The First Amendment, amended.

In 1791, the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America was adopted.

For those not familiar with it, the relevant text is:

'Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.'

The First, however, doesn't seem to apply to the moderators of QRZ.com.  And it's not the first time it's been noticed.

USA!

 A day or so ago, I responded to a discussion on the QRZ.com forum concerning the vastly inflated prices of ham radio equipment, as compared to the exact-same products (in this case, headsets) sold to pilots.  In broad terms, a certain basic pilot's headset sold for about £110, whilst the same model sold to hams retailed for £249.

Given the safety-critical nature of a pilot's headset, you'd expect any price differential to work the other way.

Except, pilots are clever people who have a job to do.  They don't think, like hams do, that wearing a headset gives them kudos or makes them more manly.  In fact, I can tell you, as a pilot, that we spend a lot of time wishing we weren't wearing those uncomfortable headsets at all.

With plenty of aggressive US-based responses to my claim that ham outlets were treating us all as being "pretty dumb" by inflating prices to ridiculous levels, I ventured onto the likely effect of the USA's trade war against several countries.

In brief, cheap products from China will now either be unavailable, or be elevated in price due to tariffs.  Or, you will be forced to buy US-made products, which will be more expensive than what one could previously buy from abroad when no tariffs existed, or as expensive as the tariff-hit imports.

The response by QRZ.com was to delete my comment.  I couldn't really care less, other than to note that in the 'Land of the Free' - and the First Amendment - Congress may not be permitted to curtail open debate, but QRZ.com can.  Another example of how the American-dominated New Media now represents the greatest threat to free speech, by far.

As Cerys Matthews (Catatonia) once sang 'Every day when I wake up I thank the Lord I'm Welsh'.