Why Are Some Members Deathly Afraid To Say Where They Fish?

[flytyer57]

You must be thinking of WWII when we still had factories in our country, and every American had a job making some product that contributed to the war effort. Those days are long gone, unfortunately.

Ah yes, days gone by. Like when our militaries uniforms were still made in this country and not China.

[jdmidwest]

You guys can sure twist anything around to suit your needs.

Defense contracts for new and replacement military equipment are up, keeping and creating a few jobs. New contracts are coming for new personal weapons under trials now to replace the M4, Beretta had an order for several new pistols. Local factory is being upgraded to paint and refurb training planes for the military. All of the MO National Guard Armories have been revamped in the past few years creating jobs in an otherwise stagnant construction industry. The demand for small arms ammo like 223 and 9mm have kept Fiocchi in Lebanon running round the clock. New technology, Homeland Defense, overseas contracts to rebuild, all have been added since the war.

Not to belittle the deaths on the battlefields, but the war had to be fought, we had a purpose. Remember 911? And it was not only the poor that fought this war, most were National Guard units that were activated for this one at the start. Businessmen, doctors, and working class people all fought alongside the regular army.

If you want to blame anyone for the lack of equipment at the start, blame Clinton, he cut defense spending and emasculated the military while he was in office.

Contrary to popular belief, the government has a clause in all new military spending requiring you to prove you are using American Made stuff, not foreign. I know, I bid the jobs, so twist on that. I have a contract now on a local armory.

[RSBreth]

I can't wait for Phil to shut this down. This thread reminds me of when the teacher was gone out of the classroom (in elementary school) and everyone decided to do "their own thing".

Or the Drake.

[Outside Bend]

You guys can sure twist anything around to suit your needs.

I'm not sure anyone's twisting anything- your stated that war is good for the economy. While some individuals and businesses may be prospering, it's also true there have been numerous layoffs in the defense industry. This isn't the same as the mobilization during WWII, and looking around, I don't see the defense industry lifting us out of recession anytime soon.

Not to belittle the deaths on the battlefields, but the war had to be fought, we had a purpose. Remember 911?

That's fine, but framing war as a tool for economic prosperity strikes me as more than a little callus, the idea of putting mean gold ahead of the golden mean. To me the ideas "war is good for the economy," and "war is good," are two very different things, and should never be confused.

Contrary to popular belief, the government has a clause in all new military spending requiring you to prove you are using American Made stuff, not foreign. I know, I bid the jobs, so twist on that.

Ok.

Where is Fiocchi headquartered?

[Al Agnew]

Okay, here's my standard soap box speech...

I really get very upset about people attacking the character, motives, and intelligence of our President. I understand disagreements on policy, and think that attacking policy decisions is not only okay, it's healthy and necessary to the running of our government. But...when you attack the leader of our country INSTEAD of his policies, you are basically weakening the Presidency, and therefore the country.

And before anybody can bring it up, I believed exactly the same thing when President Bush was in office...and when Clinton was in office. In fact, politics as the blood sport it has become, attacking the ABILITY of the President to do his job by doing all you can to make him look bad, or even all you can to try to remove him from office for things having little or nothing to do with his job, is little short of treasonous.

The time to attack character, intelligence, and competency is during the campaign, before the guy is elected. And in the case of a President running for a second term, it has no place. By that time, that person has enough of a record from the first term that he can be "fought" in the campaign on what he did or didn't do.

But once he's elected, he becomes the President of the country, and in the case of this President he'll stay the leader of the country for two more years at least. Do you WANT him to fail at everything he tries? If you do, you are basically saying you want the country to be diminished in the eyes of the world.

Reasonable people can argue the pros and cons of every action Obama has taken, and the fact that there are reasonable people on both sides of the ideological spectrum is always lost on the bloggers and talk show idiots that seem to believe they are infallible and their beliefs came straight off the mountain etched in stone. But what I've seen here is what I usually see on these types of arguments...lots of name-calling and regurgitation of ten second talking points, with little use of facts and no attempt to weigh the other side's arguments nor any attempt to show a little respect for their beliefs. Which is when these discussions get nasty, and the reason that Phil and others on other boards I frequent just lay down the law and say no politics. It SHOULD be possible to discuss issues without the nastiness...I'm pretty sure most of not all of us are pretty reasonable people in person. But when you start out with the mindset that the nebulous "other side" is a bunch of idiots or criminals, instead of looking a fellow angler that you've just shared a beer with in the face when you begin to argue politics with him, it's pretty easy to get nasty on the keyboard.

Personally, I don't agree with some of the things Obama has done. I voted for him and I've been somewhat disappointed. But I also believe that much of the problem lies not in Obama but in our dysfunctional Congress, where the art of working together for the good of the country and the art of compromise is pretty much extinct. Take health care. When the whole thing started, you probably couldn't find a hundred people in the country, outside of those who were making huge profits in the health care industry, who didn't believe the system was broken and needed to be fixed. And it seemed that Obama was interested in fixing it as much as possible. He also seemed to be interested in having the Republicans and Democrats in Congress work together to come up with something everybody could live with. But the members of neither party in Congress wanted to work together. The Democrats got a lot of the blame because they had the supermajority, so it was obvious that they were wanting to ram it down the Republicans' throats. But the Republicans were also completely uniterested in seeing the Democrats accomplish something decent--and get the credit for it. Still, the Democrats, even with their supermajority, found out they couldn't do whatever they wished because there were non-liberal Democrats who wouldn't go along with the rest of them. So you ended up with a health care bill that NOBODY was happy with. Not Obama, not the Republicans, not the Democrats, not liberals and not conservatives. But the Democrats, under pressure to accomplish SOMETHING, pushed it through, and Obama, under the pressure of campaign promises made, signed it. Somebody up above said that he rammed it down the throats of an American people who didn't want it. But the fact is that about 1/3 didn't want it because it was too much government interference, 1/3 didn't want it because it didn't go far enough, and the rest are pretty much waiting and hoping it'll turn out to have more good than bad once it all goes into effect. So yeah, you can say 2/3s didn't want it, but you'd never get that 2/3s to agree on what they DO want.

And that's the whole problem. Not only has Congress lost the ability to work together for the good of the people, but the people are so polarized that they can't come close to agreeing on what's good for them. In this kind of atmosphere, I'd be surprised if ANY President can actually function as a leader of the American people.

Phil can't come back soon enough...but in the meantime, maybe we can all show a little respect for each others' opinions if we really try.

[stlfisher]

Okay, here's my standard soap box speech...

I really get very upset about people attacking the character, motives, and intelligence of our President. I understand disagreements on policy, and think that attacking policy decisions is not only okay, it's healthy and necessary to the running of our government. But...when you attack the leader of our country INSTEAD of his policies, you are basically weakening the Presidency, and therefore the country.

And before anybody can bring it up, I believed exactly the same thing when President Bush was in office...and when Clinton was in office. In fact, politics as the blood sport it has become, attacking the ABILITY of the President to do his job by doing all you can to make him look bad, or even all you can to try to remove him from office for things having little or nothing to do with his job, is little short of treasonous.

The time to attack character, intelligence, and competency is during the campaign, before the guy is elected. And in the case of a President running for a second term, it has no place. By that time, that person has enough of a record from the first term that he can be "fought" in the campaign on what he did or didn't do.

But once he's elected, he becomes the President of the country, and in the case of this President he'll stay the leader of the country for two more years at least. Do you WANT him to fail at everything he tries? If you do, you are basically saying you want the country to be diminished in the eyes of the world.

Reasonable people can argue the pros and cons of every action Obama has taken, and the fact that there are reasonable people on both sides of the ideological spectrum is always lost on the bloggers and talk show idiots that seem to believe they are infallible and their beliefs came straight off the mountain etched in stone. But what I've seen here is what I usually see on these types of arguments...lots of name-calling and regurgitation of ten second talking points, with little use of facts and no attempt to weigh the other side's arguments nor any attempt to show a little respect for their beliefs. Which is when these discussions get nasty, and the reason that Phil and others on other boards I frequent just lay down the law and say no politics. It SHOULD be possible to discuss issues without the nastiness...I'm pretty sure most of not all of us are pretty reasonable people in person. But when you start out with the mindset that the nebulous "other side" is a bunch of idiots or criminals, instead of looking a fellow angler that you've just shared a beer with in the face when you begin to argue politics with him, it's pretty easy to get nasty on the keyboard.

Personally, I don't agree with some of the things Obama has done. I voted for him and I've been somewhat disappointed. But I also believe that much of the problem lies not in Obama but in our dysfunctional Congress, where the art of working together for the good of the country and the art of compromise is pretty much extinct. Take health care. When the whole thing started, you probably couldn't find a hundred people in the country, outside of those who were making huge profits in the health care industry, who didn't believe the system was broken and needed to be fixed. And it seemed that Obama was interested in fixing it as much as possible. He also seemed to be interested in having the Republicans and Democrats in Congress work together to come up with something everybody could live with. But the members of neither party in Congress wanted to work together. The Democrats got a lot of the blame because they had the supermajority, so it was obvious that they were wanting to ram it down the Republicans' throats. But the Republicans were also completely uniterested in seeing the Democrats accomplish something decent--and get the credit for it. Still, the Democrats, even with their supermajority, found out they couldn't do whatever they wished because there were non-liberal Democrats who wouldn't go along with the rest of them. So you ended up with a health care bill that NOBODY was happy with. Not Obama, not the Republicans, not the Democrats, not liberals and not conservatives. But the Democrats, under pressure to accomplish SOMETHING, pushed it through, and Obama, under the pressure of campaign promises made, signed it. Somebody up above said that he rammed it down the throats of an American people who didn't want it. But the fact is that about 1/3 didn't want it because it was too much government interference, 1/3 didn't want it because it didn't go far enough, and the rest are pretty much waiting and hoping it'll turn out to have more good than bad once it all goes into effect. So yeah, you can say 2/3s didn't want it, but you'd never get that 2/3s to agree on what they DO want.

And that's the whole problem. Not only has Congress lost the ability to work together for the good of the people, but the people are so polarized that they can't come close to agreeing on what's good for them. In this kind of atmosphere, I'd be surprised if ANY President can actually function as a leader of the American people.

Phil can't come back soon enough...but in the meantime, maybe we can all show a little respect for each others' opinions if we really try.

[Trout Commander]

For the record, Fiocchi is in Ozark, MO.

[jdmidwest]

For the record, Fiocchi is in Ozark, MO.

What is the plant in Lebanon that we used to buy Shotgun Shells from back in the 90's? I thought that was Fiocchi.

[jdmidwest]

That's fine, but framing war as a tool for economic prosperity strikes me as more than a little callus, the idea of putting mean gold ahead of the golden mean. To me the ideas "war is good for the economy," and "war is good," are two very different things, and should never be confused.

It was a general statement, war is good for the economy for the basis that defense spending goes up and most of it stays in the US. I don't suggest that we use it as a tool to get us out of a depression.

[flytyer57]

You guys can sure twist anything around to suit your needs.

Defense contracts for new and replacement military equipment are up, keeping and creating a few jobs. New contracts are coming for new personal weapons under trials now to replace the M4, Beretta had an order for several new pistols. Local factory is being upgraded to paint and refurb training planes for the military. All of the MO National Guard Armories have been revamped in the past few years creating jobs in an otherwise stagnant construction industry. The demand for small arms ammo like 223 and 9mm have kept Fiocchi in Lebanon running round the clock. New technology, Homeland Defense, overseas contracts to rebuild, all have been added since the war.

Not to belittle the deaths on the battlefields, but the war had to be fought, we had a purpose. Remember 911? And it was not only the poor that fought this war, most were National Guard units that were activated for this one at the start. Businessmen, doctors, and working class people all fought alongside the regular army.

If you want to blame anyone for the lack of equipment at the start, blame Clinton, he cut defense spending and emasculated the military while he was in office.

Contrary to popular belief, the government has a clause in all new military spending requiring you to prove you are using American Made stuff, not foreign. I know, I bid the jobs, so twist on that. I have a contract now on a local armory.

Yes how we can all turn things around to meet our needs.

1) Clinton did not cut military spending. That was George H W Bush. Read his 1992 SOTU address where he states; "Two years ago, I began planning cuts in military spending that reflected the changes of the new era. But now, this year, with imperial communism gone, that process can be accelerated." and " The Secretary of Defense recommended these cuts after consultation with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And I make them with confidence. But do not misunderstand me. The reductions I have approved will save us an additional $50 billion over the next 5 years. By 1997, we will have cut defense by 30 percent since I took office." I hate when you right wingers twist dung around and blame the other guy for what your guy did.

2) Defense contracts may be up, but total unemployment has been up since the start of those wars.

3)The war in Iraq was a farce and you know it. Sadam had nothing to do with 911. Nor were any of those chemical, biological or "nucular" weapons found.

4) military uniforms are still made outside of the US. Because they are made in some godforsaken US territory does not make them US made. Spin that one.