They Are Closing the Waters to Everyone!

[FSMike]

When Jimmy Carter was POTUS he took a vacation on Sea Island, Ga., which inconvenienced the residents of Sea Island, St. Simons Island, and Brunswick.
He solved the problem the next time by vacationing on Sapelo Island.
He and his family had lots of privacy in a wonderful place, and nobody was inconvenienced. Even the local crabbers still ran their trap lines.

[Thorne]

Originally Posted by Captain Bill

They close the freeways for maybe 30 minutes each side of the time the president passes. They don't close it for 2 freaking weeks.

Oh, I see you actually haven't been in a city where a president is visiting.

30 min. ??? how about most of the day, and in a city like Austin, Texas that roles out to actually most of 2 days and that does not include the advanced team and it's mess and the post team and their mess.

As was stated it't been going on for a long time.

However if you want to talk about a real mess, try south by south west in Austin.

Try 3 weeks.

[SailingFan]

Originally Posted by K_V_B

Come to Switzerland, where we don't have a head of state, and where members of the government will just take a train to work...

Ok, someone has to say it. It may get deleted, but my father and his, and those before them, would roll over in their graves if I did not say this to assist some of our international brethren with this issue. That said, here goes;

KVB, your system and ideas in this won't work here. The political structures of some of our cities are probably larger than the entire population of your nation.

Our homeless, a very minor percentage of our population, outnumber your population several times over, and that is in just a single state. Pick your choice of American state, likely even the relatively empty ones.

Your system of government is different, and the American civilian gun owning population can beat your army, aircraft, and all in open conflict if only because we have so many of them, again, far surpassing your entire population. We may well have more reservists than you have entire population.

Your legal system is not like ours, your property rights and inheritance laws differ, your GDP... no comparison whatever.

You have no agricultural similarities, you have no industrial similarities, your education system is different, your country has not bled like ours has in wartime since the time of America's founding, and your economic processes, taxation, and job training programs are not the same or even close. Your land use is different as are your water supply methods, power grids, and hunting and recreation rules are different. I am not saying any of your systems are less optimal for your people, I am saying they are different than ours, and ours is most viable for our people, or we would change them, which is something that is playing out in these election cycles and the discussion you are seeing in the few fair media outlets (and there are precious few of those, another thing that is sorting itself through public input via advertising dollars).

Essentially, Switzerland is nothing at all like the United States, in any regard.

Please don't be offended, but you have no idea whatsoever about what will or won't work here if you have not lived here, simply because you don't have a real and common (or even close) frame of reference that is based in living here, other than what you see in the slanted media and in revisionist history texts and rumors of other folks who don't live here and perhaps what you may read on the Internet (which itself can be dubious as a source of information).

This is a problem that many outside the US have, and they just don't honestly realize how large this area and population is, now how our systems are supposed to function, or even how they actually do function in real life. You may not even realize that we have more dialects than any country on the planet. Of ENGLISH, no less... What language does someone speak elsewhere? Yes, we have that here too, and in more dialects than the native country as well, due to our melting pot nature.

As small as Switzerland actually is, there is no possible way you could conceive of how fun it would be to hike across this continent. The Australians would get this, as their country is, I think, even larger in land mass, but they probably have a closer idea of America than most European nations do, especially those that are frankly very small in land mass, simply because we do have a common source stock in terms of how our populations arrived on our respective continents.

Again, I mean no disrespect to anyone, I just wish people would consider these things before they tell us how much we need to use their systems of operations in the United States.

I visited many European nations, including England and multiple locales in the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and South America, and while I found each visit or stay offered some incredibly wonderful cultural discoveries and a few negatives as well (as any would), I cannot tell you a single location that was able to provide a person on the street to me who understood how America actually functioned in real life for her citizens. Not a one.

However, I was able to find MANY (all, in fact) who got their information from films, rumors, jokes, media, and the Internet. I found a few who had visited but a single city or two, or perhaps stopped at a port, but that was it. Even what constituted humor was vastly different.

That is NOT a viable means of learning about a country and her culture, especially one as diverse as America has, no more than I would understand every intricacy of those other nations. The difference is that I would not pretend to know how those other countries needed to run their own nations. Nor would I state that they needed to do X or Y because it works so well for us here. It won't work there because there is not here. Our formative basis is different. Our cultures are different. Sometimes I wish our Democrat Progressive Liberal politicians would learn that as well. We are not the EU. We won't suffer becoming the EU, either.

That said, through cruising, we can all experience a TON of cultural diversity from all sorts of countries, and IF we visit every nation and locale we can, we eventually will realize what America is, as it is a melting pot of all those nations and their cultures, something unique in the world. If you want to see multiple cultures in one nation, come here and see them, we have little sections of self-selected cultures all over the place, often they are within blocks of one another in our largest cities, and you can get a sample of the culture and food of each from one section to the next. Better yet, go to a general town someplace here, and see what we have done with that blend when cultures mingled, gathering the best qualities of each into an American culture.

We welcome any who would like to visit or even move here, IF they are not going to attempt to do us harm, AND if they want to do it the legal way. Our marinas love you, our businesses love you, our churches love you, our schools love you, our people by the greatest part love you. I cannot say the same for many countries I have visited relative to their appreciation of us, however, and in some cases that view, in my opinion, is warranted, sadly. But we do love everyone who does not hate us. And I would hope that cruisers have appreciation of how we feel toward other cultures.

Savor the flavor, and if you don't like it, don't do that again, and try something else. But don't tell the French chef, "Why not do it like this, that is how we do it" or you may get tossed into the street (ask how I learned that lesson).

[weavis]

I think all has been said.