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Senate Votes To Replace Aviation Radar With GPS
plover writes "The US Senate on Monday passed by a 93-0 margin a bill that would implement the FAA's NextGen plan to replace aviation radar with GPS units. It will help pay for the upgrade by increasing aviation fuel taxes on private aircraft. It will require two inspections per year on foreign repair stations that work on US planes. And it will ban pilots from using personal electronics in the cockpit. This just needs to be reconciled with the House version and is expected to become law soon. This was discussed on Slashdot a few years ago."
While the nextgen plan is a good thing, the rest is crap. We can get legislation to ban laptops, but we can't get the HORRENDOUSLY dangerous rest regulations fixed. How about NOT giving in to the airline lobbyists for once and actually doing something to make air travel SAFER????
This just adds to the consequences of the inevitable solar flare that will knock out all our satellites.
what if some big foreign country who has anti satellite weapons decides to blow up our GPS satellites?
It must be a good thing since there were no nay votes, right?
Or should we believe that debate is a bad thing like we've been told time and again on this Universal Health Care issue.
So each plane sends its location back to air traffic control? How is this system secured? This will be breached repeatedly. Also, what happens when a solar storm takes out the satellites? I'm sure GPS is a better system under normal circumstances, but circumstances are not always normal.
How often do you fly out of castles?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
So exactly how prone will this system be to;
Don't get me wrong, this has a lot of upside, it's just important we have a good idea what the down side is, how significant it is, and what the expected impact on American business and transportation will be.
And what were the other 7 senators doing that day? Biden (the VP) is technically part of the senate, but I'll give him a pass on this. I'll be checking to see if my senator(s) were busy sleeping in that day.
moox. for a new generation.
If the batteries in my Garmin go out, I can just use any 747 to go geocaching!
Leave my X-Men LARPing out of this :(
A solar flare, natural disaster, or something more nefarious takes out the GPS system? Would the individual independent radars still remain operational in those situations? To someone like me who doesn't really fly much or know much about things it seems like we're replacing multiple independent systems with a system that has a central point of failure if someone or some natural event knocked out the satellites.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Flight 235, we have your GPS signal. Please adjust your flight path 35 degrees northeast. Hold on one second, we're picking up an unidentified GPS signal. They're heading right for you! Emergency maneuver 15 degrees east! --- Ground control, it's a clear sunny day. I don't see any other planes in my flight path. --- Hold on Flight 235, we've received new information. We've identified the rogue GPS signal. Continue on course. It was only a migrating manatee with one of those older GPS tags.
If this appropriately meets FAA guidelines than this is fine.
In cockpit systems a standby attitude device must be installed in the cockpit as a fallback system unless the existing cockpit systems have dual redundancy.
Along the same token the GPS DAMN WELL better have a backup system of some sort. This backup may be a radar system or it may be an INS system combined with altitude sensors or use of VOR/TACAN systems. There just has to be something there.
./ had an article a few days ago abouta gps jammer for $50. It seems to me that it wouldn't be all that hard to make one with a pretty powerful jammer and a timer, put it in some checked baggage, and let the thing go off about 20 minutes before landing...
Let's replace 50 year old, time-tested technology with something that conks out regularly and is reliant on giant hunks of metal falling through the sky.
Adding GPS is a great idea. Replacing radar totally is beyond ridiculous.
Sexy female voice in the cockpit: "Now come to a heading of 329."
Pilot: "Wait... WTF ? Who put that mountain there ?...."
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
In the literal sense, light aircraft not equiped with GPS, (Drug or people smugglers), and of course aircraft that have been hijacked and their transponders disabled.
Or some kid in a baloon (hoax or not, its probably not going to do an engine any good if it sucks it in...
And if the pilots are too busy playing with their laptops to even look out of the window...
It doesnt sound safe to me, especially in a post 911 world.
Didn't they delay a shuttle launchto avoid a GPS clock rollover? Will they ground all the world's aircraft for the next one?
1. In the UK NOTAMs ( Notice to airmen) are issued on a regular basis for GPS jamming trials. They take place over several weeks, and are, I believe, carried out by the army. I am not sure if their intention is to remove the possibility of soldiers on exercise using GPS rather than other means to navigate, or for some other reason.
I fly gliders and have a GPS unit on board which is used as a navigation aid. I also carry a chart (as required by air law) which serves as primary aid for navigation.
2. I would be pretty confident that all airliners currently in service have GPS capability
3. Radar is useful for seeing where everyone else is, GPS is for finding yourself. While transmitting location/vector information from an airbourne GPS to a ground station would enable collision avoidance, this feature is currently available through transponders. These are a requirement for any aircraft wanting to transit class A airspace.
Radars are very, very reliable nowadays but the backup for air traffic control is to then put all aircraft at different altitudes until they either exit the area with broken radar or land, if things really go awry. There's still plenty of space for aircraft to be at different altitudes if you go below cruise levels, albeit the increased fuel consumption at lower altitudes might then mean that some simply must land. But that's a relatively minor inconvenience in case of radar failure...
This is just a parliamentary tactic the Democrats are using to ram this unpopular legislation down the throats of ordinary, hard-working Americans. They're trying to pass this bill in the dead of night, under the old bridge down town, dressed as hobos and reeking of urine. Write your Congressman, radio your Precinct Boss, phone your local librarian. We need all hands on deck to kill this bill and show the Washington fatcats that we're not going to stand for this. I don't care if it's just to buy toilet paper, but getting a bill through our Congress should take a supermajority, the way God intended! Email Barack Hussein Obama and tell him you don't want socialist aviation!
--Obyron
WHy not have both. Redundancy is a good thing when it comes to this sort of stuff.
Point one: GPS, since the plane's antenna is semi-omnidirectional, is easily jammed. GPS signal strengths are weak. Point Two: Radar is not easily jammed. A jammer can only jam one radial -- and he gives away his angular position when he does. Point Three: Radar can skin track a plane even when the plane's transponder is turned off.
What? Where did that come from? The link in the summary points to the slashdot posting about the airliner that overflew its destination by a bit. THAT summary talks about the crew using their laptops during the flight. However, I am not sure that's the case. In fact, I am led to believe that they had both nodded off. So, while removing personal electronics from the flight deck might be attractive to people who want to remove distractions, in reality it's often useful to have a distraction to keep one alert, particularly during a long period that would otherwise be spent largely in inactivity. If the purpose is to reduce interference with GPS equipment, well, I am not aware of this being a problem. If it really is an issue, presumably the pax will have to forego their MP3 players. Also, my headset (my own) is a nice active noise reducing device. It enhances my performance by allowing me to hear stuff more clearly, and protects my hearing. Will that be banned? More rules, less safety. Rah! Charlie
A system that works is already in place. Maybe GPS based systems can work better, provide fuel cost savings frmo more direct routes, better traffic awareness, etc. Maybe it can, maybe it won't. The problem I ahve with this is the forced compliance and tax of privately used fuel, making the people who DO NOT USE commercial/government regulated flight pay for upgrades to private airlines which are heavily subsidized already. This is a slap in the face to all red blooded Americans and yet another scrap of our Constitution burned.
If this system really has merit, then the airlines would be interested in upgrading their fleet on their own, in coordination with the FAA. I recall GPS based navigation systems enabled a commercial lfight to save something like 4% fuel by flying a more direct and efficient route from Australia to California. So there may be merit in that such a system could offer real cost savings and pay for itself over time.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of
government. It can only exist until the voters discover
that they can vote themselves largess from the public
treasury. From that time on the majority always votes
for the candidates promising the most benefits from the
public treasury, with the results that a democracy
always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed
by a dictatorship.
-- Alexander Fraser Tytler (1742-1813)
I mean from what I understand you use GPS to find out where you are and then have to radio that to air control. Besides it being hacked what happens in the simple case that a GPS unit on a certain plane is broken and reports the wrong location? (I'm guessing there's some sort of "checksum" to prevent this but then again I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't any either.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Sheer foolishness to me. I appreciate the benefits that it has, being a pilot myself, however... There'd be no way to see airplanes without electrical systems (yep, they exist), with failed electrical systems (yep, it happens), or airliners taken over by terrorists that turn the ADS-B transmitters to the "OFF" position. Great idea guys. Then, let's use JUST GPS for navigation when we've already been told that we might not be able to keep the satellite fleet numbers high enough to avoid outages. Oh, and yeah, satellites navigation is much easier to jam by our enemies and can be knocked out by the Sun a lot easier than ground-based. Anyone ever experience RAIM failure? It happens...
Great idea, horrible implementation... :-(
Or, as Robert Heinlein once put it: once the Plebes discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses, it's all over.
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
So what happens to private pilots and civil air patrol when the GOV turns on Selective Availability? .... and how the hell will the FAA know if I'm texting my friends in the left seat of a Cessna 172?
No personal electronic devices? what about the electronic E6B flight computers?
or the many iPhone apps that perform flight planing and navigation calculations?
or my hand held Garmin III+ GPS? etc etc etc
Some aircraft - some of the Embraer models for instance - now have laptops in the cockpit which the pilots are expected to use for flight plans etc and the copy holders have been removed. Guessing it's still the case that the plane is not allowed off the ground without both laptops being fully operational. These are standard, IBM laptops so justifying frisking pilots for their personal electronics when there are a couple of laptops fitted in the cockpit is not "going to fly" if you'll pardon the pun.
It's a little hard to tell, but one of the advantages listed is that aircraft outside areas with radar coverage will be able to transmit position information. So reading between the lines they expect to continue using radar, but replacing its role in the system with more up to date data broadcast by the aircraft.
I'm guessing that they will not throw out radar entirely for primary surveillance. They'll need it to track things that don't transmit their position, like aircraft with failed electronics.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I love how everyone here just damn well knows what's better for the FAA. All the OMG they better have a backup, as if it's Windows Me or something. Look; pilots are very smart people. They aren't going to get in a plane that doesn't have some sort of backup nav. That said, you guys worry about things way too much. I know one-engine props crash more than passenger airliners, but how many of you have been on a dual turbo-prop? They say the other engine will get you all the way to the crash site... And how many of you guys have backup systems for your car's brakes? No? No one? OMG!!! Really? You could skid through an intersection at any time! Look at what Microsoft has done to everyone. As they say, I'm really glad the rest of the world is more reliable than Windows.
GPS will tell you where you are... if you have a GPS.
Radar will tell you what's out there... as long as it reflects RADAR waves.
I'd say RADAR is a whole lot more useful than GPS in avoiding collisions. Do you think that flock of birds has a GPS? How about that meteor?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
It is an astoundingly bad idea to replace the radar network. GPS is not a remote-sensing technology that can be used for aircraft detection. Presumably a transponder will be used in conjunction with GPS locating. Disconnecting the transponder would allow a plane to fly unseen through US airspace. With radar this would only be possible for a stealth or very low-flying aircraft. There is a huge difference between active (radar) and passive (gps transponder) detection systems.
I hope they're not going to rely on the GPS for altitude. I've notice a number of times on my bike that my wrist GPS says I'm going downhill when it's obvious to me that I'm going uphill.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
Most ATC radars are not active, but require planes to have transponders, in order to work. So it can only see transponder-enabled stuff. There are still, and will always be, radars around that are active, which do and always will look for planes without transponders or GPS returns. So I don't see a problem.
Lets not confuse pompous pronouncements with facts. The three most stable governments in the world i.e. the ones that have been in continuous existence the longest are Switzerland, the UK and the USA all democracies. (I can never remember whether we are on the third, fourth, or fifth Reich).
They keep making it more expensive for us private pilots to operate our own aircraft. The airline lobby wants to destroy private aviation, and the gov seems to fall right in with it. Howabout instead of taxing the people who will NEVER use it or see it, tax the airline industry? You don't tax the people of Texas for the new roads in Washington.
So why the hell are we posting that on the internet?!
/. readers sometimes.
Seriously, I question the intelligence of
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Alexander Fraser Tytler
Too bad there wasn't a big [Citation Needed] at the time.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
In dense traffic areas, there is some reason to keep track of aircraft. But other than that, it's none of the government's business where I am. No personal electronics in the cockpit? Sounds innocent, but this has avionics lobby people written all over it. They want all the equipment to be installed (read: more expensive), not carried on board. My hand held gps - aircraft variey - does fine for visual flight operations. I don't need any of this fancy stuff. The "gps radar" installation is going to cost more than a lot of airplanes.
I mean from what I understand you use GPS to find out where you are and then have to radio that to air control.
Not a worry. Position information will be sent as part of the transponder signal, or otherwise automatically reported. Good grief, do you think ATC would stand for something other than a real-time visual display of relative aircraft positions?
I feel sorry for the private pilots who are going to need another expensive transponder in their aircraft. If you have a $5,000. aircraft (they do exist) how'd it be to have to put a $5,000. new piece of equipment in it? (Former small aircraft owner here.)
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
From a CNN poll back in Feb.
"Twenty-five percent of people questioned in the poll say Congress should pass legislation similar to the bills passed by both chambers, with 48 percent saying lawmakers should work on an entirely new bill and a quarter saying Congress should stop all work on health care reform."
This was just the first poll that came up in a quick google but most of the polling data for the last month was similar. Basically all your anecdote shows is that you only hang out with people you agree with which falls into the 25%. The previous AC can point to polling data to back him up.
In all fairness, you're the one posting to slashdot in your homemade Mystique costume...
I can tell from reading the other comments here that my opinions will be in the minority, but I can personally testify how GOOD this system is.
I do flight testing of military aircraft, and we did a demo with several planes and helicopters a couple years ago on the "ADS-B" system, which is a component of NextGen. I've played with it inflight myself, and surveyed many pilots who used it. So you know I'm not blowing smoke, I won an award for a paper about this system at the 2006 Society of Flight Test Engineers annual symposium.
To give you some context about what NextGen and ADS-B do, here's the idea. (I think this description will be useful, since it appears most of the comments here demonstrate a profound lack of knowledge of the system... but this *IS* /. so I'm not surprised.)
Each plane is equipped with a transponder. It receives GPS position, and broadcasts a packet of data once per second (much more frequently than the usual radar sweep of 10-15 seconds) containing identity, position, aircraft type, speed, heading, altitude, and more.
With just a few thousand dollars worth of optional equipment, each plane can also recieve these broadcast packets of information DIRECTLY from other aircraft. In other words, an airplane will see what the other nearby airplanes are reporting too. Right now, a pilot has very little idea what is around his own plane - if the controller doesn't warn him, he doesn't know about it. The existing collision avoidance systems only show a rough approximation of what's in front of you at roughly the same altitude, but it's very error-prone (based on WWII-era-technology directional radio beacons), and hard to find the targets in many cases. But this sytem lets you see everything that the airspace controller is seeing, and almost instantly - once per second. We found the pilots experienced a four-fold increase in their ability to identify conflicting traffic in front of them, and for the first time were aware of overtaking traffic too (faster stuff coming up behind them).
The ground-based system rebroadcasts ALL of its data (including skin-paint targets) on a separate radio frequency, so any airplane (or even ground observers) can learn about everything in the airspace. Along with this data, it also uploads precipitation radar and other weather data, plus airport information. So the pilot has access to a vast amount of new information. And most of the systems have onboard maps with terrain mapping, helping to keep the pilot away from mountains and other dangerous "cumulo-granite" features.
For the pilot himself, the increase in situational awareness was simply amazing. The immediate and crystal clear presentation of the location of all nearby planes meant that he knew everything going on around him. For the ground controller, the much higher frequency updates combined with the much more detailed information about each plane means improved ability to track and direct those airplanes.
There ARE a few downsides, but they're vastly outweighed by the improvements. As some comments indicate, it does depend on GPS. Well, duh. But so do the navigation systems already onboard the airplanes... and cars... and commercial trucks... and ships... and trains. If GPS goes down, there will be much worse problems than this system going away. Despite what it sounds like, the radars are not going away - some will, but there will still be enough for "skin paint" and radar transponder tracking if needed (Congress and the FAA are not totally stupid). As to GPS jammers, note that the airplane is receiving the GPS data, and broadcasting its information on a totally separate frequency to the ground and to other aircraft. So any GPS jamming (since it's localized) will only affect a few airplanes, not the whole system. And by the way, all serious aircraft have multiple navigation systems; jamming GPS won't kill any airplanes, despite the alarmists.
Finally, let's talk about real-world - this system was installed in portions of Alaska around 2000-2001, as a
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
I can tell from comments that not many of you are private pilots. They are paying for this with yet another tax on fuel for private planes. The FAA keeps raising fees on everything associated with having a private plane while giving big breaks to commercial companies. I'm sick of it.
I'm glad they passed the bill, we really need an updated system. The new stuff gives more accurate info, and (supposedly) will include very accurate weather information (for free) similar to what XM sells for something like $500/yr. Old-fashioned radar coverage works poorly in hilly / mountainous terrain, and gps navigation allows direct flight which will save time, fuel and bucks. The old-time systems are disappearing (NDBs are becoming a rare novelty - and good riddance, I say). I'm also pleased that this doesn't seem to have included 'user fees' for general aviation, which would serve as a deterrent to private flight, and make it more expensive to stay in practice, and more dangerous as a result.
Having said all that, I AM disappointed at the general direction of being tracked and my whereabouts logged with even more consistency and precision by some government entity. Big brother is smacking his lips over this, but at least THIS time we actually get some convenience for our trade off of privacy.
I live in a radar 'dead' zone, and don't have to worry about the FAA watching when occasionally buzzing a neighbor; guess I'd better enjoy it while I can.
Not really, it only needs to be accurate enough, and the errors must be common. So if a sattelite is off course and positions a plane 100 meters aside, the other planes in the vicinity must have the same error and it will not pose any problems.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
I'll be interested to see if they actually reconcile the bill with the House version. And I'll be even more interested to see how many Republicans vote yes. I mean, they just spent over a month telling us how corrupt and totalitarian using reconciliation is. . . .
"I disagree with you" does not equal "flamebait."
You might want to retake your civics classes -- I don't think you understand what a democracy is.
The USA is a Constitutional Republic, not a democracy.
The UK is a Constitutional Monarchy (with a parliamentary implementation of executive powers). It's essentially a Republic.
Switzerland's referendum process makes it more of a democracy. Their current constitution was only adopted in 1999 with direct democracy (through referendums) being a bit over 120 years old or so...
So, I hardily agree with you. "Lets not confuse pompous pronouncements with facts.".
Excellent simplification - colloquial language, no sense lost. Thanks, RAH :)
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
It's called "putting it in a nutshell". The meaning is preserved, but you can get it much faster thanks to simpler language and a well-known historical reference.
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
For the sake of safety and security, why don't we use both? It isn't like they are mutually exclusive... Then if there is a failure, you have a, you know, a backup plan? Not to mention we have these new fangled things called computers, that are like, really good at doing calculations really fast... so you could like correlate both systems to each other and increase the accuracy of both likely. I am already assuming that they are going to use base stations to auto correct the positions from known values also. Anyway the more redundancy the better I say.
Oh -- and to back up the GP's point, the US has been stripping the constitution of its protections our founders provided to slow or stop popular "passions" from dramatically changing our government quickly (see Federalist 10). The 17th amendment is a prime example -- and is marching us closer and closer to a direct democracy -- and our days *WILL* be numbered.
Personal electronics ban is trying to regulate stupidity. Won't help, it will only hurt those of us who don't fly large aircraft which have working toys. I think Congress needs to do a bit of flying during the summer in singles or light twins while dodging thunderstorms with no onboard wx RADAR and see if that smartphone (or netbook) is worth it's weight in gold for near live RADAR updates.
A lot of people believe that God created the Earth 4,000 years ago. That doesn't mean it's true.
In replacing the existing radar systems with GPS, this seems a very stupid thing to do. Clearly, the safety and security of the travelling public should be first and foremost. While GPS seems to have proven itself for a myriad of applications, does it mean we place all of our trust in that system of satellites? A more logical approach would be to merge radar and GPS to have a system that can tolerate the failure of either method and provide fault tolerance in the process.
Imagine a scenario where a plane is being directed to fly along a particular path that is being tracked by GPS and the radar system does not identify the object appropraitely? I more intensive triangulation can be done to determine the true location of the flight and take appropriate action. Ideally, this could be logged as a exception automatically while adjusting the Air Traffic Controlling system information to the most accurate data. There is true inherent value in having two separate and distinct processes that can maintain survivability independently, and the odds of a random occurrence taking out both at the same time (short of an engineered attack) would be highly improbable.
In addition, radar is more of an absolute method of measurement, meaning that detecting an object can be done without requiring any action (or equipment) being used by the object being tracked. I think that if GPS rules, then that will be the first thing that terrorists will assume absolute control over in a plane.
This quote bugs me every time it's trotted out. Why? Because it doesn't consider the alternative forms of government. An absolute monarchy? Monarchs are notorious for voting themselves largess from the public treasury that bankrupts the rest of the country, and subsequently losing most of their power to aristocrats. Then the aristocrats do the same thing. Military dictatorships pump money into the military and bankrupt the country. Oligopolies are no different. The list of governments who've bankrupted their countries and themselves is very, very long. As soon as a person or a group of people realize they have their hands on the levers of power and thus the nation's funds, they'll milk it for all it's worth.
Rubbish. A Democracy is markedly different from a Republic, notably in that there is zero corruption in Democracy, but a higher penalty for having troops out in the field than in a Republic.
Just one more turn... honest this time... is that the sun coming up?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Cute, but in the case of the US (and to a lesser degree, the UK), our Constitutional Republic protects against the pitfalls of democracy. Yes, it's a republic formed on democratic principles, but our freedoms and liberties are protected by a republican implementation of government.
If you want to speak intelligently on the American Republic -- at least read Federalist 10, 52 and 56. Making snide negative comments do nothing but display your ignorance.
You might try to make the liberal vs. illiberal democracy argument (in which it could be argued that the US is moving from a liberal democracy to an illiberal one), but that is not what the GP quote referenced. It was speaking directly of the people voting themselves stuff.
Hell, even Franklin said: "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
A lot of people believe grass is green. That doesn't mean it's false.
Sunspots are an indicator of activity, but don't actually affect the earth. The only reason sunspots are even used for comparisons is that there's more than a century of historical record.
The solar-related problems with GPS are CMES that take out the satellites or radio bursts that overwhelm the signal.
And we have no idea at this point when we'll start seeing the same levels of activity as the past solar maximums ... but we current consensus is that the past few years have been abnormally low, and thus GPS may not remain so reliable.*
*in general, that is ... my GPS has some issue with the antenna getting a static charge, and just sucks, so it's always unreliable.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
-- Alexander Fraser Tytler (1742-1813)
Spurious quote. It first appeared during the 2000 presidential campaign. There's a long tradition of such forged quotes (see: the "beat the drums of war" quote from "Julius Caesar" as an example from the other end of the political spectrum).
More cogently, it's a partial quote of the original forgery, which was titled "The Fall of the Athenian Democracy." That fuller statement is most probably based on Plato, from whose odious "The Republic" its "Tytler" cycle (from bondage to democracy and back again) is derived. The thing is, Plato was commenting on Classic-era Greek democracies (such as that of Athens), which were direct, rather than representative, democracies. There simply is no equivalent form of government in the modern world, just as there was no equivalent form in Tytler's day. In fact, there were only three representative democracies in existence during Tytler's life: those of the U.S., France, and Iceland - whose Althing is the oldest functioning parliament in the world.
All of which is by way of observing that to have modded the parent to plus-anything "insightful" is more indicative of the modder's political leanings than any merit inherent in the post itself - which consists exclusively of a partial quote of a blatant forgery attributed to a sixteenth-century Scot most noted for his 1790 "Essay on the Principles of Translation." (Nota bene: the popular "Great nations rise and fall" quote is also frequently attributed to Tytler - although it, like "The Fall of the Athenian Democracy" passage truncated above, is nowhere to be found in his many extant writings.)
Check out my novel.
The US is a Constitutional Republic. Its also a Democratic Republic. Its also a Federal Republic. Its also a Representative Democracy.
Republic and Democracy aren't exclusive sets.
No, its not "essentially a Republic". One of the essential feature of a Republic isn't elected representatives, its not having a monarch. Monarchy and Republic are, unlike Republic and Democracy, mutually exclusive.
However, while being a Constitutional Monarchy, the UK is also, like the US, a Representative Democracy (and, unlike the US, a Parliamentary Democarcy.)
More precisely, no one who knows what they are talking about thinks that being a Republic excludes also being a Democracy. The two are definitely distinct, just like being, say, green is distinct from being a car. But just because green and car are distinct doesn't mean you can't have something that is both green and a car.
This is a typical example of those without a voice paying for services enjoyed by those who can afford lobbyists. This new system will be paid for with a tax on fuel sold to private pilots. Folks like your next door neighbor who takes his little Cessna out on weekends. However, this system is needed due to heavier and heavier commercial air traffic in Class A and B airspace and commercial traffic over the ocean (both of which are areas which seldom see private pilots).
So, if you can afford a small army of lobbyists and brib... I mean campaign contributions, you can get a law passed that taxes private citizens to raise money to pay for infrastructure necessitated by business activity. This would be like placing a high road-use tax on private automobiles while allowing commercial trucking to use the roads without road-use taxes. Completely backwards.
I'll say it again -- read the thread. What the GP was referring to was a quote about democracies. Our form of government (in the US) was chosen specifically because our founders feared democracies. Read Federalist 10.
and
You can say that our republic is a liberal democracy -- But it's just a term to describe the type of REPUBLIC it is, not what type of DEMOCRACY it is. And I would argue that it's more of an illiberal democracy today, anyway.
A lot of people believe grass is green.
Heretic! Everyone knows that the One True Colour of Grass is brown!
(Maybe I should water my lawn more often.)
One advantage to GPS navigation is it will allow more aircraft to fly to their destination "as the crow flies" as opposed to being forced to fly established ATC corridors. This saves on both fuel and flight time.
Green does not describe what the car does -- it describes qualities of the car.
Likewise, in this frame of reference, democracy does not describe the type of government, but a quality the government possesses. Republic describes the type of government. And in this case, democracy is describing the type of republic.
I see your confusion. Since "Democracy" is ALSO a type of government (a noun), you are missing it's use as an adjective. Much like Orange. It describes the color of a fruit -- and could also BE a fruit.
The GP on this post was talking about Democracy (as a form of government) and it's pitfalls. A poster stated that the US (among others) is one of the longest lasting stable governments in the world and as a Democracy, the GPs quote was essentially hogwash. I tried to clear up the confusion by pointing out we are NOT a Democracy, but a Republic.
And to use some of your words: "More precisely, no one who knows what they are talking", would also know that our founders did not TRUST Democracy and feared. Which is why we are a Republic. A simple reading of several key Federalist papers or Madison's notes from the 1787 Constitutional Convention would plainly show that.
Ok... you got me there. I live in LA (land of only water your grass twice a week). And my lawn is more yellow than green.
Uhh...seriously? I mean...for real? OK, so none of these is a direct democracy, as per ancient Athens, but each of the three has a democratic form of government, albiet mitigated by the essential iniquities engendered by socio-economic divisions.
No, it was chosen because our founders feared what are variously known as "direct", or "pure" democracies.
I would suggest that you do so.
You quoted this line:
Note the qualifier "such" in that sentence? It means the author is talking about a particular kind of democracy. Which subset? Well, lets read the two sentences before the one you quote:
You go on with:
Well, know, that's wrong. If I say its a "liberal democracy", then "liberal" is obviously describing the kind of "democracy" it is. Just as if I say, more relevantly to this threat, that it is a "representative democracy", "representative" is telling what kind "democracy" it is.
If I say, on the other hand, that it is a democratic republic, then "democratic" is saying what kind of "republic" it is.
A system can be a "liberal democracy" (and even a "representative democracy") without being a republic, and it can be a republic without being any kind of democracy.
I find it sad that citizens of what is one of the first modern democracies stubbornly insist that their country is not a democracy, using definitions that have been already outdated a century ago.
Are civics classes in America really that bad in what they teach?
Oh, and the US? It's a federal constitutional democratic republic. And UK is a constitutional democratic monarchy. It sure as hell isn't a republic - reserve powers are still vested with the monarch.
Bring on the flamebait mods for treading on the American way of life, call me a tree-loving hippie communist global warming conspirator, I don't care.
I'll just say that freedom of movement across large distances, such as the continental US, is a good thing for the everyman to be able to do. It's a sign of egalitarianism that not just the super rich aristocrats can afford to go to the opposite coast for business or pleasure. Everyone should have this freedom. It's sad that some people would like to deprive their fellow man of it.
The existing surveillance radar system isn't necessary for safe IFR operations. There are nonradar procedures. Every controller and every IFR pilot knows them. Once widely used, they became less relevant in the 1970s as radar coverage improved to the point where most of major terminals and the route structure in the U.S. were covered by radar. Outages still take place however and the nonradar procedures are still used.
In essence the nonradar system involves separating aircraft by time, altitude, or route, and relies on periodic position reports from pilots, at standardized locations. The position reports follow a standard sequence and would read something like "United 123 Gopher at 1851Z, 17,000 feet Halfway at 58Z, Rochester next" where "United 123" is the flight identifier, "Gopher" is the location name, 1851Z is the time over the location (possibly a minute or two in the past due to delays in reporting if the radio channel is busy), 17,000 feet is the altitude of the aircraft, "Halfway" is the next reporting point, 58Z is the pilot's estimate of the aircraft's arrival time over that point (in minutes after the hour), and "Rochester" is the subsequent reporting point.
Radar is a great tool. It improves capacity, reduces pilot and controller workload, and allows for random routes. However, it would be a mistake to think that aviation depends on it or on any automated replacement for it.
The technologies that made IFR flight possible were the gyro systems that allowed the aircraft to be controlled without a horizon reference, and radionavigation. Radio systems that permitted pilot-controller communication came next. Radar was first deployed at congested airports to improve capacity, and it was not until much later that route surveillance radar and ubiquitous transponder use became the norm.
Notoriously unreliable, imprecise, jammable. I hope there is a backup plan! Like, keep the existing radars operational.
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
1) The fact that e.g. the US still exists does not mean that it isn't going downhill (which it is)
2) I'm fairly certain that there are/have been governments that are not democracies that have existed for at least as long, although I'm too lazy to check right now.
3) The ancient greeks had a democracy - where did that get them eventually? (hint: nowhere special)
My kingdom for mod points.
I want my Cowboyneal
I would think this actually makes it easier to figure out who's not on the up and up.. There's no way the military and DHS will give up primary radar as a security device, and all they'd need to do is compare the two data sets to find people flying with transponders off. What I do see this impacting is personal aviation.. I may be paranoid, but it seems like one more way to take away a freedom by forcing somebody to buy something they can't afford...
Probably if some Rightwing African Nutjob was arguing that being able to travel across their continent at a drop of hat was a great thing and sign of egalitarianism, and it was your life (let alone liberty and freedom) that was on the line as a consequence, you wouldn't feel the same way.
This is known as the Tytler Cycle. This quote is rather insightful with respect to the fact that people "as a whole" tend to have a lack of "enlightened self interests" and just "self interests" - basically, it assumes poor judgement by people "as a whole" which, it seems, is exactly what I see happening. The "enlightened" aspect that would be needed to prevent this cycle is not easily present in large groups. However, it is not likely that the quote is by Mr. Tytler - or at least no evidence of that can be found.
Citing the Congressional schedule for "days off" is like citing only the meetings on your calendar at work. If you're not in a meeting, you're not working, right?
Not exactly. Members of Congress are working pretty much any time they are not sleeping. When Congress is not in session they are in their DC offices working, or in their districts or states, meeting with constituents, raising money, and basically campaigning 24/7/365. This is a good thing--it is the system of accountability.
Almost every time a vote is taken, everyone knows if the bill is going to pass ahead of time. The vote counts on each side are monitored by the whips (a leadership position) on each side. So yeah, if a bill is going to pass unanimously, you might not see 100-0 on the vote record. It doesn't mean your member of Congress was taking his or her free military jet to Tahiti.
BTW, government aviation only covers official government travel, for instance when Senators go to visit troops oversees or foreign leaders. When members of Congress fly back and forth from their district or state, they fly commercial like the rest of us.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Which is why I always chose Communism - I could war with my neighbors without having congress sue for peace (and right before I was going to take their capital...)
If you want to argue about Federalist 10, I'll be happy to. But I would suggest you miss the point. I'm not trying to be coy -- but I'm well grounded on the history and material here. The sentence you cite is Madison essentially showing when a Democracy can work and isn't subject to problems of faction.
I'll focus here:
Not really. You are getting bogged down with the language as if you were in an English class. Navigating political terminology is much like trying to navigate Microsoft terminology. "What do you mean that machine spiting out paper isn't a printer, but a "PRINTING DEVICE"? And whats the printer then? The DRIVER? WTF?"
A representative democracy *IS* a Republic. It's describing the TYPE of republic. You cannot have a representative democracy that is NOT a republic -- but a republic does NOT need to be any type of democracy. Much like you cannot have a Jack Russel that is not a dog. It's describing the TYPE of dog.
The problem we're having here is that Democracy is also a type of government in and of itself. And you're getting bogged down with the word Democracy -- when it's a noun and when it's an adjective -- and how these words and phrases are used when discussing politics.
Example: The US can be called a "Republican Democracy". It's true -- and I've seen it used, but it's linguistically clumsy to say so. A "Republican Democracy" defines a type of REPUBLIC which has democratic qualities. Not a type of Democracy which has Republican qualities. Look it up.
One might also call the US a "representative democracy". It's been used, but has usually been qualified and/or corrected. It's not a simple definition. Example:
In my opinion, linguistically it's oxymoronic to define something as "representative democracy" or "republican democracy" -- but they defines a certain type of governance. And these phrases is where you are having your problems. You need to looke at phrases like "Republican Democracy" as a single word rather than "Democracy being modified by Republican" like you were in an English class. And see it as "Doberman Pincher" -- defining a type of dog, not "Dobermen being modified by pincher".
Yes. Uhh... seriously. For real. They are not democratic forms of government, but republican forms of government (with the possible exception of Switzerland) which incorporate democratic principles. It is inaccurate to say they are Democracies which incorporate republican principles. A democracy, by the very definition you provide is direct governance by the people. A republic, on the other hand can use democratic principles in choosing representatives.
I'm not going to repeat myself. Read through this thread. I'll leave you with this (as well as my agreement that apparently civics classes in America really are that bad in what they teach):
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands"
There is no contradiction between "democracy" and "republic" (except, apparently, in the heads of a few confused Americans), so quoting something that says that U.S. is a republic doesn't disprove my point. No-one disputes that it is a republic. It is also, however, a democracy. Open any modern dictionary of English, and look up the definitions for yourself.
Sure, if you force private air travel to be only affordable to the super rich, then they will only be affordable to the super rich. However, *you* would be creating that situation artificially.
Small aircraft are the only reasonable way to get to an awful lot of places, unless you were prefer things taking weeks to get places because everything has to travel by car to a port, and then boat to another one, and then back on yet another car.
Personally, I would rather not artificially distort markets just because I decided I don't like something. Just because Europe decided to make fuel an order of magnitude more expensive than places that don't tax it doesn't make them right.
Neither Dem or Rep is pro-smaller-government. Just in case you missed the last 100 years of politics.
our Constitutional Republic protects against the pitfalls of democracy
Pop quiz: what's the French system?
You might want to broaden your look before you start making up definitions out of whole cloth.
Lastly, your Franklin quote actually proves that the US system of government is identical to that of a democracy, as it suffers from the exact same flaw: mob rule.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
While I disagree with change of focus to the writings which inspired Jefferson to write the DoI, I certainly would like to see focus shift from Jefferson to Adams and Hamilton on our founding. Not to remove Jefferson completely, but it seems to me that Adams got it write when he said:
He, certainly more than Jefferson, had far more influence over our Constitution. Simply reading the 1780 Constitution of MA (written almost entirely by Adams himself) and Adams' A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States will show it's apparent.
Yet we focus on Jefferson almost entirely -- And Franklin, and Washington(I agree here). But Why not anyone else? What about Morris? He was spoke more often than most attendees at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Yet if anybody is asked "Who was Gouverneur Morris", you'll get blank stares.
When your plane is going down do you want your pilot unable to download a patch through his or her cell phone to repair the plane. Nope your cell phone isn't allowed into the cockpit. Probably what happened on Lost. No reception!
From the link:
1. government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.
The presence of elected representational bodies and offices does not preclude the presence of definitional democracy within a state. Nor does the presence of rebublican elements supercede it. The proper presence and application of citizen action and public support can affect any change within any of these nations, whether that be through the direct application of referndum, or through the free election of representatives, thus making their governments democratic in nature.
Hold on...let me go back for a second. Did you just say..."A republic, on the other hand can use democratic principles in choosing representatives"? How is a representative government, which operates on democratic prinicples, not a democratic form of government?
If I wanted to argue about Federalist 10, I probably would have been the one to introduce it into the debate. I'm just pointing out that the bit you clip out of it doesn't support your point. Especially if you read the two sentences preceding it.
When you make a an argument that is inherently semantic ("The US is a republic, not a democracy"), you shouldn't be suprised that the correct technical use of terms becomes an issue.
Wrong. Some representative democracies are also republics. Some are rather emphatically not republics. The set of representative democracies overlaps the set of republics, but is not a subset of it.
Yes, you can. For instance, All 16 of the Commonwealth Realms of which Elizabeth II is the monarch are representative democracies, and none of them are republics.
Yes, its quite clear that you don't understand the meaning of most of the terms used to describe governments.
In all the time I spent getting a political science degree (and before and since), I've never seen the phrase "Republican Democracy" used anywhere except in your post. I'd prefer not to look at phrases like that at all.
But I can assure that "democratic republic", when used to describe a government -- by people who actually know what they are talking about, even outside of "English class" -- is "republic" modified by "democratic", "representative democracy" is "democracy" modified by "representative", "federal republic" is "republic" modified by "federal", and "constitutional republic" is "republic" modified by "constitutional". And all of them are terms that apply to the United States.
Actually no you are wrong.
In many places like Alaska private aircraft are the only effective way of transport. They are also used a lot for air ambulances and other such things.
BTW avgas is NOT cheap even by EU standards. Those that fly for a hobbie pay dearly for it and it is no worse than people that have a private boat. Private planes are very rare in the US and as far as their carbon footprint they are not even on the map.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
As somebody who knows and works with several private pilots, that statement is utterly false. Private aircraft are certainly not cheap, but they are definitely not out of reach of the middle class.
Just because *you* don't like them doesn't make those that do wrong. Do you have any statistics on GA fuel usage vs commercial vs automotive that I'm not aware of? I simply don't understand why you're hostile to general aviation. I certainly can agree with you on the over-reliance on commercial air travel. A better utilized rail system would do us some good here-- but private aircraft are most often flown as a hobby by regular people.
+1 Disagree
Interesting citation re democracy: http://www.lorencollins.net/tytler.html
Nothing is foolproof, fools are too ingenious. - Murphy
that the senate is actually doing something without a single senator holding things up...and addressing a technological issue is a double plus for me. Just sayin'.
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
I wonder if the timing of this will hurt the deployment of Galileo GPS systems?
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. - Will Rogers
I'm going to assume you are European, as thats typically the only geographic area ignorant enough to make such a statement ...
We have single states (equivalent to what Europeans refer to as countries) that are nearly half the size of the entire continent you live on. I could drive from one end of your content and back, and still have driven a shorter distance than to my brothers house. I could drive from Iraq to Spain in probably less time than to my brothers house (just looking at the map, probably not true do to several large seas and mountain ranges in the way).
Our 'inefficient cars' are because we use them to travel large distances and don't feel like doing it in a card board box thats not big enough for us to actually fit in without a leg hanging out the window. You have bullet train rides between countries that are shorter than my wifes daily drive to work. We are one of the largest countries in the world, no shit we have a big foot print. You can fit almost your entire continent in about 3 of our states combined ... out of 50. We can literally drop your entire continent in areas of the united states that no one visits and we wouldn't even notice you there until we drove through or the smell started whafting out to the rest of us. Flying in the US is still cheaper than driving longer distances, naturally, thats not surprising otherwise why would their be an airline industry? Our fuel isn't taxed to all hell and back because we have designed ourselves to be a nation that drives. Most of Europe on the other hand does its best to prevent people from driving because you simply couldn't handle all of your citizens driving. Too many old cities with small roads, too many roads that simply couldn't handle the traffic of that many cars. You are a urban population. 90% of your people live in a handful of cities so public transportation is amazingly cheap per person since its all so confined. We are not, we are a rural population. The majority of our people are scattered across the nation in little villages and towns.
In short, you have no concept of living anywhere except your little neck of the woods. You are what Europeans typically like to refer to a 'ignorant American', except replace American with European and pull that big stick of smug out of your ass cause you're just showing everyone how clueless you are.
There is no flame in your post, just ignorance. You aren't a tree loving hippie communist so much as you're just an idiot who has no concept of what life may be like outside his apartment. You are only a tree-loving hippie communist global warming conspirator in your own mind, it doesn't count when you have no choice but to do it that way because your civilization would fall apart over night if you didn't act that way. Anything Europeans do thats 'good' for the environment still doesn't make up for the damage done over the past few thousand years with your filthy cities and dumping sewage into your own water supplies.
Get off your high horse, you aren't nearly as special or bad ass as you think you are. Turns out, when it comes right down to it, people of the world are all pretty much identical, regardless of how much better than everyone else you think you are.
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'Monarchs are notorious for voting themselves largess from the public treasury that bankrupts the rest of the country"
Name one this century, or last.
I would never swap australias constituional monarchy for the US system.
I much prefer our model where the head of state
is merely a formal position with no power really, and the leader is selected by the vote of the current elected goverment.
We still have our senate as a house of review, but do not have the crazy situation where one man, a president can overrule the wishes of the voters as expressed at an election, and vice versa.
I'm afraid I won't be able to limit myself to just one. Remember, we're talking absolute monarchs, otherwise what I said makes no sense. Here's a quote about the Empress Dowager Cixi, who was the supreme ruler of China until 1908:
"During Cixi's time, she used her power to accumulate vast quantities of money, bullion, antiques and jewelry, using the revenues of the state as her own. By the end of her reign she had amassed a huge personal fortune, stashing away some eight and a half million pounds sterling in London banks. The lavish palaces, gardens and lakes built by Cixi were hugely extravagant at a time when China was verging on bankruptcy."
If you want a more contemporary example, do some reading on the only absolute monarch left: His Royal Highness, King Mswati III of Swaziland.
If we go further back in history, when absolute monarchs were more common, the examples come a'tumblin'. Under Phillip II, Spain went bankrupt multiple times. Louis XIV drained the treasury of France: "Some estimates suggest that by the end of Louis' reign half of France's annual revenue went to maintaining Versailles." The Emperors of Russia and Austria bankrupted their respective empires - and ultimately lost their empires - by entering WWI. I'm sure if I knew more history, I could dredge up more examples. If you want, I'll make the attempt.
Each plane is equipped with a transponder. It receives GPS position, and broadcasts a packet of data once per second (much more frequently than the usual radar sweep of 10-15 seconds) containing identity, position, aircraft type, speed, heading, altitude, and more. With just a few thousand dollars worth of optional equipment, each plane can also recieve these broadcast packets of information DIRECTLY from other aircraft.
When the ability to receive this data becomes universal, couldn't we do away with ground controllers altogether? Because all it would take are some simple "right of way" rules and a small amount of computing power for each plane to autonomously compute and execute the slight course adjustments needed to avoid other aircraft, and even to avoid intersecting another aircraft's wake vortices.
The ground-based system rebroadcasts ALL of its data (including skin-paint targets) on a separate radio frequency, so any airplane (or even ground observers) can learn about everything in the airspace.
This gave me some pause. Couldn't the information be used by an upgraded MANPAD to ensure it connects with its target? Flares and chaff would no longer be a distraction for this kind of MANPAD.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
We have single states (equivalent to what Europeans refer to as countries) that are nearly half the size of the entire continent you live on. I could drive from one end of your content and back, and still have driven a shorter distance than to my brothers house.
Yes, you have big states. Congratulations. However, that doesn't mean it makes sense to take a job 1000 miles from your home and drive there every day, or move 3000 miles away and expect your family to visit every week.
You have bullet train rides between countries that are shorter than my wifes daily drive to work.
Perhaps that's another difference in ideology, but if someone I knew took a job and commuted hundreds of miles to another country on a daily basis, I'd call them insane.
You are a urban population. [...] We are not, we are a rural population. The majority of our people are scattered across the nation in little villages and towns.
I added up the numbers found in this Wikipedia article and found that 254,734,040 people in the United States live in what is defined as:
"one or more adjacent counties or county equivalents that have at least one urban core area of at least 50,000 population, plus adjacent territory that has a high degree of social and economic integration with the core as measured by commuting ties."
This is 84% of the estimated 301,621,157 people living in the U.S. in 2008. (source) The United States are very much an urban population - although these numbers include suburbs, too. Perhaps I should say suburban population.
You are a urban population. 90% of your people live in a handful of cities
I'm not going to do the math, but I'll reckon you're not that far off - given the 84% the U.S. scored. However, if 90% of the people work in large cities, it makes sense for 90% of the people to live in the actual city as well. The American model of surrounding cities with suburbs where everyone gets up in the morning to drive separate SUVs into the city makes little sense to me.
we have designed ourselves to be a nation that drives
You have designed yourselves to be a nation that doesn't care about the consequences of driving such distances, and in many cases flat out denies them.
Anything Europeans do thats 'good' for the environment still doesn't make up for the damage done over the past few thousand years
First of all, that's unfair. The United States have only existed for a couple hundred years, and most current Americans have European roots anyway, so anything before the 18th century is on all of us.
Second, as this chart clearly shows, burning of fossil fuels practically didn't start until well into the 19th century, and it didn't really take off until the 1950s. And I don't think we need to discuss the United States' part in this.
In short, you have no concept of living anywhere except your little neck of the woods. You are what Europeans typically like to refer to a 'ignorant American', except replace American with European and pull that big stick of smug out of your ass cause you're just showing everyone how clueless you are.
And I should just ignore how clueless you are? All of my statements are based on rationality. Yours are based on laziness and comfort.
And while I'll admit the U.S. are an amazing country with many great achievements, and I can't imagine the world without it, it does have significant shortcomings, and failing to see that would be a sign of ignorance us Europeans can only dream of. As the most powerful country in the world, it's your task to better that world.
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
Interesting rant. I take issue with the following:
You have designed yourselves to be a nation that doesn't care about the consequences of driving such distances, and in many cases flat out denies them.
We designed our oldest cities around horses and wagons. Not so long after, we added trains to the mix. When both of those largely left, chiefly due to the rise of the automobile, we were already well on our way to having roads suitable (ie: wide, flat, and non-muddy enough) for automobile traffic in and between our cities.
Earlier today, I drove beside an old interurban line for a dozen or so miles. The tracks are long gone, and even much of the ballast stone looks to have been reclaimed. For the most part, all that remains is a long row of not-so-old trees and an old raised grade where the line used to be. (Interestingly, the area is flush with Amish, and it's still very common to see a horse-and-cart in those parts.)
But the interurbans used to be a primary means of transit between cities large and small. When cars came along, people just stopped using the train so much. Rural roads continued to be improved, first to help agriculture (by far the largest and most important industry we had at the time), and only later to help cars get on their way. So, eventually, the interurbans disappeared -- not by willful intent, but because nobody was using them since folks were instead using cars.
So I guess my point is this: It wasn't really a design decision. It was just an evolution, helped along by the circumstances of the time in our particular case, and the free market at work.
Your circumstances in Europe were rather different, and have led to different conclusions: Many of your cities existed long before the first White Man found himself on this continent.
*shrug*
It's no surprise, really, that things are different between here and there in terms of transportation. But it's not something motivated by malice or derision, as you seem to imply. It's just the way things are.
Kid-proof tablet..
Interesting citation re democracy: http://www.lorencollins.net/tytler.html
Interesting, indeed.
For those too lazy to RTFA, Collins has tracked the "Fatal Sequence" (aka the "Tytler Sequence") to a series of speeches given in the mid-20th Century by one Henning W. Prentis, Jr., then-president of Armstrong Cork Company. The origin of "The Fall of the Athenian Democracy" and its variations remains obscure - but it is a certainty that Lord Tytler is not its author, and a virtual certainty that it, too, originated in the 20th Century, not the 16th.
Nicely researched, well-cited article. Thanks for the pointer!
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