While I applaud the ideas expressed to reduce the red tape, the methods are suspect. Why should only pilots(GA or otherwise) have the only say in aviation regulations? The NAS of the US and Briton are the province of the entire electorate, so why are hundreds of millions of US citizens disenfranchised from the aviation regulatory environment?
Suppose we were perfectly democratic about the process, and that every shareholder(your house, roads, businesses are under the NAS and subject to the whims of pilots above) in the country were to weigh in? What do you suppose those good people of the gen pop would do? Of course - they would outlaw GA in a second! Millions in savings on no more small airports, thousands of people saved from deadly plane crashes, No more noise over the house, less pollution of that nasty leaded gas. Viola! We are democracy, and we will be heard and our collective voice says to shut it all down.
That's why the US is not a democracy. The country exists in it's current form because we don't bend at the behest of a majority. Democracy is as flawed as anarchy. Nations have to stand for things, and what the US generally stands for is maximizing liberty. Wanna go fly a plane? The only thing you need in the US is a checkbook, and a phone and you too can go fly. Try that in the PDRK, after all - they are a democracy,, right?
The solution is not for legislatures to punt their responsibility to the masses. It is for them to deliberate, and form systems of regulations that maximize liberty for everyone, with minimal impact. When we get things like the armed forces grabbing untold millions of miles of airspace, and when Mickey gets a permanent temporary no fly zone, and when the VIPs can close massive amounts of airspace with the stroke of a pen so they can be the only one in that zone, those are serious threats to liberty that provide little or no value to the gen pop.
Flawed legislation is the norm, and it's not up to the public to resolve this, even though the constitution gives us the mechanism to do so(petition your govt for grievances). In a Republic, we rely on experts to legislate in the best interest of the governed. Many legislators are failing at this, and we take them to task for their faults, but then when the voting time comes around, everyone acts like a sheep and puts the same hoary band of idiots back in there.
