No, I haven't flown tankers. I see you haven't either. I have spent 12 years in the Air Force refueling behind them, and as such have developed an impression of their capabilities and limitations.
Yes, I do all of those things. Believe me, if I had a choice, which I don't anymore, I wouldn't.
Good for you. You teach those pesky and foolish union American workers a lesson and don't buy their "inferior" products. Tell the 100,000 UAW Americans that have been laid off in the last year that you're not about going to buy their crap and support their inflated wages when you can get something foreign that's better. Tell that to their families too. Tell that to all of the vendors and lenders who depend on those people for a living. Have you heard of the "Trickledown Theory?"
Then, don't cry foul when all of those people don't feel like supporting your union and high wages. Don't be surprised when they have no sympathy for your working conditions or compensation. As in, "F___ all you high priced primadonna pilots. Bring on the low cost carriers. Go Skybus!" Seriously dude, you're in the wrong business to be making those assertions.
Unfortunately today, we don't have a choice to support American workers with many things, such as "computers, TVs, MP3s, DVDs, and VHSs."
However, with cars and airplanes, we do have a choice. How does it do America a favor to watch these two stalwart industries fade like the aformentioned?
The real profits are going overseas, where all the executives, engineers, and major shareholders live and pay taxes.
They place their plants in the U.S. simply to avoid U.S. import tariffs and create the illusion to Americans that we are buying American. Just check out their advertising. They make a big deal about that. They aren't fooling me.
Look, for this argument, the most important point is our national security. If the crap really hits the fan in this world, in the end, the only people we can totally count on is ourselves. It's foolish to hamstring ourselves by supplying our national defense with foreign products. Especially for a program as enormous and important as our air-refueling capabilities. What if we need replacement parts, etc. in the future, but the supplying country is at odds with our foreign policy objectives; then what happens?
Take for example Iran. They bought a lot of F-14s from us back when we were friends. Now we don't sell them any parts, rendering their aging F-14s impotent. Would you like the same thing to happen to us in reverse? Do you really think we can count on the Germans and French to "watch our six" and support us on ALL of our foreign policies in the future? Have they done it so far???
