What happened to minding one's own business?

[Charles L. Cotton]

The California couple that had to be rescued from their sailboat trip across the Pacific Ocean is getting a good amount of flack from folks about their choice to take children on such a long trip. Some are complaining about the cost of the rescue, but that's so lame as to be laughable. Countless fishermen have had to be rescued when they used poor judgment and went out in boats that weren't seaworthy or in dangerous weather. The one that gets my goat is the multiple millions spent trying to locate and recover the bodies of John Kennedy, Jr., his wife and sister-in-law. The U.S. shouldn't have spent a penny looking for his aircraft; the Kennedy family should have paid the tab if they wanted them back.

The U.S. isn't a "village" and we need to stay out of other people's business, unless their actions are unlawful, immoral, or negatively impact the person complaining.

Chas.

[RoyGBiv]

So, you won't be inviting Melissa to dinner?

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=N3qtpdSQox0[/youtube]

[mamabearCali]

Yep. People are nosy. They think that anything outside of what "they" would do is abuse or neglect. Those children likely had better parents that gave a darn about them to bring them along on a trip than a good portion of our kids in school. Good on the them for the adventure, next time plan a little better.

I knew a family that biked across the US and took their kids down to elementary school age. They learned so much from that trip and were eons more mature than their counterparts.

[VMI77]

It's the progressive way. A million little busy bodies are a million little spies. After all, you can't spell progressive without the "SS."

[Redneck_Buddha]

It's the progressive way. A million little busy bodies are a million little spies. After all, you can't spell progressive without the "SS."

Ooooohhhh I'm gonna have to borrow that!

[karder]

When I was a kid, my brothers and I would pile into the bed of my Dad's pickup and he would get on the freeway and drive us where ever we needed to go (or more correctly, where ever HE needed us to go). If a parent did that today, they would be vilified as abusive monsters and probably have their kids taken my CPS. But that was back in the day when no one wore seat belts, a bike helmet, if they had existed, would have gotten you beaten up at school, and a car seat was Mom's lap. Our house had sharp corners and everything. I don't know how the human race survived to spawn this current generation of mental giants who govern us now. Fortunately the Holier than Thou, finger wagging Media and Nanny State Government are keeping us all safe so just sit back and relax.

[rotor]

The California couple that had to be rescued from their sailboat trip across the Pacific Ocean is getting a good amount of flack from folks about their choice to take children on such a long trip. Some are complaining about the cost of the rescue, but that's so lame as to be laughable. Countless fishermen have had to be rescued when they used poor judgment and went out in boats that weren't seaworthy or in dangerous weather. The one that gets my goat is the multiple millions spent trying to locate and recover the bodies of John Kennedy, Jr., his wife and sister-in-law. The U.S. shouldn't have spent a penny looking for his aircraft; the Kennedy family should have paid the tab if they wanted them back.

The U.S. isn't a "village" and we need to stay out of other people's business, unless their actions are unlawful, immoral, or negatively impact the person complaining.

Chas.

So I should pay for the rescue? If I need to call an ambulance for my care will some kind taxpayer come forth and pick up the tab? No, I will get the bill. I have no problem with the rescue, just who pays for it.

[Charles L. Cotton]

The California couple that had to be rescued from their sailboat trip across the Pacific Ocean is getting a good amount of flack from folks about their choice to take children on such a long trip. Some are complaining about the cost of the rescue, but that's so lame as to be laughable. Countless fishermen have had to be rescued when they used poor judgment and went out in boats that weren't seaworthy or in dangerous weather. The one that gets my goat is the multiple millions spent trying to locate and recover the bodies of John Kennedy, Jr., his wife and sister-in-law. The U.S. shouldn't have spent a penny looking for his aircraft; the Kennedy family should have paid the tab if they wanted them back.

The U.S. isn't a "village" and we need to stay out of other people's business, unless their actions are unlawful, immoral, or negatively impact the person complaining.

Chas.

So I should pay for the rescue? If I need to call an ambulance for my care will some kind taxpayer come forth and pick up the tab? No, I will get the bill. I have no problem with the rescue, just who pays for it.

The U.S. taxpayers should and do pay for the rescue as it's part of the job of the Coast Guard. The analogy with a city ambulance is comparing apples and oranges. Only in recent years have larger cities started to charge for ambulance service and I think that's wrong. I pay for that service in advance when I pay my taxes.

Chas.

[mamabearCali]

I think that is a legitimate function of gov't. Extreme rescue on the high seas. I pay taxes and we all chip in to fund the coast guard's rescue efforts.

[The Annoyed Man]

This will sound unrelated at first, but bear with me.....

For the past week or two, I've been questioning the amount of time, money, and resources invested in the recovery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. A little more than a month has passed. Even if the flight data recorder is recovered before the battery dies and it stops pinging, many experts seem to acknowledge that we'll never know for sure exactly what happened, or why. The cockpit recorder records over itself every 2 hours, and it seems likely that the plane went down long after the most crucial cockpit recordings would have been recorded over. So even if the cockpit recorder could be recovered, it would likely prove useless to us. All the evidence seems to point to its having crashed in the open ocean, and there is probably a large debris field on the bottom. In the area where the black box pings have been heard, the ocean floor is 3 miles down. Whatever is down there is going to stay down there. It is expected to take a year or more, IF EVER, before any human remains begin to wash ashore somewhere, and any such remains will probably no longer be recognizable as human, let alone as originating from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

The lives of 227 people have ended. Each one individually is a tragic story, but in macro terms, they represent the tiniest fraction of humanity, and their flight isn't even a blip on the scale of millions upon millions of airline miles flown all over the world in a single year. The fact of the matter is that, despite all the effort and expense, these people have disappeared. "Lost at sea on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370" is the most closure any of their families is ever going to get. That's it. The much better use of time and effort would be spend on dissecting why the Malaysian government tried so hard to safe face, obfuscating the investigation in the process, so that any such future accident investigations won't be stonewalled into failure, leading to these kinds of absurd and futile searches, from which we will learn very little

According to this article—http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/s ... -1.1749254—the cost of searching for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is going to total in the hundreds of millions of dollars, with Australia bearing the largest portion of it so far. It is already on record as the single most expensive search in aviation history, surpassing the 2 year long search for Air France Flight 447 which crashed into the Atlantic ocean in 2009......and this new search is not over yet. And with Air France Flight 447, the bulk of the aircraft and the first bodies were recovered within a couple of days of the crash. It was the black boxes that were recovered 2 years later. The article intimates that when the dust clears, Australia's view is that the cost should be born internationally, and she will be sending invoices to other nations to defray their own expenses.

Since when did the disappearance of ONE airplane with 227 passengers aboard (or the possible loss of one small sailboat with one family aboard) become this globally important? In a world full of hungry people and diseases without cure, this has become an absolutely absurd use of resources. Statistically, it is more safe to fly from Singapore to Hanoi than it is to drive across the DFW metroplex on any given day. It is nearly impossible, using the remarkable display of "groupthink" in RoyGBiv's video, to improve upon driving safety in DFW, let alone trying to improve on flight safety from Singapore to Hanoi. I love VMI77's quote that you can't have "progressive" without "SS". In a world where it takes a village to raise a child, it apparently takes a planet to put life on hold to find an airplane.

To Charles's original point of learning to mind our own business, should be added a more realistic cost/benefit analysis of sticking our noses where they don't belong.

[mamabearCali]

I think we had to know that the flight did go down TAM. If it had been hi-jacked and was now carrying a nuclear weapon on it that could have devastating global consequences. Once we knew for certain that it went down and had not been hi-jacked I think it then goes to the nations with people on it and their resources that they want to spend in recovery.

Burial at sea is not an immoral manner to be put to rest. If it was my child and I knew there was no chance of getting anything back resembling him, I might beg those in power to simply let him rest where he is. It would be best to remember him as he was not as the remains that will be.

[RoyGBiv]

I think we had to know that the flight did go down TAM. If it had been hi-jacked and was now carrying a nuclear weapon on it that could have devastating global consequences. Once we knew for certain that it went down and had not been hi-jacked I think it then goes to the nations with people on it and their resources that they want to spend in recovery.

We still don't know for sure. Do we?
Seen any wreckage that can be confirmed as MH370? A few pings on the right frequency isn't conclusive. /offtopic

It's the progressive way. A million little busy bodies are a million little spies. After all, you can't spell progressive without the "SS."

Ooooohhhh I'm gonna have to borrow that!

Me too!

[fickman]

It seems commonplace these days to expect people to justify a lot of things to the court of public opinion.

- Driving a "gas guzzler" (read: any vehicle larger than the accuser's vehicle)
"You don't need that monstrosity!"
. . . uhh, define "need"
"I saw a lady at the grocery store with a Yukon XL and she only had two kids! Typical suburban soccer mom."
. . . uhh, what if she had more kids at home? What if they need the cargo area for their large dogs? What if they tow something? What if her husband puts a wheelchair in there? What if it's none of your business if she just likes driving it, is single, and has no kids?

- Having more than two kids. (A third is sometimes allowed if the first two are of the same gender. Beyond that, you got some 'splainin' to do, Lucy.)

- Homeschooling. (The HORROR!)

It's scary how entitled people feel they are to your justification - and how ready they are to argue it if you humor them.

[fickman]

Basically, in the past people were content to live and let live. I may not want to do things your way, but I didn't feel compelled to talk you out of your way.

[BigGuy]

What happened to minding one's own business?

Those of us who believe in it do. Those who don't are busy creating a nanny State.