On Sunday, April 19, 2020 at 9:49:44 AM UTC-7, jfitch wrote:
On Sunday, April 19, 2020 at 8:22:19 AM UTC-7, Bob Whelan wrote:
Does that freedom of choice extend to choosing what risks you expose
others to?

Apologies for contributing to thread drift, etc., but that's an interesting
(to me, anyway) philosophic question. And an important one. The United States
exists because of people who considered philosophical questions important,
with contributors ranging from Founding Fathers to grunt militia and
(ultimately) nameless/faceless individuals (in the historical sense) who voted
in favor of accepting the choice to begin a *national* experiment of a
form-of-government and nation based upon the rule of law, with the highest law
of the land being the - proposed - Constitution which they were being asked to
consider and vote upon.

History - and common sense - give the short-form answer to the above question
as, "YES!" Consider the simple act of driving one's vehicle. Unavoidably
you're exposing others to the risks inherent to your
driving-style/age/sense-of-personal-responsibility (e.g. drinking)/etc. And
then there's soaring, with the reality of landouts, etc...

In principle, the "freedom of choice" question is no different than
considering "Kung Flu questions."

For evidence principle is important in the history of the USA, one need look
no further than the Declaration of Independence (essentially a statement based
entirely on principle) and the Constitution (the fundamental legal
codification of said principles).

This nation's "proper final recourse" for civilly disagreeing with others who
hold differing views on specific issues of principle is - for better or worse
- civil lawsuits. Hugely imperfect, but there you go. So - and such - is life.

Flame suit on...

Bob W.

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The most recent data suggest that people are contagious 3 days before symptoms. So it is a little like driving your car not knowing if the brakes work. You are exposing others to a risk you yourself do not comprehend.

I like freedom of choice too, but the answers are not so simple.

I actually have a gliding story about brakes. I was landing my Nimbus 4T, all 1131 pounds empty, with a quartering headwind of about 12 knots, for only the second time. Mt previous two gliders were AS birds with the brake at the end of the spoiler pull. The AS gliders have a handle on the stick which is the trim. SH birds have the brake on the stick. As I was rolling out I didn't seem to be getting much braking no matter how hard of squeezed the stick brake or the spoilers, the quartering head wind had turned the big Nimbus to head directly at what we called skid row (6, 1-26's tied down).. It was too late to ground loop it and the gentleman working on his glider at skid row, just gave me a friendly wave, apparently not noticing the terror in my eyes. Fortunately a very young and spry Garret Willat tucked under the wing of the moving Nimbus grabbed ahold of the vertical and got the bird stopped about two feet from making a dent throughout skid row. And I am sorry gentleman, a gliding themed post seems out of place on RAS now, please forgive my natural tendencies.