Pilot's Political Orientation

"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...
"C J Campbell" wrote:

By those who, like Dan Luke, want to portray Jefferson as
godless in order to further their own political agenda of
excluding religious views from the political forum.

I certainly would never claim Jefferson was godless. Rather, my point
was that he would not pass the test for religious correctness of the
religious right, whose political agenda is to enlist government in
proselytizing their views.
--
Quite...just as they take the phrase "separation of church and state" as
though it's something from contemporary times rather than from the pen of
James Madison, they guy who essentially WROTE the Constitution.

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

"Martin Hotze" wrote in message
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On Sun, 18 Apr 2004 00:43:17 GMT, Steven P. McNicoll wrote:

I am certain, however, that Jesus did slips with flaps.
While programming in FORTH. On a Windows PC.


To bring a bit of piloting back into this discussion, Jesus handled a
plane
well.

I bet Jesus was more into boating. He walked over water.


No doubt he would have enjoyed water skiing.

Barefoot water skiing.

CJ wrote, and I believe this is his crux:
I strongly believe that allowing gay marriages will sweep away
whatever remnants remain of the concept of family. That is too high a
price
to pay in the name of 'tolerance.'

which is a principled and fair objection, and one that worries me too.

But, on balance, I see this: I see some of my friends who have been
committed partners for over twenty years who *want* to marry *because* they
are committed partners. They're too old to adopt and raise a child, though.
If fornicating Bob and Louise look up and see old Rod and Terry from down
the street trotting happily down to the courthouse to be married, perhaps it
will give them pause for thought about the value of the institution.

It sounds forced and corny, but I do believe it has value. Impinging on this
argument are (a) your beliefs about gays (are they all promiscuous
in-your-face protestors? No!) and (b) how many gay marriages are going to
end badly - we don't know yet.

-- David Brooks

"Joe Young" wrote in message
...

Tell me Rich...why does anyone other than her parents need to tell her
anything? It seems to me the parents have the responsibility to initially
take the appropriate steps to insure the pregnancy does not occur. If
that
fails...it is then their responsibility to guide her through that
challenging time in her life. There in lies the significant difference
between conservatives and liberals. Conservatives believe the
responsibility lies with the family...liberals believe only the "State"
can
educate on matters of reproduction, and only the State can solve social
problems. Remember "it takes a village"?

Paraphrasing a sex educator I heard on the radio many years ago: "We think
that's a *wonderful* idea! We are *completely in favor* of parents giving
their children effective sex education. But, until that starts to happen
(*), can we *please* have effective sex education in the schools?"

(*) implicit in the statement is "in sufficiently significant quantities". I
know your kids and my kids were well educated at home, of course.

In this case, I think the liberals were the hard-nosed realists.

-- David Brooks

"L Smith" wrote in message
link.net...

If, as you seem to imply, the only effect of 'taxation' was the direct
transfer of that
money from the pockets of the one thousand to the pockets of the two
thousand, you
might have an argument. Now, while I'm sure you'll be more than happy to
present
examples of where you think this is the case, I will maintain that this
would be a very
unusual situation.

So, to get to the heart of the matter, people who claim taxes are too
high, but who
refuse to consider what they are getting in return for those taxes, must
fall into one of
two groups. Either you don't wish to accept your responsibility for
living in modern
society (e.g. you want to enjoy the protection afforded by the police
and fire departments,
but you don't want to pay to maintain them), or you disagree with what
your taxes are
being spent on. It it's the latter, then quit hiding behind the tired
old "taxes are too high"
banner. Get to the point, and tell us exactly which programs you think
need to be
eliminated.

This very day, in beautiful sunshine in what was otherwise a quiet
environment, I was walking behind a blowhard who was complaining about how
much money both the Feds and the State were taking away from him.

We were both enjoying an attractive park maintained by the Army Corps of
Engineers, with I believe some input from the City of Seattle.

-- David Brooks

"Judah" wrote in message
...
Actually, CJ, you should go back and follow the thread a little more
closely, and maybe read it without your blinders on.

The conservative view presented was that liberals want to take other
people's assets and redistribute them. I responded that conservatives
want to take other people's assets and keep them for themselves. The
response was that conservatives don't want other people's assets, and I
disagree with that completely.

You read my statement as a bitter one of resentment. Actually, I it was a
simple plain fact of the Free Market economy.

I made no mention of stealing. The Free Market in the US requires that
people redistribute assets in order to get rich. Most people don't get
rich based solely on their hourly rate. They get rich by buying low and
selling high - real estate, stocks, antiques on a road show, or whatever.

In the free market economy, someone wins, and someone loses.

You need to sue your economics teacher.

One thing I have not seen mentioned here is that the Northwest article
specifically mentioned the airport fees (taxes) that are tacked on to most
tickets. Those cover mainly the cost of maintaining and improving the
terminal building, parking, security etc, none of which is even accessible to
GA, much less used by it.

As another observation, I think the airlines have a much better deal charging
the per passenger fee rather than paying the same amount percentage-wise we do
on fuel taxes.

--
--Ray Andraka, P.E.
President, the Andraka Consulting Group, Inc.
401/884-7930 Fax 401/884-7950
email
http://www.andraka.com

"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin, 1759

"L Smith" wrote in message
link.net...
C J Campbell wrote:


So, to get to the heart of the matter, people who claim taxes are too
high, but who
refuse to consider what they are getting in return for those taxes, must
fall into one of
two groups. Either you don't wish to accept your responsibility for
living in modern
society (e.g. you want to enjoy the protection afforded by the police
and fire departments,
but you don't want to pay to maintain them), or you disagree with what
your taxes are
being spent on. It it's the latter, then quit hiding behind the tired
old "taxes are too high"
banner. Get to the point, and tell us exactly which programs you think
need to be
eliminated.


A good point. After all, no one has the right to complain just because
virtually every business in the country sends more money to various
government agencies than it pays out to the owners and employees. Imagine
people having the temerity to demand that the government actually prove that
it provides something in return. Instead, here you are asking us to prove
that it does not provide fair value for the money, even though that money is
being taken from us by force.

Well, we can start with the education system, which is excessively top
heavy. We seem to be getting a lot less for the dollar every year. Around
here the typical school administrator or high school principal has an office
that rivals that of a senior partner in a large law firm, even while the
teachers are badly underpaid. That sends a rather contradictory message. The
taxpayers who are paying for this stuff would sure like to have offices like
that.

I doubt if the prison system needs to be so large. A lot of non-violent
offenders could probably be just as easily taken care of with electronic
monitoring devices.

Aid to Families of Dependent Children should be provided only to those who
are willing to contribute community service in return. Those who refuse to
work should get nothing.

It is questionable whether we need a rain forest in Iowa.

Public funding for the arts ought to be eliminated entirely. If an artist is
so terrible that he or she cannot make a living in the private sector that
is just too bad.

We don't need to buy food and destroy it simply to prop up prices. No one
has a God-given right to be a farmer. Marginal operators should be squeezed
out just as they are in every other form of business.

And while we are at it, we can stop forcing Americans to buy ethanol.

A lot of programs don't cost much as far as the government is concerned, but
they impose tremendous regulatory burdens on businesses. OSHA comes to mind.

We could completely eliminate unemployment taxes and workers' compensation.
If people want insurance they ought to be able to buy it from the private
sector. These two programs are probably the biggest source of fraud and
corruption at all levels of government.

We could also eliminate Social Security, which generally adds a small amount
of income to the wealthiest sector of the population.

The same goes for Medicare. People get along just fine on their own
insurance until Medicare kicks in. There is nothing magic about a particular
age where people suddenly need socialized medicine.

Sure, some people might not be able to afford to retire. But you know, when
these programs first started, most people did not even live long enough to
retire. Retirement is not a right that you should be able to demand that
others pay for.

Those will do for starters; I can probably think of several more. The IMF,
for example.

"Judah" wrote in message
...

I made no mention of stealing. The Free Market in the US requires that
people redistribute assets in order to get rich. Most people don't get
rich based solely on their hourly rate. They get rich by buying low and
selling high - real estate, stocks, antiques on a road show, or whatever.

In the free market economy, someone wins, and someone loses.

You really don't have a clue, do you, about economics?

"David Brooks" wrote in message
...

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

"Judah" wrote in message
...
How, exactly, do the rich get richer without taking other people's
assets?


Here we have the crux of what passes for liberalism these days. Idiot.

The assumption is that if you possess something, it must have been
stolen
from somebody else. It is astounding that liberals, who claim to be
intellectuals, cannot see the blatant fallacy behind this argument.

Oh, please read the liberal economists. They understand perfectly well the
principles of investment and growth, and that any successful economy
cannot
be zero-sum.


Are there any left? Keynes (as he famously predicted) is dead. :-) To
paraphrase Milton Friedman, we are all monetarists now.