What the hell!

[Mythmere]

I am back home!!
Sorry for the late answers - I am finally back after a mere day of travel, and have a cable connection instead of a dial up.

I may split my answers into several posts since there's a lot here.
1) gun ownership. I'm not going to go deep into it, because I just don't know the issue well enough. My personal position, as we've talked on this topic before, is that the constitution does guarantee gun ownership at a pretty high level of firepower. There's a limit to it somewhere, just as free speech has limits. Where that limit ought to be, I don't know, but I think it shouldn't be permissible for one person or even a small group to outgun the cops. The purpose of the amendment in the Constitution is to permit a mass resistance against tyrranny, so the guns have to be good - but not necessarily military top-of the line.
Obviously, this issue seems to vary state to state - it's just not an issue in TX. There's no movement here that even smells like banning guns. This is obviously more of an issue in NJ. This is why it's not high on my personal radar screen in terms of knowing the details of what's going on in other states.

I don't think the Democratic party as a national party is interested in banning guns. More regulation than we have now? Yes. More regulation than we probably ought to have? Probably. Is it a universally held opinion of Democrats? Nope. Although I'm certainly in favor of more regulation than Axe believes is permissible, I pay a lot of attention to the Constitution, and so do a lot of other Dems. I'm always amused by radio shows that try to paint a picture of a "liberal philosophy" or a conspiracy of "liberals." I'm a conservative in the Democratic party. Probably more on that later.

[John Stark]

Good to hear that you and your family are back home and safe Mythmere.

[Mythmere]

Mythmere---the Rpeublicans are the LESSER of two evils at this point in time.
I am also agaisnt allowing any US citizen being denied basic Constitutional rights (ie held as a declared enemy combatant) I have no problem though with doing this to non-US citizens, but that is another matter.

As to gun control---you need to brush up my friend. Your Democratic leadership is ALL ABOUT the end of private citizens owning firearms or regulating them out of existence. From Diane Feinstein openly stating she wants to take all handguns from all Amerians (per CBS 60 Minutes interview) to California trying to pass legislation requiring bullets to somehow be individuallly marked on each case in an attempt to make ammunition so expensive as to end the use of private firearm use.
Again...are you kidding here? The Assault Weapons Ban also limited the amount of ammo a handgun could use. By the way, this bill was a sham. It banned semi-auto weapons which libs found too scary looking.
The elimination of individual firearm ownership is one of the goals of the Democratic Party.

Not kidding, but also not well educated on the specifics of the bill. Is it true that it completely banned semi-automatic weapons? We had a ban on semi-automatics for the last several years?

Historically the Republican Party was and continues to be the anti-tax party. Just look at the Bush attempts to make his tax cuts permanent and to end the death tax (estate tax). And this is not anti-tax? While the Democrats want to tax us into socialism.

Yes, I don't disagree here. I don't think I said that Democrats were more anti-tax than the Republicans, and especially not the historical republican party. Couple points that are important to me: 1) I used to be a Republican. Today's Republican party is not the historical republican party at all. Up until Nixon, republicans were conservatives. Even Reagan was mostly a traditional conservative in many ways. George Bush senior actually began pulling the party back from a neconservative trend that began with Reagan's administration (which was more neoconservative than Reagan).

By neoconservative, I mean a philosophy that advocates moral (rather than pragmatic) and absolute no-give-ground approaches to diplomacy and foreign relations. It's a nationalist, centralizing, philosophy that views civil liberties as utterly secondary to national security. It advocates a large government - but large government in terms of law enforcement, military, and often education (this is the one point of that platform I agree with). National power is the agenda, not national identity or national protection of the civil liberties that were the purpose of the country originally. It is very big on secrecy.

2) On taxes. This is a red herring. The real question is the size of government. No one wants high taxes. Democrats are accused of wanting big government, hence higher taxes to fund high spending. The other question is entitlement programs, which is slightly different from big government apparatus. I totally don't buy the idea that small government is better just because it's smaller. We're a big country in a complex world. The size of the government apparatus should be whatever the right size is for the sort of govt we want to have. Government is inherently less efficient that private industry, but it functions better than private industry under certain conditions where the free market fails - handling monopolies, where the free market no longer acts efficiently, and handling situations where lots of people all have a very small cost (so small that it's inefficient for them to gather information or take action) such as environmental controls, pro-active safety regulations, military, etc., situations where the market won't reach all citizens with equal efficiency (schooling, electric, post office, fire departments), situations where required capital can't be raised in the private market (again, military), and standardizing product specifications in markets where development can't take place without an established standard (internet).

How do you pay for a government of the right size? You either tax, cut pork, or borrow. THIS republican administration chooses only to borrow. The tax issue comes down to this - at some level, taxes are necessary to run a government. You can't just cut them all across the board and call it good. Especially not if you're the highest-spending administration in the history of the world, which this one is.

As to stopping terrorism? The Dems look at it as a law enforcement issue for god's sake! Instead of attacking the Taliban subpeonas for their arrest should have been issued. No, the Dems are absolute weaklings on this issue. Hell, after 911 one of Gore's aids was quoted in Newsweek that he was glad Bush had one due to the response he thought Gore would have.

Look at the Clinton years---AL Queda blows up two US embassys (US soil bythe way) and a navy destroyer. The Clinton response? Fire a few cruise missiles at abandoned camps n Afghanistan and blow up a janitor in a factory in Sudan.

Agreed, to a large degree. Actually, I don't like either party's approach to terrorism. The solution is to change minds. As a nation, we're good at advertising. We should use those skills to kill Islamo-fascism; it would be cheaper. As I posted above, I think the war in Iraq could have been a good move if done correctly, and might still turn out alright. I'm not at all anti-war, but I'm anti fighting wars stupidly. We look like the Italians at the moment, and we're fixing to look like the French. Firepower alone doesn't win wars any more. The world has changed. The sad thing is, we've still got the tools to win wars, we just aren't thinking holistically about it. A war is only one part of a conflict, and we need to be focused on winning the conflict, not just the tip of the iceberg that is the people with guns and bombs.

[Mythmere]

Hear hear! I agree almost completely with you Mythmere, as I find the the parts of the Patriot Act you've sited disturbing as well.

Now, the Constitution does allow the government some leeway on this stuff during times of emergency, say during war (which we're in) or whatnot. However, any suspension of civil rights should never be more than temporary as far as I'm concerned. So, the Patriot Act should, at some point, go the way of the dodo. Its bugs me that there are republicans who want it to be made permanent.

One thing to keep in mind though, it wasn't just the Repubs who voted for the Patriot Act. Lots of Dems agreed to it as well, and support for it was very strong on both sides of the aisle. The Dems now seem more inclined to want to get rid of it though at this point, with Repubs wanting to keep it, which bugs me to no end.

As Ben Franklin said, those who are willing to give up their freedoms for a sense of security deserve neither (paraphrased).

Hey, Gandalf! It's good to be back, thanks.
We're in agreement on the suspension of civil liberties - the constitution is not a suicide pact, and some freedoms get curtailed in wartime. But it's a good idea to define what the war is, and to what extent it should affect civil liberties. We're done with the war in Afghanistan, to my mind, in terms of whether it is at a level that should affect our civil liberties. In Iraq, we're at war. No problem with checking closely on Iraqi-born citizens, etc. Some profiling is completely permissible in wartime. But this doesn't mean that we've got a wartime need to allow wiretapping without a subpoena. The war in Iraq isn't big enough to justify large intrusions against civil liberties.

The main attack on civil liberties (unrestrained wiretapping, ability to require an ISP to turn over all records, ability to review a person's reading habits in a library, ability to hold citizens without charges) is coming from the war on terrorism. There is no "war" on terrorism that has any definable limits. Terrorism itself has always existed - the Basques, the IRA, the Palestinians, Libya, the list goes on. If we're going to suspend civil liberties over terrorism, then they're not suspended - they're gone.

Define it more narrowly into the conflict with Islamo-fascism, and you're looking at something different from a war. It's probably the next major watershed in history, and it has many aspects to it other than suicide bombers. It has to do with control of the world's oil supply by non-democratic arab tyrants who happen to be WAY more friendly to the USA than what elections in those countries would produce. A very difficult problem. It has to do with Iran, which is a real country with a real military and a serious death count to take it out. And Iran needs to change internally or be taken out, way more than Iraq. It has to do with Israel's weird status as a regional superpower in the hot area that's completely a US ally, but which is a card we can't use because Israeli involvement would bring all the muslim nations together instead of letting us handle them piecemeal. It has to do with joblessness in the middle east, and it has to do with a mindset that we're so far not fighting in the mental realm. There's a mindgame, and so far the other side is the only one playing it. It has to do with oil dependence, it has to do with international banking regulations, diplomacy, and disaster response. It is driving our own religious community to the right, when it should be illustrating the dangers of such a course.

I can see one future in which there is a true war of a Christian-Nation USA (currently part of the TX republican party's platform) against Taliban-like middle eastern nations that result from a mob overthrow of the moderate ruling elites in the middle east. Our own government clamping down on civil liberties both in the name of religion and wartime necessity. The pieces are all there already.

Okay. Done with that.
As to Dems voting for the patriot act, we lacked balls, as I've said before. Much of the Patriot Act is absolutely a good idea. And I wish that the Dems had voted against it until the bad parts were taken out, even though the good parts were completely and absolutely necessary. Sometimes you've got to take a stand, and we blinked.

[John Stark]

I'm not at all anti-war, but I'm anti fighting wars stupidly. We look like the Italians at the moment, and we're fixing to look like the French. Firepower alone doesn't win wars any more. The world has changed. The sad thing is, we've still got the tools to win wars, we just aren't thinking holistically about it. A war is only one part of a conflict, and we need to be focused on winning the conflict, not just the tip of the iceberg that is the people with guns and bombs.

Mythmere, I would suggest that your view of how badly the war in Iraq is going is a product of very, very poor media coverage of the war. About all most people in America hear is that Iraq is a quagmire, the American and Iragi body count, and how powerful the insurgency is over there.

I read military blogs as well as news blogs all the time in conjunction with the main stream media, and I can tell you that practically nothing of the good that America is doing over there is ever reported here by the old press. I also know and spend time with soldiers who have served a tour or more in Iraq, as I'm planning on going into the military shortly myself. Every single one of them says exactly the same thing when I ask them about the media coverage of the war, that what we see on TV and read in the papers here is almost exactly the opposite of what is going on over there.

Yes, people are dying, but thats war and that will never change. These soldies I talk to, the military blogs, and so on, don't sugar coat that. I was talking to a Iraq vet recently who was really emotional, because he had a friend whose wife wanted him to be a supply sergeant, but the friend wanted to go in as a combat soldier. The vet I was talking to told his friend to follow his heart, so the friend went in as an infantrymen and was subsequently killed in a house to house search in Baghdad. This vet I was talking to was really broken up over it, as it was his advice that convinced the guy to go in for combat. He doesn't sugar coat the deaths and horror of war at all. But when I asked him about the media's coverage of it, he told me that it is so completely biased and unfactual that when he first got back to the states he couldn't believe that it was even being aired. He said what we hear is from the media about Iraq is proganda, and that if anyone wants to really know how things are going over there they should talk to the vets. He said morale is really high, because the soldiers not only support the mission, but believe that things are (for the most part) being done right and they truly feel that they are helping to establish a new democratic government there. He told me that most Iraqis he dealt with there were very greatful for the American presence, and that even though they don't want American and coalition forces there any longer than necessary, most Iraqis want them to stay until they are secure under a representative form of government. This guy is a decorated purple heart winner who is most likely disabled for life, and you know what he told me? That if he could get better, he'd go back for another tour (even though he is married, has kids, and has already been away from them for more than a year) because he knows we're making a difference there. This is a guy who served four years before 911, and rejoined to go fight in Iraq.

This is just one story from one vet I've talked to or read about.

Are there problems? Yes. Are people still dieing? Yes. But schools are being built, roads repaired or founded, businesses started, Iraq now has its own stock exchange, women are gaining new rights and access to education, power is being turned on in communities that never had it before (Saddam hoarded the majority of electricity for Baghdad and his military), and so on and so on. American and coalition troops are getting the job done, but people back home aren't getting the news. One soldier likened it to America's occupation of Germany or Japan after WW2. Both of those countries were rebuilt, became stable democracies, and are allies with the US today to this day (Germany less so, Japan much more so, but both are) even though at the time we were foreign occupiers.

So, I think we are winning "hearts and minds" over there. Iraq is stabilizing and moving towards a constitution. Afghanistan had real elections recently with over 80% turn out, and even the UN had to admit that they were on the up and up. Libya gave up its nuclear material to the US last fall. Syria has finally withdrawn from Lebannon. Even Saudi Arabia is making at least some token moves toward democracy, and Egypt as well. Everything is not pie in the sky, but I think the overall strategy is working and will continue to work as long as people are willing to see it through.

[Mythmere]

Axe wrote:
ANYHOW,
Sure, we Republicans care about starving and homeless. But isn't it better to create policies that create jobs (at every salarylevel) and make it easier to start your own business (through corporation reform etc.), rather then just keep taking money out of your pocket and giving it to someone else, to essentially buy their vote? It's amazing that every Dem. I talk to (and I am friends with them) never disagree with these same arguements, but still illogically hold to party loyalty. It's as if its an emotional thing, feelings without thought. Republicans do feel. They just realize self respect and self reliance is the way, and most are willing to bend over backwards to help people get on thier feet. But not at the point of a bayonette.

1) No question, virtually all Republicans care about the homeless and disadvantaged. It pisses me off when I hear Republicans described as heartless or greedy, just like it pisses me off when people ascribe stupid thinking to liberals. The name-calling doesn't help the country, and there are democrats who are just as guilty of this as Republicans. We differ on how to handle the problem, not on whether we care about it. We all care about it, and Republicans are proposing a solution. Which you outline.

2) The conservative (not Republican) solution is to make the economy as efficient as possible. This means using the free market most of the time, and government as a fallback where the free market is not the most efficient vehicle for allocating goods and costs. The best tool for measuring and planning policy is economics, but the conservatives views other things as having non-monetary value, such as free speech, the right to bear arms, etc - these things have a cost associated with them, but we are willing to bear a certain amount of these costs because they generate happiness and liberty that don't show up in a pure dollar calculation.

3) Most Republicans outside the Beltway believe that the current Republican party is in line with the philosophy outlined in (3) above. The elite of the Republican party is not in line with (3) above, however. See below.

4) The current Republican party favors large corporations even when it is not efficient, economically speaking, to do so. One of many examples: the household of a steelworker is basically a small business. It provides services to the economy, it buys things. Yet if the steelworker is hurt (in economic terms, the small business loses income-generating potential), his little business faces a cap on recovery in the courts for the injury (tort reform). There are different rules for small economic units than for large ones. It sounds good to say that the steelworker's lawsuit is part of an abuse of the system by trial lawyers - many such lawsuits are. But solving the problem by capping recovery is a very elegant way to sacrifice the little guy to the big corporation by making the playing field unlevel.

5) entitlement programs are a different issue, and they certainly need reform. However, they serve an important economic purpose when properly applied. There is a huge cost involved when a person drops out of the system - an economic cost. Temporary disability is the best example - it's obvious to most people that you want to provide a safety net to allow someone to get healed up without losing everything in the process. Medicare and medicaid - yes there is abuse. But one mode of attack to keep the dollars down is to reduce the unbelievable protectionism that our government affords to drug companies. These drug companies are not, for the most part, American owned (they trade on American exchanges and have American shareholders, but are not domiciled here or controlled by Americns). Yet in Canada you can buy the same drugs (NOT with the help of Canadian socialized medicine - I mean in the free market) for one tenth the price. Our government is not approaching Medicare/medicaid with a practical, Americans-first line of attack. It's too easy to blame democrats for the high dollar cost of programs that have inflated costs due to Republican control of Congress since 1996. It is, in effect, Republican pork that keeps the cost of these programs high, and it's pork that doesn't even go to American pigs.

As to taxes, the Republican party is (strong language) lying when it says that it is providing a benefit to the middle class by cutting taxes. The middle class (not including the upper middle class, depending on where you make the cut) is being fleeced by this administration. Yes, the taxes are lower. But they are being cut much more for very wealthy Americans, and the middle class, as a result, bears a proportionately greater burden in the future generations when the deficit has to be paid down in the face of national bankruptcy or an exercise of economic power by one of our creditor nations such as Saudi Arabia (which might be under control of religious radicals in the near future if things go wrong). No, it doesn't look like the wealthy class in the US is paying less. The reduced taxes are because those with liquid capital can take advantage of investments that reduce taxes through corporate and business tax rates that don't show in the easy-to-see numbers. People who are just saving for their kids' college and their own retirement don't have liquid capital or the ability to pay for the advice that gets you these loopholes.

As a former M&A lawyer (not even a tax lawyer) I can structure you a deal that takes a million dollars of your walk-around money and reduces your taxes for years, then hands you back a 40% loss of capital (or thereabouts) which you write off at the end. You can ONLY do this sort of thing if you've got a lot of liquid capital. This sort of thing is constantly being attacked by my party, and the Republican defense is that the dems are anti-business. We're not anti-business, we're trying to eliminate tax treatment that incentivizes investments made solely as tax vehicles, and aren't actually good investments without the tax candy. This generally finds support with the (few) republicans in congress who are actually conservatives not radicals. But their voice in the republican party is waning.

Axe, I just saw your post about Hillary using the Patriot Act to gut the 2nd amendment. (By the way, I'm backing Edwards if he runs) It's worth noting that the neoconservative think tanks are very quiet about gun control. Right now it's not politically feasible to disarm the populace, but the theorists of one of the most powerful wings of the current republican party are not friendly to the idea of an armed populace. They want centralized power and a populace that accedes quietly to the national interest. Gun owners don't fit that profile. I think you're in no danger yet, but if the neocon wing of the republicans continues to grow, the republican support for gun ownership may very well trend down on national security reasons. Gun owners don't add to national security, they threaten it. Terrorists use guns just like they use libraries and the internet...

[Mythmere]

Gandalf,

As I've said, the war is a smart move in geopolitical terms. I agree that it seems to be working, and I agree that the media has a liberal bias (although not nearly as bad as Rush Limbaugh would have people believe - it's a bias, not a conspiracy).

My problem with the war isn't a problem with the concept, and I don't think we should pull out like the anti-war folks believe. We started it, we put a whole country at risk, we're doing a good thing, and it's working. End of story, we should stay the course.

My problem with it is that it was done very poorly. On the diplomatic front, on the propaganda front, and to a large degree in the strategic execution, particularly logistics and supply. That's an internal political matter for us to deal with. How did Halliburton "lose" 1.3 billion dollars of taxpayer money? I'll tell you. It's illegal to pay bribes in a foreign country, so corporations put it in the "lost" pile and take the hit. Standard practice - I've done legal work in the oil and gas industry in a Russian deal. What bothers me isn't the fact that moneyt was lost, or that it was spent on bribes - that's practical business. It's the amount, and it's the fact that it's my money being spent on bribes that will mainly benefit Halliburton, not the reconstruction process. I know enough about the internal workings of large companies doing work in corrupt countries to know that this number is too large for regular grease. The percentage is about ten times what bribes cost in Russia. And Russia's not petticoat Junction. This was a giveaway to cement Halliburton's business prospects in Iraq. With my money.

It's important to listen to the real story, because the news is often wrong. CNN showed pics of TX dept of transportation shelters that were set up accidentally ten miles from the evacuation routes out of Houston because a particular kind of rest stop was targeted and no one noticed that this kind of rest stop was way off the evac routes. Covered by the news as a story of hope and government efficiency, actually a totally FUBAR move. Same thing with the soldiers in Iraq. But they also lack (or actually they just have no better) perspective on the whole situation. I know more about how much it costs for an oil company to grease the right wheels in a country with no functioning economy than a soldier in Iraq. I know as much or more about diplomacy than a soldier in Iraq (my degree is in Political Science and my department advisor was a civilian Pentagon employee getting his doctorate - I know wars and diplomacy and how they interact, even if I can't name a single infantry weapon). I trust the kids on the ground to accurately report the part of the puzzle they see. It's my duty as a citizen to evaluate the quality of the decisions that put him there.

[John Stark]

Mythmere, I was not talking about "the kids on the ground," I'm talking about 30+ year olds who have families and aren't clueless eighteen year olds. Guys who know more than just which end of the rifle to point.

Now, its fine to point out problems where America may not be acting wisely. But the ulitmate question is whether the overall picture and outlook is good or bad. At this point, despite the media, I think it looks good, although I do have reasons that are not related to this particular war at all as to why I think the Middle East is ultimately a lost cause that I'm not going to go into.

[Mythmere]

Mythmere, I was not talking about "the kids on the ground," I'm talking about 30+ year olds who have families and aren't clueless eighteen year olds. Guys who know more than just which end of the rifle to point.

Now, its fine to point out problems where America may not be acting wisely. But the ulitmate question is whether the overall picture and outlook is good or bad. At this point, despite the media, I think it looks good, although I do have reasons that are not related to this particular war at all as to why I think the Middle East is ultimately a lost cause that I'm not going to go into.

Good point on the "kids." I retract that. I haven't read more than a couple of military blogs (there was an article in Esquire, or somewhere) and the quality didn't match with "kids." But I still think of the soldiers over there as kids in general, not out of disrespect but because I feel protective of them. My daughter's in AF JROTC, and my youngest son is pretty certain to do a military stint before going into the private world. We're a very pro-military family with a long tradition of people who, actually, got thrown out of the military. *ahem* Nevertheless, we keep trying generaton after generation to produce progeny that don't do things like hitting a commanding officer or getting drunk and lost in Korean cities. It's my wife's side of the family...

As to pointing out problems vs. evaluating the total outlook, it's not a matter of one or the other - they're not mutually exclusive. We have to do both. That's why I think the war was a good idea and should be completed, and it's why I'm also rabidly pissed off about the way it was implemented. It's perfectly possible to hold both opinions.


EDIT: Axe, if you can point me to any sort of national legislation debate on gun control, I will happily write to three democrats as a democrat and tell them to back off on gun control of semi-automatic weapons, if you'll write to a Republican representative as a Republican and express dislike for provisions of the Patriot Act that allow subpoenas to be issued without judicial review. Being in TX, I have no democrat reps, but I'll hit Hillary and Kerry if it's in the senate. They listen to national constituencies.

[Thoth Amon]

Creigh Deeds got the NRA endorcement in VA. He is a Demoncrat. The Repukelican, McDonnell, did not.

Demoncrats, Repukelicans... I hate them both.

Here is my voting hierarchy:
1. Any 3rd party on the ballot - generally Libertarian first, but not always. I will vote for a Communist before I intentionally vote for a Demon or Repuke.
2. Whoever has the fewest ties to any of those insane Christian groups.
3. Whoever I think will do the least damage to my liberties.

Oh, unless someone is running unopposed, in which case I vote for a boss I had a number of years back. I never vote for someone who runs unopposed.

[WSmith]

Demoncrats, Repukelicans... I hate them both.

Here is my voting hierarchy:
1. Any 3rd party on the ballot - generally Libertarian first, but not always. I will vote for a Communist before I intentionally vote for a Demon or Repuke.
2. Whoever has the fewest ties to any of those insane Christian groups.
3. Whoever I think will do the least damage to my liberties.

Oh, unless someone is running unopposed, in which case I vote for a boss I had a number of years back. I never vote for someone who runs unopposed.

Pretty close to my list. Except if someone is running unopposed, I will write in someone else.

[AxeMental]

Myth, I think we are close in agreement. There are a few key differences that seem to devide us however. 1. Your statement that the government can sometimes allocate goods and serivces better then a free market economy. That is false. Unless their is corruption going on (where govt. contracts are being bought).

2. I 100% disagree with your Neo-conservative / conservative destinction. It does not exist. It is a myth. Republicans have ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS believed in 1. A strong military (not nec. large, our military is small given our nations wealth and size and stature), 2. Strong police (once again, this does not mean a large number of police, it means tough punishiments for crimes, so it does mean alot of prisons) It is the democrats that would have you living in a police state. Republicans tell private citizens to be self reliant. 3. a globally non-conformist attitude toward the fight of communism and the spread of American style capatalism....right on!!! Thats not Neo-conservatism, thats just plain Republican going back to before Teddy. What you seem to miss are what we call Moderate Republicans (they were compromisers). And, never forget, those compromisers had to do so, after all the Dems ran the congress and we were in a cold war.
Even today, Bush is giving the Dems way to much power (letting Kennedy write the Education Bill?)

Just remember, the governement can NEVER do things better then private economy via supply and demand.

[Taintedbeing70]

3. Whoever I think will do the least damage to my liberties.

your liberties???

What about the liberties of others???

What if your liberties infringe upon others liberties???

[AxeMental]

Thoth and smith, if there are three candidates, and only two have a chance of winning you should choose between those two. The third may be better, but if they garnish less then 1% of the vote, your throwing it away. And that 1% could make the difference between loosing all your gun ownership rights and hanging on to what little we have. Don't get me wrong, I'm a libertarian I guess. I just think you have to be pragmatic.

[Ska]

Mythmere---the AWB banned certain scary looking rifles (folding stocks, hi-capacity mags, flash suppresors etc) along with certain semi-auto shotguns.

By the way, the Democratic party leadership absolutely DOES want to ban private firearm ownership---one incremental step at a time. Fienstein, Shumer, Hillary---they all want to ban firearm ownership. If your for the 2d amendment you cannot be a democrat. It's that simple. (ie your votes bringinto power those that will destroy the 2d Amendment)

As I've said before I am a libetarian/constitutionalist, but I recognize who the greater threat to libery is and therefore register and vote Republican.

It is only due to the Republicans in power that the ludicrous AWB was allowd to expire.