Once again, the government is bent on criminalizing what used to be normal activityObviously something you take as a given, but most people do not, which probably explains a lot about why there is a disconnect between what you are trying to say and how everyone else takes it.
Osama must be smiling right now, because his plan to end freedom in America is unfolding just as he pictured it would.I am pretty damned free. I suggest whatever gulag you live in, you move from.
In a quest to "do something" (even if it's wrong), the government creates these absurd and pointless airspace restrictions (to protect themselves, of course - they're more important than us.),Let's look at two aspects to events- consequence and frequency- to determine if these restrictions are pointless and to determine if the class warfare elements of your point (attacking 'elitism') have merit.
Consequence. If a small plane crashes into Joe Schmoe's house, killing him, then it is a family tragedy. There will be a local response which will try to contain any fire and to help clean up the crash site. If a small plane crashes into the White House, it can and will throw the entire nation into a bit of chaos, especially if it killed any major government official. The costs of rebuilding would be hundreds, if not thousands, of times higher. There would be a need to do investigations costing hundreds, if not thousands, of times more to ensure that this isn't an attempt to bring down the country. It would provide fodder for conspiracy theorists and for opportunist politicians to exploit the issue. The difference in consequence is huge.
And frequency: a small plane will crash into my house only as an accident. The White House would be hit not only with accidents, but also by those who want to make a statement or make an attack. The frequency would clearly be higher.
So attempts to say "they are treating themselves differently" should be met with "yes, and it is right they do so because the risk is greater and the consequences higher".
How many people on the ground have been killed by automobiles crashing into them?
But you want to ban private flying because it's "unsafe". Why is that?
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.