I was reading your editorial (Knee jerks: The selling of fear in America, Nov. 3 issue) with interest and approval until the part about populists and socialist media – then I sort of choked.
It is true that most of our fellow aviators are wildly conservative, and love to hear generalizations about socialist media, but every now and then you will find a moderate or even an avowed liberal in the cockpit.
I think you would do well to leave out the occasional denigrating phrase – especially today, when we have Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh practically running the politics of the right from your “socialist media.”
I admit to being a wild-eyed liberal in many things. I also admit to having watched hours of Limbaugh, just so I could carry on a conversation with the average first officer during a six-hour Boston turn. I read Ann Coulter and Bob Woodward. I study Posner and John Stuart Mill. Most of my friends are rock-solid conservatives and I can appreciate their viewpoint in most instances. (I did not see their point with respect to preemptive war, and still don’t.) Our media is many things, but to attribute to it a blanket “socialist” tag is most likely incorrect.
Speaking of socialism, one fine example of how we benefit is the federal largesse for things related to general aviation. If I had to pay full value for every touch and go I do in a day, I would have to sell the Cub and take up some other hobby. If health care had half as many government subsidies as does general aviation, we indeed would have socialized health care. That’s my opinion, of course.
Otherwise, GAN is a fine publication. Keep up the good work.
BOB TURNER
San Diego