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WB2KSP,
Yes, I fully agree with the federal government stepping in when American citizens are being denied basic human rights based on race, creed, color, religion or sex.
But I don't see the ability to put up an obnoxious sky hook as a basic human right. (Yes, "obnoxious" is a relative term--what may be reasonably accommodating to one may be obnoxious to another.)
What I see is since we are a land of laws which are based on years and years of incremental "precedence", maybe we've reached a point where there are precedents now which could be argued as reasons to start removing basic human rights from others. Maybe we, as a nation, need to step back and evaluate the thousands and thousands of pages of laws which no one fully understands any more. Maybe that's the reason so many people are angry these days--because we all don't know all the rules any more. I've struggled to keep things as simple as possible my whole life.
Such as, since there's a federal law saying flag poles are ok, that could be interpreted as a precedence in which the next incremental step is to mean 100' towers are ok, which lowers the visual appeal to future buyers in that neighborhood, thus lowering housing prices in that neighborhood where the majority of folks currently living in that neighborhood have home ownership as part of their "investment portfolio," thus lowering their projected retirement plans, thus infringing on their basic human right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
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K1VSK,
Yes, since the airwaves are an international issue, it makes sense that the federal government should regulate it. And yes, just because they grant you a license to use those airwaves, that doesn't give you a right to infringe on others.
Thomas Jefferson said, "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’, because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."
(Our founders don't get enough credit these days--they were pretty smart.)
Or a more recent quote: In the early 1900's U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr said, “Your Liberty To Swing Your Fist Ends Just Where My Nose Begins.”
Yes, I have to try to smile also when these issues come up. Besides, we have countless other much bigger issues to deal with other than the ability for a handful of hams to play with radios.
Sorry, this is the only way I can clearly state my opposition to the ARRL's effort to lobby congress to write any kind of law that... well any kind of law.
Carry on.