On Apr 9, 5:54 pm, "Brian O" wrote:

Why do you pay for groceries? Why do those nasty grocery stores have to
charge for them? How dare they? Even though they control all the groceries
sold to them, they should not have any right to charge for them!! You, sir,
do not own the airwaves, the American people say who operates and who does
not. You sir are a thief, plain and simple.

Bullsh** Nobody *owns* the airwaves any more than they own outer
space.

Groceries cost someone money to produce. Radio transmission medium
costs nobody anything. The bureacrats are the thieves.

And a large fee on one limited-band service helps to protect this -
how?

By keeping renegades from wanting to use the service for abusive purposes.
People that pay money for their licenses are much more responsible when they
operate, especially since they are registered with an agency that can put
them in jail if they dont.

Oh, yeah - that worked really well with prohibition in the 1920's,
didn't it? It was a total sucess with CB radio, wasn't it?

Nonsense. If people want to abuse the use of 2-mile range walkie
talkies, they're going to do it with or without a license.
Responsible users, which I consider myself to be for reasons already
stated, are going to use it properly and courteously...whether they
have paid or not.

So, the fee is going to make sure that my little 2-mile walkie talkie
is not going to mess up a Homeland Security operation - how?

There are a lot of businesses that use the same frequencies. If anarchy
were to get started like it did when CB was deregulated, then those
frequencies would be just a worthless as the CB.

And I say, a license is not going to prevent a person from abusing a
privilege. If the government merely wants to keep track, there is no
reason why a license must cost $85. If they really don't want
interference, they'd be better off not making the business frequencies
available to the GP in the first place. The GMRS is much less prone
to anarchy because the power is lower and the nature of the
transmissions and signals is far different. Finally, I'll bet the
only businesses that use these freqs extensively anymore are rural,
where few GPs use the GMRS anyway...everyone else uses cell phones.

Wrong. Period. There is considerable actual difference on the
ground. One can directly affect health safety and welfare, the other
cannot.

Thats not entirely true.

Sure it is. The effects on health and safety are purely a result of
improper use, and a license does not prevent this. Many people with
driver's licenses get out and behave miserably on the road every day -
and those without licenses can go years without getting caught, by
just being careful. This, with *massive* police oversight at
virtually all times. For something like a radio license, where
oversight is minimal and the power and range are too low for most
people to notice anyway - the success of this service wil ultimately
depend on whether people *use* the radios properly or foolishly.
Government regalation will not be the deciding factor.

Its not unreasonable at all.

Yeah, it is.

He who is unfaithful in little will be unfaithful with much.

This is at least an opinion, or more realistically blather, and you
know it. Life is not all or nothing, black and white. I have far
more faith in individual humans to do the right thing at the right
time than I do in some expensive goverment program to try to control
what people do with the ether. I know that I will never abuse the
ability to use the radio in a worthwhile and public-spirited way,
whether I have paid the confounded fee or not.

Your point of view is no different than someone that
robs a bank.

Bullsh**. Someone who robs a bank wants to live for free, with no
regard to who is losing as a result. I would never rob a bank, just
like I would never interfere with someone else's valid communications;
and I don't expect the government to rob me. One is not better or
more acceptable than the other, legal or not.

Bruce Jensen