Posted on 08/04/2003 2:00:11 PM PDT by Bad Eagle
by David A. Yeagley
When David Horowitz called foul on Ann Coulter’s Treason for categorizing all liberals as anti-American, he identified a cultural trend which may effect the outcome of word wars in American politics. That dangerous trend is called “ideological prejudice.”
Horowitz denounces ideological prejudice as something as unfair, unkind, and unjust as racial prejudice. One simply cannot call all liberals and Democrats anti-American, and thus deny anyone wearing those labels the universally coveted status of “patriot.” An American-loving patriot is a label that should be accessible to all. It may be, in a sense, a label up for grabs. It’s becoming negotiable.
In fact, one can no longer easily identify the liberal or the conservative even by his very actions. The paths of conservatives and liberals are crossing more and more on a variety of issues. Sincere effort must be made to ascertain the conservative or liberal nature of the person in question. Not only can one not depend solely on the party name, Republican or Democrat, but one finds the purposes of liberals and conservatives merging.
On June 17, 2003, a group young teen-aged conservatives, and older professional liberals (including an state ACLU attorney) appeared before the Oklahoma City Council with a resolution to reject the United States Patriot Act and supplement. They all felt the Patriot Act was a serious and dangerous infringement of the Bill of Rights.
May 22, 2003, a young American Indian girl was not allowed to wear a single eagle feather on the night of her high school graduation. It’s generally considered a communist, liberal position to deny religion in public, but in Wellston, Oklahoma, a staunch conservatism in public school officials produced the same denial.
On July 30, 2003, the governor of Colorado Bill Owens spoke to the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (OCPA), a conservative think tank based in Oklahoma City. (Mr. Horowitz himself spoke to the same group in 2001.) Gov. Owens was called “the best governor in America” by the National Review, but his position on the public education of minorities (including illegal immigrants) was the standard liberal line: it is the government’s responsibility to educate all children. Yet, again, his whole talk was pro school choice, the cause specifically championed by conservatives.
So concerned have some Oklahomans become over the issue of words and labels that they have developed an organization for the purpose of maintaining the definition of “conservative” values. OCPAC (Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee) holds legislators responsible for their voting record.
OCPAC produces a yearly “Conservative Index” which displays the voting record of all Oklahoma legislators, conservative or otherwise. Based on the Committee’s selected pieces of state legislation, the law maker is determined to be conservative or liberal.
OCPAC gives out a “RINO” award every year for a “Republican-In-Name-Only.” This award goes to the Republican legislator who voted the most liberal. For the year 2003, the nominee who voted conservatively only 30% of the time is Terry Ingmire. (The Democrat who voted conservatively, some 50% of the time is Clay Pope.)
Gov. Owens repeatedly used the term “Center Right” as his own political position, and everyone else’s supporting his programs. It is clearly an inclusive term. Since the “Center” has moved to the Left in recent decades, the Center includes many liberals and Democrats. The Center Right is quite far from the “real” Right. The point being, political terminology is part of the word war in the trenches. A political commander must martial his troops, not alienate and fragment them. To win the war, he needs numbers. The greatest fighter among the troops can vote only once.
But who is it that really loves the country, the Republicans or the Democrats? Who are the patriots, the conservatives or the liberals? Horowitz has made it clear that American-loving patriots are not determined by labels. To judge someone by a label, or to even to label someone by specific, isolated action, is to be ideologically prejudged. He has reprimanded Ann Coulter for it, and I have certainly been found guilty of it.
I do feel that, theoretically, a conservative Republican may rely more on a constitutional basis for his concept both of the country and how to preserve it. The liberal Democrat may also have a great love of country, but it’s less defined and more liable to misdirection.
It’s like a love affair, this political war. The conservative provides structure, the liberal provides emotion. One without the other is equally impotent.
Including...we must assume...American-hating traitors...
Why Did it Have to be ... Guns?
by L. Neil Smith
Over the past 30 years, I've been paid to write almost two million words, every one of which, sooner or later, came back to the issue of guns and gun-ownership. Naturally, I've thought about the issue a lot, and it has always determined the way I vote.
People accuse me of being a single-issue writer, a single- issue thinker, and a single- issue voter, but it isn't true. What I've chosen, in a world where there's never enough time and energy, is to focus on the one political issue which most clearly and unmistakably demonstrates what any politician -- or political philosophy -- is made of, right down to the creamy liquid center.
Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.
If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.
If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.
What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?
If he doesn't want you to have the means of defending your life, do you want him in a position to control it?
If he makes excuses about obeying a law he's sworn to uphold and defend -- the highest law of the land, the Bill of Rights -- do you want to entrust him with anything?
If he ignores you, sneers at you, complains about you, or defames you, if he calls you names only he thinks are evil -- like "Constitutionalist" -- when you insist that he account for himself, hasn't he betrayed his oath, isn't he unfit to hold office, and doesn't he really belong in jail?
Sure, these are all leading questions. They're the questions that led me to the issue of guns and gun ownership as the clearest and most unmistakable demonstration of what any given politician -- or political philosophy -- is really made of.
He may lecture you about the dangerous weirdos out there who shouldn't have a gun -- but what does that have to do with you? Why in the name of John Moses Browning should you be made to suffer for the misdeeds of others? Didn't you lay aside the infantile notion of group punishment when you left public school -- or the military? Isn't it an essentially European notion, anyway -- Prussian, maybe -- and certainly not what America was supposed to be all about?
And if there are dangerous weirdos out there, does it make sense to deprive you of the means of protecting yourself from them? Forget about those other people, those dangerous weirdos, this is about you, and it has been, all along.
Try it yourself: if a politician won't trust you, why should you trust him? If he's a man -- and you're not -- what does his lack of trust tell you about his real attitude toward women? If "he" happens to be a woman, what makes her so perverse that she's eager to render her fellow women helpless on the mean and seedy streets her policies helped create? Should you believe her when she says she wants to help you by imposing some infantile group health care program on you at the point of the kind of gun she doesn't want you to have?
On the other hand -- or the other party -- should you believe anything politicians say who claim they stand for freedom, but drag their feet and make excuses about repealing limits on your right to own and carry weapons? What does this tell you about their real motives for ignoring voters and ramming through one infantile group trade agreement after another with other countries?
Makes voting simpler, doesn't it? You don't have to study every issue -- health care, international trade -- all you have to do is use this X-ray machine, this Vulcan mind-meld, to get beyond their empty words and find out how politicians really feel. About you. And that, of course, is why they hate it.
And that's why I'm accused of being a single-issue writer, thinker, and voter.
But it isn't true, is it?
Riiiight, it's just that easy. That's just why our good Conservative president passed the Patriot Act, to shrink the size of government and keep it out of our faces.
And, any effort to make a dem traitor explain his words or actions is automatically, MCARTHYISM!!" It is my view that, while all dems are traitors, they are also lying, dishonest, criminals. Thus, Dean will continue to conceal his Vermont records, not because he is a traitor, but because he is a dishonest liar. But, he will refuse and explain and the other lying traitors will accept his explanation and want to "move on." And, if they are really serious, the fully segregated Congressional Black Caucus will hold a "We Confirm the Lie" demonstration on the Capitol steps.
'Slug Rifles' are similar except they shoot a 2 piece elongated bullet and are used with powerful scopes. They usually have shorter barrels too. One old specimen was built by Horace Warner in the late 1800's and it was .69 cal. (4 oz. bullet) and weighed 100 lbs. I believe it's floating around in somewhere in Calif.
Slug guns are super accurate. Most have underhammer actions and sealed ignitions
I own a benchrest gun that I had built by a master riflesmith last year; it is based on a Remington 700 action with an 8-contour Shilen barrel chambered in .300 Win Mag with a "tight" neck. It is not "regulation" as I had additional weight built into the stock. The thing weighs around 20 pounds without optics. I wanted a very steady platform for long-range target shooting; also wanted to reduce felt recoil as much as possible. So far it will shoot under half-minute of angle. I need to do some load tuning in order to get better than half inch.
1,000 yards with open sights! Man, the bullseye must have been gigantic!
Good luck with your new rifle. It sounds like a nice piece!
Magna-Porting should help too!
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