Posted on 01/13/2004 9:57:51 AM PST by Theodore R.
I'm With John Madden: No More Commercial Flying For Me
By Chuck Baldwin
Food For Thought From The Chuck Wagon
January 13, 2004 After retiring from coaching, former Oakland Raiders Head Coach and now popular sportscaster John Madden hung up his wings. He had been forced to spend numerous hours flying commercial airliners with his NFL team, but upon retiring he said, "No more flying for me."
When first approached to take a position as a professional sportscaster, Madden said he would only consider the offer if he could travel to games via a bus. The networks agreed, and Madden hasn't flown since. I think Madden has the right idea.
While Madden's decision to stay out of the "friendly" skies was made several years before the terrorist attacks in 2001 and was doubtless made for other, and more personal, reasons, it seems especially sagacious in light of recent decisions by the Bush administration. According to the Washington Post and CBS News, President Bush plans to color code every passenger who flies a commercial airliner.
News reports state that airlines and airline reservation companies would be forced to turn over all passenger records to U.S. government officials. The government would then assign a color code to each passenger, ostensibly determined by the passenger's "threat level."
Passengers would be assigned a red, yellow, or green color. A red coded passenger would be stopped from boarding; yellow would require additional screening at security checkpoints, and green would mean only standard security for boarding. The government plans to implement the new system next month.
Reports also quote Transportation Security Administration (TSA) spokesmen as saying frequent flyers could receive special passes which would allow faster check-in if they were willing to allow the government to access their personal information. Of course, this information would be entered into a government database.
To any person familiar with the incremental methods used by totalitarian regimes to regulate and control their populations, this latest measure being enacted by President Bush can only be regarded as "scary." By now, it should be obvious to every thinking person that the Bush administration is composed of a bunch of "control freaks" who are attempting to turn America into a police state!
Freedom and independence are extremely fragile commodities. They can only be maintained by an alert and vigilant citizenry. Unless the people of the United States awaken from their obvious passivity, what freedoms we have left will quickly vanish!
It's time to face it: President Bush is no friend of liberty, and neither is he a friend to constitutional government nor national sovereignty. Four more years of a Bush administration could very well mean the death knell of freedom in these United States.
The character and constitutional ignorance of Washington politicians being what they are, the only scenario that offers even a modicum of opportunity for freedom to last a while longer is for one party to occupy the White House while the other party controls Congress. It seems party stalemate is about the only thing that is somewhat favorable to freedom these days.
Obviously, the ideal solution would be for Americans to throw off the current two-party system altogether and elect independent men and women of real honor and character who would have the courage to obey the U.S. Constitution and to restore the principles contained in the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.
In the meantime, if one wants a foretaste of a burgeoning police state, just try boarding a commercial airline. Of course, once air travel has been completely Gestapoized, it's only a matter of time for ground travel. Until then, however, I think I'll postpone the leap into Big Brother's Brave New World by getting on the bus with John Madden.
© Chuck Baldwin
It's tattoed on the back of 'is neck!
The FACT that people have debilitated motor skills, and have no conscious idea that they are even slightly impaired isn't cause for concern on your planet? People with a 'buzz', who feel they have something to prove is all part of a scam?
If you can show a study that shows that people have a greater than 4x incidence of having a traffic accident when they are taking antihistamines, present it. I have presented the facts as they are accepted by the medical and law enforcement communities. You have ranted. What's a matter; tip a few too many beers and went for a drive?
How many loved ones have you buried because some drunk had a 'disease' and decided to drive 80 mph through a stop sign? Attending the funeral of a friend who lost his wife and 2 daughters to one of these self-centered drunks is a really good treatment for a person with as uneducated attitude as yours. I hope you never, ever experience that form of education.
The original agreement was with Greyhound, and it was as you said a bus and a driver in exchange for motivational speeches. But that was like 1988, several years after he started doing NFL games.
Around the time he went to Fox, he had corporate sponsors buying and furnishing his bus. When I saw it, about 3 or 4 years ago, the Madden Cruiser was sponsored by Outback Steakhouse. I think it still is, but the one I found on the web is not the one I remember seeing in person, so I'm sure he's gone through a few.
This is all trivial. My point was only that the writer was too sloppy with easy reporting to give any weight to anything else.
Eventually they'll expand it to getting a driver's license, etc...
And then they'll just make it a crime to get classified as "red" or "yellow". Of course, they won't tell you the criteria for getting classified that way.
Living in a police state sucks.
And what's the carnage on the highways in a year? Why don't we forbid driving, then, so as to eliminate this, not chance, but SURE THING?
5 punks with a blade is no match for an angry tourist with the typical carry-on bag that's big enough to give a rhinoceros a concussion.
Go to your nearest drugstore. Peruse the labels on antihistamines for the words "DO NOT DRIVE OR OPERATE HEAVY MACHINERY".
We'll wait....
Huh is right. Since I never claimed as much, I'm not sure what you are referring to.
That would be me. :-) I wouldn't go down in an airplane hijacking without a fight - I ain't 1/4 Fighting Irish for nothing!!!
Or it could be just about any other parent of a sports competitor. I carry all kinds of stuff in there that I'll need to keep myself occupied at my daughter's gymnastics meets, as well as a kit for emergency "beauty and hair" repairs ;-), not to mention water bottles for hydration and first aid for injuries.
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