How about this hypothetical... would you be willing to completely ban
those who continue to drive the noisy, polluting machines that
dominate the current situation? I think that would be a reasonable
compromise.

This is a little ambiguous....as far as the machines themselves, this
is more
of a regulation on the manufacturers than on the owners/riders. I
support environmental
regulations that require improved greenliness and fuel efficiency of
new boats being
manufactured and sold, but of course traditionally this doesn't mean
that the older boats that were manufactured, sold and purchased legally
before such requirements were enacted, suddenly have their access
rights taken away. This way, the trend is towards ever cleaner,
less-polluting, more-fuel-efficient and less-noisy boats out on the
water. No, I don't think it would be fair to retroactively ban boats
that had previously been bought - although, my main thing is always,
don't single out pwc's; if you did the same thing to noisy, polluting,
dirty boats of all shapes and sizes, then I at least couldn't cry
discrimination against pwc's. 'Course, then that would mean the whole
boating community would all be joined together in their outrage,
instead of different segments of us bickering among ourselves here, and
we'd probably have enough strength to prevent such a blatantly unfair
thing from happening. (When the enviro-extremists start with a much
easier target, pwc'ers alone, an easier target because so many people
have long-ago-formed prejudiced stereotyped outdated impressions of us
and our boats, we're a much tinier and less powerful group...although
we have still been winning against them when the scientific evidence
inevitably comes in.)

Now, when you say, "ban those who continue to drive"....I and every
other intelligent, responsible, law-abiding, clear-thinking pwc'er and
boater, think that laws against irresponsible, dangerous behavior on
the water should be strictly enforced, violators punished, and who
knows, possibly after enough trespasses, their boating privileges
revoked just like can happen on land. (Of course, unfairly, it's only
we pwc'ers who now require any kind of license at all to operate our
boats at all, and then only in some states...it's a good idea, but
common sense tells me the same should be required for any boat of any
shape or size.) I'm probably biased because I'm a boater, but I think
society should allocate as a high priority the enforcement of marine
law. So sure, bust and, if they do it enough times, "ban" every boater
who's drunk or drinking on the water, every cigarette boat guy zooming
dangerously among boat traffic at unsafe speeds, and every pwc'er that
violates the rules about how close to other boaters or swimmers or the
shore they can be operating. As it is, a lot of pwc'ers feel
discriminated by marine law enforcers who seem predisposed to enforce
against us disproportionately, harrassing us with frequent spot checks
and seemingly arbirtary pullovers, while a lot of other obviously
dangerous illegal boating stuff is happening all around us....but I'm
sure that's just paranoia....not the result of people's personal
prejudices, irrational dislike and (in some cases, maybe) jealousy of
us with our machines and how much fun we're having.

Anyway...sorry....is that what you meant?

richforman