mind whenever I think about these (what I like to call) urban upstarts.
I have heard recently through the grapevine that these same people intend to come to another meeting sometime after the holidays, since the supervisors have taken no action on their request. I certainly plan to attend that meeting -- with others I know who are equally appalled -- and present the other side of the residents' story.
I am sure that, if anyone attempted to infringe upon a harmless activity that these self-righteous complainers took part in, they would be up in arms – especially if it were something they had been doing for a decade, and a new kid on the block decided to be offended by it.
Anyway, these people represent the antithesis of snopercod philosophy. And I suspect that, were you to tell them what you included on this thread, they would simply smile plastically and wish you luck. They’d no doubt applaud the Patriot Act, too, if they bothered to learn what it entails.
Thanks for the education on something I knew virtually nothing about (and should have). If you ever need a petition signed, or anything else done long-distance to support an anti-regulation movement, just whistle my way.
It's running time. (I hope they're baking Milano cookies tonight. I need a Milano fix .... :)
~ joanie
Incredibly, modern bakeries are considered major "polluters", and must install expensive equipment to remove the VOCs.
If my memory serves, Carry_Okie is an expert on this. You and your friends should go armed (intellectually speaking) to this meeting. These neighbors may well have some enviro group behind them.
I'm not opposed to protecting our country against terroism. I'm even willing to (temporarily) suspend some of my rights if that became necessary. But only for a darned good reason that really makes sense.
If protecting the leaders of our government is the goal (a separate goal from protecting the country), then wouldn't it be a good idea to identify the likely threats to our leaders before designing a response to those threats?
Then maybe prioritizing those threats, since unlimited funds aren't available to counter all of them?
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that any student pilot could easily crash a small aircraft into the White House regardless of what security measures are put into place. Either come in under the radar or drop down out of the top of the ADIZ. But what damage could it do?
The media would go nuts if that happened of course, but other than that...? We have seen small aircraft crash into buildings in the past, and have a pretty good idea of the almost insignificant damage they can do.
Frankly, when one recalls that during the Blitz, the people of England kept on about their daily business when real bombs were falling on their heads, seeing our leaders scurry for cover every time a teenie little plane comes within 20 miles is becoming embarassing.
The money spent on scrambling two F-16s every time this happens must be astronomical. What's it been, almost 1300 times now? I just wonder if that money wouldn't be better spent protecting other things more likely to damage the country.
Do you realize how easy it would be to shut down the entire economy of the United States by...say...taking out the electric transmission lines into California...or...say...taking out one of the dams on the Colorado river leaving several Western states without water? What about protecting UPS and FedEx or our ports?
Hey, but there's no money in the budget for those things, because we are spending it all on this silly program to protect the bureaucrats in DC from private planes.
I'm not willing to give up my right to fly for that.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.