"if you want......
"if you want....
"if you want....

.....then all that is FINE, but..."

isn't even getting through to those people. They're not hearing it.
read back a few threads and you'll see one of them actually
tell me that "removing the testing requirement limits people's
choices". I'll just let that one sink in with you and please accept
my remark as being accurate, you can go back and read it.

They will not seperate the two issues of "testing" and "use".
It's "you WILL learn it!" (followed by the unspoken but
agreed upon reasoning, "because I had to").

I think the basic problem is that they have a few preconceived
notions that are wrong. They seem to feel that people will
enjoy doing something if forced to do it, if they otherwise wouldn't,
which human psychology doesn't support this at ALL, nor does
the history of economics. They feel that somehow, if not required
to be tested on it, people will forget about it and not want to
do it.

I never took a profeciency test for ssb, fm or AM and I enjoy using
those modes, managed to look up reference material on them and
learn about them without having to have a test to make me do so,
and furthermore, what I did have to know was covered on a
knowledge test. Hey, there's an idea. How about just incorporating
CW into the knowledge test as part of the database? asking
what random characters are? what the definition of the farnsworth
rate is, and how a code key works? What does "full break in"
ability mean on linear amplifiers?

Oh, no, this will never do. even though the reasons given were that
a person needs to learn about it in order to make informed decisions,
and this would have him learn about it, it comes back down to
the old tried and true SPEED OF RECEPTION test;

I had to do it. Read: We were once subjects of the british
king
So should you. Read: YOU, therefore, are a subject of the king.

Shut up and do it. Read: Shut up with your ideas of revolution.
Do what the redcoats TELL you to do.

Oops, i'm sorry, now did I offend somebody to referring to the redcoats,
the way I did previously with the brownshirts? Lord knows in today's
society we need to avoid everything that offends anybody.

but I digress.

Clint