"Dee Flint" wrote in message
...


By the way I happen to think that all should be required to learn to swim
whether or not they think they may use it. I happen to consider it a basic
skill in life that all should know.


That's interesting. I tend to be more libertarian (small "l"), leaving such
decisions up to the individual rather than a societal (government?) "all should
be required" mandate. While it's easy to make the argument that swimming is a
useful skill beyond it's recreational value (just as you might make a slightly
weaker argument that Morse is a useful beyond it's recreational value), society
really has no vested interest strong enough to dictate "all should be required"
to develop the skill of swimming. If they did, then the next layer of
busy-bodies would busy themselves deciding which swimming strokes ought to be
required, which section of the beach we'd be allowed to use (depending on our
tested swimming speed), and requiring that all non-swimmers live only in arid
locations like Arizona and New Mexico.

73, de Hans, K0HB