At 01:59 AM 3/26/96 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote:

At 7:08 AM 3/26/96, Shabbir J. Safdar wrote:

My point is that I see no compelling legislation that is needed. If enough people in Washington really want increased length in _exported products_ (remember the "exported" part), the Congress and the President should find it easy enough to get said products on to the Approved List. (I note that the Leahy Bill really doesn't change this system anyway...some products go on the list, some don't...the law only seems to say that when the horse has already left the barn, i.e., when "comparable" products are already in fairly wide use outside the U.S., then the products should be put on the approved list. Big deal.

There is, however, a slightly different way of looking at this. For centuries, there was a saying "Nature abhors a vacuum." While not scientifically correct, from the standpoint of people living below an ocean of atmosphere it seemed to be true. Likewise, the political system seems to abhor a situation where there is neither law, nor a proposed law. The best tactic might be to insist on modifications to the Leahy bill, most of which are quite justified, but cumulatively will be seen by "the enemy" as being so extreme as to be unacceptable. At that point, the enemy may actually agree with our assessment that no law is better than the corrected Leahy bill, and we'll both walk away satisified with the "no law" option. Think of it like pouring sugar into a gas tank. [stuff deleted]

And, frankly and bluntly, while I am not as extreme (in some ways) as, say, Jim Bell, in other ways I and many others of us are quite extreme.

Hey, see, I'm useful! I make you look more, uh, "reasonable", right? Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com