And your brain probably hurt afterwards, but you READ it, which is the important thing. That’s what makes me smile. As a typical Harley owner, I wager it took you about four months to read all of it, and you had to get help with the big words from someone who owned something that requires a little more intelligence to operate, like your neighbor with his Briggs and Stratton riding lawnmower.  I’m sorry I didn’t put more pictures in there, that probably would have helped greatly.

Tired old cliché.  Why is it when someone states the facts, that someone else says that they're just jealous?  Again, sorry. That article was written by an American who is simply tired of having a crappy excuse for a motorcycle being labeled as THE American Dream. I don’t buy into it. You might, because you are a media driven sheep, but I refuse to. And I can afford to buy a Harley, I just choose to spend my money elsewhere, like getting a better bike for half or even a third of the price of a new Harley, and I don’t have to wait in line like the other chimps. If I can go out and buy a new ’98 4WD Blazer and then a ’99 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP, you’re right, I can’t afford a Harley. Not until I pay one of those toys off, and even then, I rather buy another rice burner than some hyper-exaggerated POS made in Milwaukee with a "made in America" stamp on it just so I can feel good about myself when I lay my head down at night.  I don’t have to buy my patriotism, sir. I only own real motorcycles, regardless of nationality, and America simply does not make a real motorcycle.  When it does, I'll own one, and you can rest assured that I have plenty of money to buy a Harley, I just don't see spending good money on total crap.  I admire anyone who can sell crap for a profit, I really do.  When I buy crap, it comes in a bag labeled 'fertilizer' and I use it in my garden.  Milwaukee has learned how to build bags of fertilizer with wheels.  When you tell me that I can't afford a Harley, I think of the old proverb "A fool and his money are soon parted."   I guess you parted with yours pretty quick.

Praise where praise is due. Until America builds a motorcycle that is worth owning, I’ll only own other non-American made motorcycles, that includes rice burners, kraut burners, and Italian rockets.  If I own a motorcycle, I want a thoroughbred, not a tired old donkey that's shined up to look like a race horse but in reality isn't worth hauling to the glue factory.

The "Brown Water Navy!" Kudos to you, sir. And thank you for serving your country. Still, I would expect a better attitude from a navy man, let alone a ‘Nam vet.  If you served your country and you are proud of it, why do you stand for shit like what Milwaukee produces being called "American".   Obviously you don't understand what it takes to be "American" or you would know better.

That is because we, as American’s, are now trained to recycle garbage. While the junkyards are full of Jap bikes (and the parts are easy to find and cheap to replace), this means that even when Harleys are wrecked, they are held onto because of the media driven image that what is now a twisted paperweight is still worth several thousand dollars. The other reason is that junkyards only take in what they know they can turn around and sell. Since so much of a Harley is crap anyway, they just go on and send those to the smelter for the meager return they will get. A Harley really is a waste of precious resources. To think, for every Harley built, somewhere, there is a village in Ethiopia that could have a new gasoline powered well pump. Sad. Where is Sally Struthers and her tears when you really need her.

Oh, for the love of Mike...  I can tell that you are a squid (Navy).   Ask any USAF pilot (zoomie) about speed and they’ll be the first to tell you that "Speed is life!" The ability to handle, to maneuver, to explosively accelerate, and to brake hard and strong, especially in today’s jungle of SUVs and cell phone wearing soccer-moms is one benefit I’d rather have over official HD logo vest and chaps, loud pipes and some highway pegs that spread my legs wider than a virgin at the OB-GYN office.

Speed is death… that is the most asinine thing I have ever heard, and to turn your logic around, I guess that brakes add life.  I guess you are just jealous because you ride what amounts to a Lazy-Boy recliner with a pair of wheels.  No wonder you think "Speed Kills", there are old blue hair ladies in '64 Ford Falcons that have a higher top end than your bike!  If you want to ride around on the Queen Mary, be my guest, but don't knock someone because they choose to own a off-shore powerboat instead, and are intelligent enough to know the difference.

A Harley is no where near the quality of a Cadillac, and don't even try to pretend it is such.  Cadillac builds high quality, high tech vehicles.  Cadillac builds cars with one of the hottest engines in the world; Northstar.  The Northstar power plant has four valves per cylinder, that's 32 valves total (plus dual overhead cams or four cams total), but then being a Harley owner, you wouldn't know anything about that type of technology.  All Cadillac engines are digital fuel injected, with a variety of functions all controlled by a onboard microprocessor.

One model of Cadillac is even factory equipped not only with a USAF quality HUD heads up display, but also advanced thermal night vision!  Cadillacs have the ability to run for up to 50 miles with no oil, dual climate control systems, sophisticated suspensions, advanced anti-lock braking systems, and the performance of a sports car in the size of a luxury car.  Most Cadillacs are in communication links with orbiting satellites to provide not only GPS and ground tracking maps, but customer service as well.  And you think that 80 year old technology from Milwaukee is 'like a Cadillac'?

You must be truly ignorant.

Harley Davidson has NONE of that technology, sir.  Don't kid yourself.  Harley Davidson is about 80 years behind technology wise, everyone else is leaving them in the dust and as long as you continue to support the stagnation that is deemed an 'American success story', then Harley will never get the clue that everyone else has left them decades behind.  Nostalgia will only go so far before you realize, at the last tragic moment, that "nostalgia" isn't as powerful a driving force as "technological stagnation" is a death sentence.  Harley deals in entropy, and entropy is a non-discriminatory killer of all things.

Well, Jack, I can’t say it was nice talking to you, because it really wasn’t. When you are trying to get your point across and sound intelligent, I would advise that you leave out some of the profanity, it only makes you sound ignorant and uneducated, which, being a proud Harley owner, I guess isn’t that far from the truth. Let’s see, you have used the terms dirt-water jerk-off, shithead, asshole, and pencil-dick, where I in turn, have used no such terms and still managed to get my reply across. Education and upbringing show through, even in menial correspondence. You should have learned this type of etiquette in the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades, which to you, were probably the best five years of your life.  I'm surprised you didn't retain more of your schooling.