the pistolero
Member
Does anyone else here who leans to the right and the Republican Party feel like we're being discounted?
I read many conservative blogs from time to time in addition to several newspapers, and the names that keep on popping up as the best chance to get the GOP nomination in 2008 are John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. McCain seems to have earned no small amount of enmity from the right due to the Gang of 14 filibuster deal, CFR, etc. So who's left? Giuliani, and we all know he's no friend of gun owners. But it seems to me that our concerns about Rudy are being marginalized in the name of the War on Islamic Extremism. Now, far be it from me to say the Islamists are not a grave existential threat or do not at least have the potential to be. I agree with the Giuliani cheerleaders that if we all die, nothing else is going to matter...but still, all the issues we had to deal with before Sept. 11 are still there on the table -- Social Security, out-of-control spending, the deficit, gun laws, etc. ...and they're all still going to have to be dealt with even as the larger threats are tackled. As far as the gun laws are concerned, we all know that once those are put in place, no matter at what level, they seem to be pretty much set in stone...NFA '34, GCA '68, the draconian D.C. gun laws, and the list goes on. It seems to me sometimes that as gun owners we are being told that our concerns don't matter, that we're basically being told to "sit down, shut up and vote for who we tell you to vote for." I said it on my blog, but I'll say it here too...I really don't think telling 60 million voting-age people that their concerns don't matter is all that sound of a political strategy. And as far as nothing else mattering if we're all dead, I keep thinking of what Winston Churchill said once upon a time, "You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." Perhaps some might think that observation extreme in light of something like a Rudy Giuliani candidacy, but if we keep willing to throw freedoms on the fire that many good men and women have fought and died for, that's exactly what we'll end up being -- slaves. (After gun licenses, what next? Safe storage requirements? Registration? "Ballistic fingerprinting?" Where does it end, Rudy??? ) Call me the eternal optimist, but there has to be a better choice for us out there. There just has to be. And I for one am sick and tired of being made to think my concerns don't matter. Anyone else? Thoughts?
I read many conservative blogs from time to time in addition to several newspapers, and the names that keep on popping up as the best chance to get the GOP nomination in 2008 are John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. McCain seems to have earned no small amount of enmity from the right due to the Gang of 14 filibuster deal, CFR, etc. So who's left? Giuliani, and we all know he's no friend of gun owners. But it seems to me that our concerns about Rudy are being marginalized in the name of the War on Islamic Extremism. Now, far be it from me to say the Islamists are not a grave existential threat or do not at least have the potential to be. I agree with the Giuliani cheerleaders that if we all die, nothing else is going to matter...but still, all the issues we had to deal with before Sept. 11 are still there on the table -- Social Security, out-of-control spending, the deficit, gun laws, etc. ...and they're all still going to have to be dealt with even as the larger threats are tackled. As far as the gun laws are concerned, we all know that once those are put in place, no matter at what level, they seem to be pretty much set in stone...NFA '34, GCA '68, the draconian D.C. gun laws, and the list goes on. It seems to me sometimes that as gun owners we are being told that our concerns don't matter, that we're basically being told to "sit down, shut up and vote for who we tell you to vote for." I said it on my blog, but I'll say it here too...I really don't think telling 60 million voting-age people that their concerns don't matter is all that sound of a political strategy. And as far as nothing else mattering if we're all dead, I keep thinking of what Winston Churchill said once upon a time, "You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." Perhaps some might think that observation extreme in light of something like a Rudy Giuliani candidacy, but if we keep willing to throw freedoms on the fire that many good men and women have fought and died for, that's exactly what we'll end up being -- slaves. (After gun licenses, what next? Safe storage requirements? Registration? "Ballistic fingerprinting?" Where does it end, Rudy??? ) Call me the eternal optimist, but there has to be a better choice for us out there. There just has to be. And I for one am sick and tired of being made to think my concerns don't matter. Anyone else? Thoughts?