Kerry's coming to OSH

At the risk of sounding unpatriotic.. I agree with some of what you were
criticizing. America has actively earned the hatred of many abroad by
virtue of our foriegn policy and active meddling in the affairs of other
countries. We have supported former dictators on several occasions who
later we moved to depose when they no longer served our needs. We have a
reputation for being arrogant, impolite, demanding and hypocritical.

Don't get me wrong. I'm proud to be an American. I'm grateful that I
live in a land where I can disagree with the government and the majority
and live to talk about it. But at the risk of getting WAY off topic
here, I harbor the opinion that we as a collective nation have gone way
out of our way to rub other peoples noses in our percieved greatness. Up
until this most recent presidential administration, I considered myself
pretty solidly aligned with the Republican party, but the most recent
President and his "Go It Alone" stance that he undertook WELL before
9/11 has led me to reconsider my political affiliations.

Regardless of the international picture, the greatest threat to the
President (historically speaking) has been from citizens of our own
country. I can't recall a single assasination or attempt on a President
that was proven to have happened from the act of a Foreign national.

OK.. enough rambling.. I hope I can afford to make OSH this year. I laid
out last year, and I have to admit.. I really missed it.

Dave

C J Campbell wrote:
"Dave S" wrote in message
ink.net...

I was wondering at what point secret service kicked in for potential
candidates.. wouldnt that be the epitome of irony...



The Secret Service sends details to each of the likely candidates' homes and
moves in on the nominee the moment the vote is cast, setting up guards and
installing security devices. The nominee is likely to be at the convention,
so he will be surrounded by the SS detail already on station there. The
nominee will not be able to take one step toward the podium to make his
acceptance speech without his bodyguards. The TFR will already be in place
around the convention center and will have been there since before the start
of the convention.

There seems to be this huge misunderstanding that Presidents or candidates
cannot visit airshows without shutting the place down. In fact, they do go
to these events and the Secret Service negotiates security precautions with
the FAA. OSH might be tricky, though. Many aircraft going to OSH are
actually landing at nearby fields. A lot of them have no transponder or
radio, or even any electrical system of any kind. If Kerry or Bush were to
attend an event of this nature it would be over the most vehement objections
of the Secret Service.

If the SS had its way, candidates would only be allowed to campaign from
secure rooms via television feeds with no reporters or anyone else present.
The President would spend his entire career in a sealed box. The Mall and
Capitol Hill would become like Beijing's Forbidden City, with only security
and absolutely essential personnel allowed on the grounds. The Secret
Service understands that this is never going to happen, so they constantly
are negotiating their need for security against the President's need to meet
the public.

Although I voted for him, I have to say that Harry Browne is an idiot. He
believes that the Secret Service is unnecessary and that there would be no
terrorist attacks if the US did not interfere in other countries' affairs.
If government were smaller and less powerful, he believes, then the
President would not be a target for assassins. This is demonstrably stupid.
The government was much smaller and less powerful than what even Browne
advocates when Lincoln was assassinated. I somehow suspect that the United
States would have its foreign enemies no matter what it did.

In article . net,
Dave S wrote:

At the risk of sounding unpatriotic.. I agree with some of what you were
criticizing. America has actively earned the hatred of many abroad by
virtue of our foriegn policy and active meddling in the affairs of other
countries. We have supported former dictators on several occasions who
later we moved to depose when they no longer served our needs. We have a
reputation for being arrogant, impolite, demanding and hypocritical.

There is a difference between the times when we "meddled" in places that
we shouldn't have, such as in Somolia and in Kosovo, and defending
ourselves, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan. But, either way, that's not
why we're hated. We're hated because we are a free nation and, by that
virtue, a productive nation. Productive nations produce wealth.
Problem is, you have to have freedom to have productivity, and there are
a lot of bad guy dictators out there who won't permit their people to be
freely productive. Almost *ALL* of the countries in the Middle East,
except Israel, are guilty of denying freedom to their people, but the
Islamic countries certainly aren't the only ones who are guilty.

"Meddling" is simply a convenient excuse for foreign leaders to deflect
attention away from the real problem, which is most often those foreign
leaders themselves.



JKG

In article . net,
Dave S wrote:
here, I harbor the opinion that we as a collective nation have gone way
out of our way to rub other peoples noses in our percieved greatness. Up
until this most recent presidential administration, I considered myself
pretty solidly aligned with the Republican party, but the most recent
President and his "Go It Alone" stance that he undertook WELL before
9/11 has led me to reconsider my political affiliations.

I'm not sure who's "going it alone" and how you know that the Bush
administration had a "Go It Alone" policy before 9/11. If you're
referring to the Iraq war, it seems to me that we spent a huge amount of
time screwing around with the United Nations if our policy was going to
be "Go It Alone" regardless of what anyone else said. And last time I
checked the facts, we didn't "Go It Alone" in Iraq or Afghanistan anyway.

Our policy should be "Go It Alone" if that's what's necessary to protect
our own interests. If we aren't willing to "Go It Alone" to protect
ourselves then we will eventually cease to exist as an independent
country.



Regardless of the international picture, the greatest threat to the
President (historically speaking) has been from citizens of our own
country. I can't recall a single assasination or attempt on a President
that was proven to have happened from the act of a Foreign national.

The greatest threat to the President and Congress should be from our own
people, though our kind and generous federal government continues to do
what they can to disarm the population.

The founding fathers intended for the people to be able to forcably
overthrow a corrupt or overreaching government. The US Constitution
specifically prohibts the federal government from engaging in most of
the things that it engages in today. However, the US Constitution, as
all governing documents in any democratic society, is only as good as
the people's will to enforce it. The lure of hand-outs and special
interests is too tempting for most people, and that includes the
aviation community.



JKG

"Dave S" wrote in message
ink.net...
At the risk of sounding unpatriotic.. I agree with some of what you were
criticizing. America has actively earned the hatred of many abroad by
virtue of our foriegn policy and active meddling in the affairs of other
countries.

Like the UN does every day? (And the rest of the world intervenes through
them)

How about our Foreign aid? Do they mind that meddling? How about the World
Bank?

We have supported former dictators on several occasions who
later we moved to depose when they no longer served our needs.

Like the USSR during WW2?

We have a
reputation for being arrogant, impolite, demanding and hypocritical.

That wounds like the world in general...that same world that never seems to
mind our bailing them out several times in the past 100 years.

"Tom Sixkiller" writes:

How about our Foreign aid? Do they mind that meddling?

Well, historically an amazing amount of our foreign aid has gone to
support repressive dictators. People in countries where they had to
live through that probably *do* remember, and dislike, our foreign
aid. More broadly, it often comes with strings attached, and it often
makes no sense. People could easily notice and find that
objectionable.

How about the World Bank?

Rather out of favor in a lot of places. And widely viewed as an agent
of the US, though we don't formally control it.
--
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