LocostUSA.com

i guess the subject is a bit of a challenge for some members.

but thats o.k.

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this story shall the good man teach his son,
and chrispin chrispian shall ne'er go by,
from this day to the end of the world.
but we in it shall be remembered.

It's not that some the subject is difficult for some. It is because this forum has rules against political discussions.

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Build on

Chris
Build: NA Miata based +221 Se7en

Better take it to Facebook, John.

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Mike - Read my story at http://twinlakesseven.blogspot.com/

Marcus killed it once and the forum glitched and brought it back. I killed it the second time.

As entertaining as a heating political discussion can be none of us feel like having to moderate it. Call us lazy but the pay isn't high enough to deal with those messes!

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-Andrew
Build Log
Youtube

The only thing that internet based political discussions are typically good for, is bringing out the stupid and crazy in otherwise intelligent and rational people.

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-Justin

"Orville Wright did not have a pilots license." - Gordon MacKenzie

USA7s has the occasional entertaining political fight. They seem to encourage it. The one thing you quickly learn -- you're not going to change anyone's mind. The best that can possibly come out of it is that you realize you come from different cultures and you have to agree to disagree. That, and the fact that 7s are cool.

and i thought it was a legal question, the fact that some thought it was political only go to enforce my statement that some would find it a challenge.

i have no political or religious affiliations and as stated before i can't vote.

if people had read the post for it's actual content, instead of deciding what was meant with the readers particular biases, it would be clear that the post was a legal question and no more.

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this story shall the good man teach his son,
and chrispin chrispian shall ne'er go by,
from this day to the end of the world.
but we in it shall be remembered.

We are just following the guidelines that were set up by our founder. He felt that cars unite us and politics divide us and had seen these discussions have permanent impacts on relations among board members. Once you decide you hate someone's politics, you may or may not feel helpful with each other's projects.

That said we might boost interest, participation and membership by allowing these things. The same way foolish TV talk shows that require security guards on screen to prevent guests from physically hurting each other boost ratings. I see this sometimes on other motor sports sites and generally get the impression it's a bunch of people largely ignorant on subjects just arguing matters of their personal faith.

Ultimately my fear is we will all think less of each other... My strongest interest though is that more people enjoy our website and get introduced to the idea of building these cars. I would go any direction that gets us there....

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Marcus Barrow - Car9 an open design community supported sports car for home builders!
SketchUp collection for LocostUSA: "Dream it, Build it, Drive it!"
Car9 Roadster information - models, drawings, resources etc.

In the words of Sir Winston Churchill: A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. As Nick and Marcus both pointed out, politics on the internet tends to make fanatics out of most participants. I greatly prefer signal to noise ratio on this site, and would hate to see that degraded in favor of increased participation. There are more than enough other places on the internet to get my fill of that, without having to consciously avoid it here. This is one of the few havens from that mass of ignorance. Even when politics is supposed to be confined to a dedicated area, the highly polarized opinions always seem to find a way to creeping out an pollute other areas of the forum.

There is no more value in pretending that making passive-aggressive statements on deeply political topics isn't trying to start a political discussion, than there is in pretending that passive-aggressive statements about voting rights shield opinions from being construed as such...It has nothing to do with a topic being "challenging" and has everything to do with simply calling a spade a spade.

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-Justin

"Orville Wright did not have a pilots license." - Gordon MacKenzie

had this discussion not been about a particular supreme court descission on a particular subject but had been about the difference between the various requirements needed to register your car in one state or another which had been contested in the same way in the same court, i believe there would have been no objections to it.

my intent was to show the legal ramifictions and consiquental pushback that may ensue in any legal descision and in the case of the supreme court, final without appeal.

imagine if you will, the problems that would occure if a federal requirement were adopted by all states conserning home built cars and that this federal requirement pick the regulations in the toughest state as they inevitably would, or the crash testing results needed by volume manufacturers.

i think that the whole industry of very low volume cars like ours, kit cars and hotrods would push back just as they did over engine requirements and emmissions which when originally concieved, basically killed the hotrod industry but due to the abbility to push back against the proposed regulation came to a compromise, fortunatly, this did not reach the supreme court as at that point, save an act of congress, would be a final and unappealable descision which may not have allowed any vehicles to be registered that were not made by a volume manufacturer and may have been retro active.

as it stands now any idiot could build a car out of what ever he or she likes with no regard to safety of the ocupants or other road users, all they have to do is basically proove they didn't steal the parts from somewhere and pick an easy state.

Aston Martin sold out to Ford because the development cost of a reqired air bag system or the licensing of a pre made, pre accepted system was too expensive.

therefore, i suggest that we start our own religion, that of the home built special, and on completion of your car, are ordaned as a minister in this new religion and thus not subject to any regulations on religious grounds.

the added benefit as an ordaned minister would be that you could claim an exemption from federal and local taxes.

i would be interested to know if the armish can claim such an exemption.

Justin,
to use your analagy of "spade", everyone seems to be looking at religious and political mud on the spade but not the spade, which like the sword of damaces, hang above our heads each time we have to register a new home built car or move to a different state and must convince a DMV official that what we have is legit.

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this story shall the good man teach his son,
and chrispin chrispian shall ne'er go by,
from this day to the end of the world.
but we in it shall be remembered.

Good one, John. You're about to turn a thread about locked threads into a locked thread.

Before that happens, I'd like to point out that I like most people on this site, and the fact that their politics might be slightly misguided wouldn't change that.

this the last statement i will make on this topic,

the point was to show the way beaurocracy reaches into the lives of ordinary people and attempts to control their lives and others with their own agenda will attemp to use this as a vehicle for their own benefit.

i suggest that many that have posted on this topic have tried to politisize my original post, but am addamant that was not my original intent!!!

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this story shall the good man teach his son,
and chrispin chrispian shall ne'er go by,
from this day to the end of the world.
but we in it shall be remembered.

Actually, I think framed this way, your comments/concerns are definitely worthy of discussion here regardless of how one feels about the actual Supreme Court ruling. Speculating about unintended consequences is good practice for anyone that wishes to think about issues rather than just react out of habit.

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-Keith