So what ever happened to the NRA thread?

[Scodiddly]

Bile? Moi ? Hardly. That's pretty much straight out of the left-wing talking points ("#6--Always publicly characterize your conservative opponent of spewing bile"). You want bile, go read The Daily Kos, where they're still dancing on Tony Snow's (a very decent man, by the way) grave, or the Democratic Underground, where there's usually no shortage of delightfully urbane things like asian whore jokes about Michelle Malkin, or peruse the line of assassination chic shirts and posters directed at Bush. Dreadnought, by the way.

 

 

Funny, I'm a liberal, I hang out with liberals, and we never seem to discuss that stuff that we're accused of doing. We're more upset that the true conservatives in this country have been hijacked and pushed out of the way by the Bush Republicans, who've been spending like drunken sailors on shore leave while making a mess of the stuff like national security that they're supposed to be good at.

 

So, are you a true conservative or a Bush Republican?

 

That being said, I prefer a jumbo style guitar. My dream guitar ended up being a Taylor 314, a "Grand Auditorium" style. Doesn't thump like a dread, but the bass is much more even and better suited to jazz and blues voicings. Still, it would be nice if the E string was a bit stronger... it sounds a bit tubby on some things.

[HankGator]

Truth be told, I'm more libertarian than conservative. I'm not happy with the spending under this administration, either, but I strongly disagree with your characterization of his performance on national security. Our problems with security are because we've become bogged down with a mindset informed by PC inanity--searching little old ladies from Pasadena at the airport just as vigorously as young males from the middle east, lest we dare be accused of--gasp--profiling, making guards at Gitmo handle the Koran with white gloves, so as not to offend the lowlifes being held there by allowing it to be handled by unclean infidels, demands that people captured on foreign soil engaged in battle with our soldiers be given more rights than under the Geneve Convention, despite the fact they're unlawful combatants not even entitled to Geneva Convention rights, etc.--and bureacratic officiousness, not because of Bush. This is one area (probably the only area) he's done what I'm confident will eventually be considered a remarkably effective job with the equivalent of one hand being tied behind his back.

I've grown more interested in jumbos myself lately. I can see myself eventually getting an SJ200CE to round out my stable. I like Gibsons, if you couldn't tell.

[Brokepick]

Funny, I'm a liberal, I hang out with liberals, and we never seem to discuss that stuff that we're accused of doing. We're more upset that the true conservatives in this country have been hijacked and pushed out of the way by the Bush Republicans, who've been spending like drunken sailors on shore leave while making a mess of the stuff like national security that they're supposed to be good at. So, are you a true conservative or a Bush Republican? That being said, I prefer a jumbo style guitar. My dream guitar ended up being a Taylor 314, a "Grand Auditorium" style. Doesn't thump like a dread, but the bass is much more even and better suited to jazz and blues voicings. Still, it would be nice if the E string was a bit stronger... it sounds a bit tubby on some things.

Great! Now liberals are upset that conservatives are misunderstood. Gotta either be a true conservative or a Bush republican, but not both. Good Gawd.

[Etienne Rambert]

HCPP, the Political Forum needs you Hank.

 

I tend to agree with you. But the nice thing about this place,

is it's not the HCPP. You should make an appearance there and kick

some of those WDM's *sses.

 

There are Brits over there too, who are fascinated by the US Second Amendment.

 

I was just in Houston last week. I always fly out of there.

I always enjoy it too. I have an office there.

 

I think the Latinas are hot! I want to settle down with a gal who knows how to make Quesadillas.

 

I've had my fill of nuoc mam!

 

WDM= whiny douchebag musician

[HankGator]

Drop me a line next time you're headed to Houston. I'll fill you up on some homemade quesadillas.

And I don't want to talk politics in here. But there's a trend I'm resisting, where it seems okay to assert liberal political points in discussions, but not conservative ones. You'll not see me starting any political threads.

[Scodiddly]

Great! Now liberals are upset that conservatives are misunderstood. Gotta either be a true conservative or a Bush republican, but not both. Good Gawd.

Well, yeah. There are a lot of good points in traditional conservative thinking, but these days all you seem to hear about is "OMGWTF no flag lapel pin" from the right or some similarly silly outrage.

Meh. If I really wanted this argument I'd go back to the Political Party forum here, but I'd rather talk about guitars, guitar playing, and choice of strings and picks.

[Brokepick]

Drop me a line next time you're headed to Houston. I'll fill you up on some homemade quesadillas. And I don't want to talk politics in here. But there's a trend I'm resisting, where it seems okay to assert liberal political points in discussions, but not conservative ones. You'll not see me starting any political threads.

[HankGator]

Okay, Strang--you can drop by for quesadillas, too.

[Ohioarrow]

Now here's a thread I need to avoid.

[HankGator]

You got something against quesadillas?

[Kap'n]

Now here's a thread I need to avoid.

 

 

 

You and me both.

 

Those poor xtian conservatives. They're so persecuted. It's like there are lions about or something.

[Ohioarrow]

Nah... Got nothing against little cheesy things, it's political discussions I try to avoid. They're invariably a downward spiral often to a degree that make Zager bickering look like a lover's spat.

And yes, I agree with you. I tend to gravitate to jumbo body guitars these days myself.

[HankGator]

Yeah, it's all in our minds. Not.

http://www.jewishresearch.org/PDFs2/FacultyReligion07.pdf

I'll save you some reading if you're not so inclined and cut to the chase. 53% of college professors admit to negative feelings about evangelical christians. That was the only group a majority harbored negative feelings against, and way higher than the next closest group, Mormons, by 20%

Oh, and while a majority of facutly believe christians should keep their religious beliefs out of politics, far more think it's okay for muslims to express their religious beliefs politically.

Maybe "poor xtian conservatives" need to hijack a few planes or behead some civilians to earn some sympathy. Or riot and demand death sentences for newspapers that insult christianity.

[Queequeg]

"This message is hidden because **** is on your ignore list."


I'm thinking of putting Elixirs on my Esteban. Good idea?

[Crab_Cake]

The Patriot Act was passed by congress, signed by the president. By definition, it is the law, not a "crime." Sheesh. What the telephone companies did was not illegal. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act provides for warrantless wiretapping, and subsequent amendments have expanded the areas where it is allowed. The carriers were only cooperating with the government. They'd consulted their attorneys, and, to their credit, they certainly didn't want to impede the government's attempts to preempt future terrorist attacks. Courts, including the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and the FISA review court have affirmed warrantless wiretaps under FISA as being a constitutional exercise of intelligence power several times. The most recent amendment/extension of FISA you're talking about passed by well more than two-thirds in the house and senate--both controlled by the Democrats. There's a reason they agreed to the immunity. Because to do otherwise would be insane. You can't expect businesses to cooperate and then leave them subject to lawsuits for simply doing the right thing. The immunity they were given was from suit, not from criminal prosecution. And no, the best economy wasn't under Clinton. And it wouldn't have even been good under Clinton at all had the Republicans not taken over both houses of congress in 94 along with a super-majority of governorships. Gov't spending was about to explode, and the congresssional Republicans instilled some fiscal discipline and effected serious deficit reduction. They've since become more concerned about avoiding criticism in the press and now don't seem to be willing to take much of a stand for anything at all. It's funny you mention WWII. The government routinely opened people's mail during the war back then. By the tens of thousands. There were hundreds of people whose only job was to do that, and I don't recall American civilians being beheaded or people being murdered by the thousands showing up to work one day in Manhattan. Now, timid half-measures like the Patriot Act evoke frothing hysteria. I sometimes wonder if liberals really give a damn if we even win this war. Before the "criminal" Patriot Act, if a federal law enforcement agency had evidence of a plot to blow up a bridge, for example, garnered through intelligence sources, they couldn't pass that along to their local counterparts. We had absolutely ridiculous intelligence oversight rules that prevented simple cooperation between different levels of government. Our national security apparatus was a joke. For the most part, it still is, but at least the Patriot Act has tried to clean some of it up. Yes, I want freedom. Nothing the Bush administration has done that I'm aware of has made me less free. I sometimes wonder if liberals even know what the word means, other than the ability to not have to tolerate anything they don't like. Yes, if I make an international phone call to a number on the NSA's terror watch list, it will be monitored for key words. Oooh. How will I ever sleep from now on. I'm sorry, there are fanatical zealots out there numbering in the hundreds of thousands, with ardent supporters numbering in the tens of millions, who want to see us dead. They are not content to just sit back and wish it or condemn us with harsh rhetoric. I'm glad somebody is taking the threat seriously. If we don't, it's only a matter of time before someone shows up in Times Square with a suitcase nuke. Actually, your post is a good example of what I referenced before. There's been a distinct trend in the past decade of liberals attempting to criminalize anything they don't agree with in the political realm. Bush didn't commit any crimes. FISA authorized those warrantless wiretaps. The telecommunications companies weren't gaining anything by consenting, they were merely cooperating with official investigations, as authorized by FISA. Bush didn't sit there and pick out people he didn't like and tap their phones. We're talking about federal terror and law enforcement investigations, not political persecutions.

Thats how dictatorships start, fraying away the edges of our privacy in the name of national security

I understand that some people don't like to talk politics. But I just want to say that politics is very exciting for me. Whenever the elections come I get all rustled up. IDK, there are some very good reasons not to talk politics. Hank is a very decent guy and I agree with the majority of what he says about guitars. When it comes to politics I just want to bury my head in my hands though

The point is that conservatives that i talk to are all about lower taxes, thats it. To them it seems that if you lower taxes, especially for the wealthy, then everything will work out.

We both want to get to the same outcome, a better America. I want to get there by not fighting any wars, by drastically increasing our education. By holding government officials and big business accountable for the crimes they commit, and by removing money from politics. I don't know how anyone can be against these things but somehow they are

And yes Hank the phone tapping was illegal since there were no warrants. Did you guys know that Kusinich is trying to impeach the president right now?

I will stop talking politics on this forum, I apologize if my views upset anyone. I am just very worried about where this country is going. I feel that we are on the verge of another depression. The rest of the worlds economy is booming while ours is struggling along. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. I don't care what the solution is as long as someone can figure it out.

Hank you are a good guy, hopefully you will come to the good guys side someday lol

[Crab_Cake]

I just wanted to reiterate, no more politics on HCAG, from me at least.

So I will not be responding to my last post, thank you kindly.

[Hudman]

This thread makes the dumb Zager threads look smart.

[Verence]

This thread makes the dumb Zager threads look smart.

[riffmeister]

Huh. Barack Obama is a Muslim, I saw it on a magazine cover.

There you go, politics and religion in one sentence.

[SkySeven]

Hank for the win!

[Crab_Cake]

Hank for the win!

No love for the crab man huh?

[larsomatic]

I wonder what would have happened if the goverment would have got the phone companies to begin the wire tapping before 9-11; and,would have used racial profiling in this quest ? We don't seem to hear about Christians who hijack planes full of men, women,and children and ram them into skyscrappers full of men, women, and children.
I have been playing jumbos for years and recently tried my hand at more of a dreadnaught, drier bass sound for flat picking. Flat picking is harrrrdddd for me. All hail Cody Kilby of Kentucky Thunder and the Rage!


And Hank ,I appreciate you hanging it all out there !

[HankGator]

Crab--

Of course, I know Moonbat poster-child Dennis Kucinich is trying to impeach Bush. He's been trying to for years. It's unfounded and ludicrous.

Yes, we on the right want lower taxes. Because dictatorships don't start with a lack of privacy--they start with a pervasive government talking about the "rights of the people." The problem is, government can only do things for the people in direct proportion that it can do things to the people. The reason we push for lower taxes is two-fold: First, lowering taxes allows people to keep more of the money they earn, thereby encouraging productivity by rewarding it, and stimulates the economy through investment. A certain level of taxation is, of course, necessary. But beyond what is needed for essential services, taxes deprive money from the private sector and redistribute it through the government with no corresponding exchange of value that marks private sector transactions. They reward people who are valued politically, not for productivity. In other words, taxes are a drain. Second, lowering taxes reduces the reach of the federal government and acts as a buffer against regulatory creep, the ever-expanding nature of government power. The less you feed it, the less it grows.

I'm not against the protection of privacy. Not in the least. But the wiretaps you're talking about weren't illegal (FISA specifically allows for warrantless taps), and the privacy invasion involved with the telecommunications companies is far, FAR less than is ROUTINELY engaged in by the IRS. It boggles my mind that liberals get upset at the thought of the NSA monitoring international calls to numbers on terrorist watch lists, or the FBI tapping phones as part of an anti-terrorism investigation, but don't have any problem with the government forcing every American to report every penny of income and file a detailed accounting each year, or it being able to call Americans on the carpet without any evidence or even reasonable suspicion of a crime and force them to turn over all their personal financial data, including bank accounts, income sources, and expenditures. Where the hell is the concern over privacy there? What possible reason is there to be more concerned over certain international calls being monitored for key words than there is over bureaucrats poring over your bank accounts on a fishing expedition?

And who, exactly, is against holding anyone accountable for crimes? This is why we often refer to liberals as kool-aid drinkers, because this kind of thing, the idea that businesses and Republicans are getting away with "crimes" is taken as a matter of faith in an almost cult-like way. You seem to be presuming that policies you disapprove of must be criminal or involve crimes being committed. Bush didn't commit any crime. He didn't even "lie!" as liberals always assert. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5458642/

Removing money from politics? I thought this was supposed to be a free country? In a free country, I should be able to spend my money however, I want. If I want to spend it on running ads for a politician I support, I should be able to. Freedom of political speech is what the First Amendment is all about. Otherwise, a candidate for office will be at the mercy of editorial pages and broadcast newsrooms, as will the political desires of someone like me. That's great if you're liberal, since 89% of journalists are. But what if you have a message they don't like? If the numbers were reversed, and if almost 9 out of 10 journalists were Republican, the Left would go berserk, and the idea of letting the media filter and control what gets heard and how it gets characterized would prompt rioting. Hell, merely the existence of Fox News, which is certainly no further to the right than CNN or MSNBC is to the left, makes liberals practically apoplectic. But we on the right are supposed to simply cede our right to get our message out in the name of "removing money from politics." So that journalists can exclusively decide what information we get about the candidates? Thanks, but no, thanks.

The rest of the world's economies are not "booming" while ours is "struggling along." We're not even in recession at this point. We are facing two major challenges. One is the price of oil. China is emerging as an industrialized nation with huge petroleum needs. A billion plus strong with a growing economy, the demand they are adding to the oil market is enormous. We, on the other hand, have spent the last two decade making sure our oil companies absolutely can't increase the supply. We have over a billion barrels of oil--perhaps as much as twenty billion-- in fields off the coast of California. Drilling for it? Banned. Another billion at least in the gulf of Mexico. Banned. Possibly a billion more in ANWR. Banned (might upset the Caribou. No evidence it actuallly will, but it might). And we wonder why there's a shortage of supply? Bewilderment over why oil is so expensive could only happen in a country that's spent the last four decades dumbing down it's education system.

The other challenge, one that few are discussing, is the age of our population. Demography is destiny, and we are facing an aging workforce. The strain on our entitlement system is growing as baby boomers now are retiring, and the productivity of our workforce is declining. These are two major, major challenges, and the fact our economy is doing as well as it is while it deals with them is nothing short of miraculous.

I'm not mentioning the current "credit crisis" because for reasons beyond the scope of this post I don't think it's nearly as bad as is being made out to be.

As for wars, peace doesn't happen simply because you declare "I'm okay, you're okay!" It is never the result of simply talking. Peace happens when the political, social, cultural and/or financial costs of military action incurred by an aggressor or belligerent exceed the benefits of it. We're dealing with an assymetrical threat to our country and way of life. Liberals poo-poo that idea, but it's true. We are locked in a struggle for the future of civilization, and I'd rather fight it now than have my grandkids fight it under even less auspicious circumstances. There are roughly a hundred million jihadists out there, thousands and thousands of whom are willing to engage directly or indirectly in acts of terrorism as part of an effort to expand and export Sharia law around the globe. They openly talk about this in mosques around the world, and we cover our ears. When Bin Laden attacked on 9/11, the rules changed. That was a wake-up call. We could no longer sit around and wait for something to happen and then respond. Doing that as we had resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians on American soil. Next time, it could mean the deaths of tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands. So this adminstration decided it had to go proactive. It had to shift the focus away from our shores and take the fight out to the enemy. Now, people say, "but Iraq didn't attack us!" That's missing the point. Iraq was a perfect symbol embodying everything wrong with how we'd been going about things. Regime Change had been the official policy of the U.S. Government since 1997, years before Bush, but what had we done about it? Nothing. Saddam Hussein had made an assassination attempt on the first President Bush. What did we do about it? Nothing. He had turned the UN Oil-For-Food program into his own private slush fund, corrupting the whole thing and using billions he accumuluated through it to remilitarize. What did we do about it? Nothing. He kicked out the UN Weapons inspectors in flagrant violation of the very treaty that was the only reason he was allowed to stay in power. What did we do about it? Nothing. He paid bounties to suicide bombers, harbored terrorist fugitives, operated terrorist training facilities, and basically thumbed his nose at us for all the world to see from the middle of the Arab world, and we wonder why the radical jihadists in the region didn't conclude we were soft and ripe for attack? Terrorists attempted to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993, killing several people, and our response was to issue indictments. That showed them. It was Al Qaeda militants that shot down our chopper in Somalia and dragged the bodies of the American soldiers through the streets, and our response was to cut and run. It was al Qaeda that bombed our embassies in Africa, and our response was to lob a cruise missile into a pharmaceutical factory. That sent them quaking in their boots. It was Al Qaeda that bombed the USS Cole, killing numerous seamen, and our response was to promise to put our best lawyers on the case. What happened on 9/11 was the inevitable result of our timid, feckless, head-in-the-sand approach to national security, the idea that if we just ignore it, the problem will go away. The foolishly naive idea that there are no bad guys out there, only bad policies.

We haven't been hit since then, and that is no accident. We've also overthrown two oppressive regimes and replaced them with constitutional democracies. That kind of thing doesn't come without a price, a toll taken in blood and treasure, but nothing like it ever has. So, yeah, it would be nice if we could have a "better America" without "fighting wars," but I'm afraid I actually live in the real world.

I certainly don't think you're a bad guy, either. I enjoy discussing guitars with you, and I'll gladly buy you a beer and bend some strings with you if you're ever in the Bayou City. But if becoming one of the "good guys" means having to pretend I don't know what I do to be true, I'll stick to the dark side, thank you.

To be fair, you said you weren't going to respond, so I'll stipulate that you could offer a reasonable rebuttal, but are declining to do so.

[32-20-Blues]

Hey Ronnie Reagan, I'm black and a pagan
I'm gay and I'm left and I'm free
I'm a non-fundamentalist environmentalist
So don't bother me...

I can't remember the rest.

[Crab_Cake]

O I want to argue that so badly, but alas i will refrain.