Hey -- I didn't say aviation was for everyone. Nothing is for
*everyone*.

No, but what you do say is that you don't understand why aviation isn't
so much more popular, since after all, you love it so much.

For aviation to truly expand would require stepping back to a
simpler, less litigious time.

That would help, but not the way I think you think it does.

We, as a society, would have to mentally accept
and treat air travel in the same casual, almost callous
way that we treat travel by road

We don't treat road travel in a casual, callous way. What we =do= do is
treat it as a necessity, a given, almost a right. And for driving, this
is a good choice. With people spread out all over the place, the
automobile is just about the most practical method of transportation
there is, in most cases. Even in the city, where driving is pretty
aggravating, it usually still beats the bus, the subway, and certainly
the airplane, for the kinds of trips most people take (which is to
commute to work, to school, to the store, and to visit friends). These
destinations are rarely in walking distance, only in the larger cities
is mass transit really practical, and as you know yourself, the midwest
is pretty spread out. If you want to get along in present day society,
most people need to be able to drive a car.

Thus, we (as a society) accept more collateral damage in order to
accomodate this basic necessity.

...almost callous way that we treat travel by road
-- and that means that people are going to die.

This is not the way society treats driving, and that is the reason for
all the (new) rules surrounding driving. It is an attempt to =reduce=
the number of people that die, while infringing as little as possible on
people's need for auto travel, and their percieved basic right to drive
a car. High risk, low necessity activities are curtailed, such as
driving home after a bender at the bar. I agree with this restriction.
Seat belt laws, while an infringement on people's personal freedom to
risk their own lives, are a counteraction to the other infringement on
people's rights to keep their money. MY money pays for YOUR injuries
when you crash unbelted, and this infringes on MY freedom. So, I don't
have a problem with seat belt laws (though I might favor a different
approach - crash unbelted and lose your health benefits). Laws that
make cars more crashworthy are also IMHO (mostly) a good thing, as it
brings economy of scale to something people want anyway (but don't want
to be the only one paying for).

I do find the strobes inside the red lights to be over the top, and rear
turn signals that can be seen for miles away are worse than silly. But
these are minor details - the need for which is probably driven not by
litigation, but rather, by the need to penetrate the fog of
overstimulation and underattention drivers are in now, be it from iPods
or from the increase in traffic.

Thus, another reason for what you view as restrictions on your freedoms
to drive are based on the simple fact that there just are more cars on
the road - exactly what you want to do to aviation. It creeps up
gradually, and we don't notice it happening, but I went to college in
Pasadena twenty years ago, and remember it being a certain way. I had
no trouble driving there, although there were a few busy streets, and I
had no trouble bicycling all over the place.

After twenty years, I went back. There is =no= =way= I would bicycle
there now, and it's damn near impossible to cross the street in a car
unless there is a traffic light. Driving on the streets that cross
avenues for more than a few blocks is well nigh hopeless unless there
are traffic lights.

All you
have to do is look at the way traffic lights are currently set up to
realize that "traffic engineers" are no longer interested in the free
flow of traffic -- all they care about is covering their ass so that no
one will sue them.

Please elaborate. I don't see that, nor do I hear about people suing
traffic engineers. Is this a new trend?

Thus was born the "left turn only arrow", and stop lights that are
specifically timed to slow traffic.

I know about left turn only arrows, but have no reason to believe that
this is ass-covering. I see it as a natural result of having too many
cars coming the other way, compared with twenty years ago, when there
probably wasn't even a light, and you could wait for hours before seeing
a single car.

I don't know of stop lights designed to =slow= traffic. There are those
that are set for a speed which is slightly less than the speed limit.
This is appropriate. There are those that are simply not syncronized.
This is unfortunate, and wasn't a problem until there were just too many
traffic lights, because there is just too much traffic. Because that's
the bottom line. There just is too much traffic. Too many people in cars.

We're only going to be able to promote GA a little at a
time, and hope that that's enough to save it, because our people are so
afraid of dying that they can never live.

I agree with you here, but I don't see it coming from the same place you do.

The sad truth is that our society is no longer set up to embrace
freedom -- and that means that most folks will never be able to
appreciate general aviation.

Yes, that is very very true. However, were I to elaborate on that, we'd
argue about what this administration is doing to our freedoms, and how
our government is keeping us artificially scared and ignorant in order
to further its extremely damaging agenda.

But let's not get into that in this thread.

Jose
--
He who laughs, lasts.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.