The Doctor Says: Flying and Homebuilding Are Privileges, NOT Rights

I asked the doctor, who performs flight physicals why so many questions on a
form to determine whether a pilot is physically fit to fly. Specifically I
asked him why Big Brother had to know about a pilot's record of
misdemeanors, like for example a youthful offense of simple trespass,
affray, or disturbing the peace, when those misdemeanors had absolutely
nothing to do with the pilot's physical or mental health. "And then why is
it the applicant then becomes a felon subject to federal indictment and
imprisonment for 5 years if he answers falsely?" I asked him.

"I don't think that's true," he said. "First, you are only asked about
felonies. Second, no one has ever been prosecuted."

So then I told him that at least 4 people on our airport had admitted they
had answered questions on the form falsely.

Then I explained to him in specific detail about federal convictions for
false answers on the forms. I had read about them on the internet and
verified them --- and I asked him to read the FAA forms he had in his
office. He did and I talked to him at the airport the next day.

He was surprised. "Those are new requirements," he said, "and I don't
agree with them."

"Well," says I, "the new flight surgeon has had those crazy restrictions put
in."

Then he went on to tell me how upset he was when he filled out his
application to become licensed to practice medicine and how he had to answer
very embarrassing questions about whether he had even been charged with a
crime, and how he had had to answer "yes" on one or more questions because
of indiscretions of his youth.

But then he says, "Flying is of course a privilege and when you build an
airplane and fly it, that's a privilege. You don't have a right to fly an
airplane. You don't have a right to build a homebuilt aircraft and fly it
either. The minute the FAA has a chance or sees the necessity it will take
those privileges away and you'll never see them again."

Well, folks, as long as we put up with it, the government in the form of an
overweening pus-gutted beetle-browed Big Brother, just as brutish and just
as big an aXXhole as King George III will expand his rights and powers
against you and tell you that nothing is a right and everything is a
privilege, including the very air you breathe.

The last time I posted about this controversy, which makes most of you get
so knock-kneed and white-knuckled, some gravel-voiced grunt from my ISP
called and said I had committed an AUP violation. Well, let me tell you
something: what I said had piXXed somebody off mighty powerful, or at
least powerful mad. Because the ISP said there was a loud and vigorous
complaint. First the excuse for claiming the violation was for using 2
cusswords, hell and damn, and then the gravel-voiced grunt called back and
said, no it hadn't been the cusswords, but that I had been off-topic. It's
off topic to talk about the AXXhole Big Brother erecting sham barriers to a
3rd class medical in RAH? Well, I see what happened. There were three
posts in a row, and the first post had the on-topic material in it, which
the next two following in quick succession, without anyone else posting in
between, did not have: they should all three have been read together, but
the rat snitch put together the next two, or just one of them, and sent it
to the ISP together with his whiny sniveling.

I just wanted some of you white-knuckled RAH sheep to know what really
happened and the meddlesome whiner to know I just might find out who he was.

Yeah, really. Everything, including flying and homebuilding are
privileges, which may be snatched away from you by your paternal Big Brother
at any time. They AREN'T rights. Why, even complaining about the
ever-increasing restrictions on these freedom, er, privileges may even cause
them to be snatched away by Big Brother.