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

[Outside Bend]

For the record, Fiocchi is in Ozark, MO.

Right. But the question was where is Fiocchi headquartered, not where Fiocchi's US subsidiary is located. My point being that while the ammo may say "Made in the USA," the profits aren't necessarily staying stateside.

[Trout Commander]

Right. But the question was where is Fiocchi headquartered, not where Fiocchi's US subsidiary is located. My point being that while the ammo may say "Made in the USA," the profits aren't necessarily staying stateside.

*edit* Fiocchi USA, is headquartered in Ozark, MO.

[Mitch f]

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.

Al,

respectfully, i should have avoided politics. However, The health care bill was rammed down our throats. State senators and congressman were offered back room sweetheart deals and threats were made. If you listen to FOX news all day long, you will get a right wing skewed view, if you listen to MSNBC you will get a left wing skewed view, the problem is CNN is not in the middle. Both sides can make arguments that sound plausible when they are being made, but it comes down to the fact that if the American people as a whole are against it, it's not going to work.

Listen, I believe that the whole world is based on the pendulum theory; when the pendulum swings too far too one side, it always ends up swinging too far the other way. Take for instance George Bush, most American people didn't agree with the war, most American people had a perception that the Americans alienated other countries. So what happened is the pendulum swung too far the other way by electing the most liberal of all Senators. Now the whole country will have to pay for the "sins" of Bush.

I agree that the republicans are trying to block everything now, whether good or bad. I also don't like the fact that they aren't strong on the environment. I also agree that gas fracking is harmful. But you have to prioritize what is the best for the common good of the people. The simple fact is this president has an extremely low approval rating, so did George Bush. I agree that we need to respect the office, but it's also acceptable to comment on a closed forum.

You make it sound like talk radio is the villain though...it's the only thing the conservatives have left beside FOX news. The liberal have the schools, the Networks, the periodicals, so whats left?

At what point did you choose to comment on this subject, was it because a conservative made a comment that disagreed with yours? what seemed to have mad was the RAMMED down our throats comment or was it criticizing an incumbent president? The point is well taken on criticizing an incumbent president. This also, as you stated, works for both political parties.

You are a small business owner, how many extra paintings will you have to sell now to pay for all the bailouts? who knows. I really feel for all small business owners now, including the Canoe/kayak rental business. Small business are having to resort getting payments in cash and not reporting the income just to survive. I simply think the spending has to stop somewhere. Don't get me wrong, The Iraq war was a big costly mistake too, for the sake of the men in uniform I didn't think it was a good idea to criticize the war effort, but criticizing the president for his agenda should be acceptable in an internet forum, granted not necessarily on a fishing forum but I wasn't the one who started it.

[bigredbirdfan]

Umm. Back to the fishing part.

The intent of the forum is to provide help on topics of fishing. Some people like me are stuck in their offices all week and also have life events that prevent us from fishing as much as a lot of people on here.

Finally, we get a free weekend and look to you guys to help us out.

If you open up and share some things it really does matter. If you just want to get on here and brag about what you caught in "mysterious magical places" find somewhere else to do it because it doesn't really contribute.

As for small streams. I agree that they get more pressure because they are smaller and usually more local. Locals are the poachers. They go back to the same REMOTE places until there aren't fish left to catch.

Anyway, I've been away from the forum for a while and just reading up on some topics.

[Fly_Guy]

It's fun to read the topic of a multi-page thread, and then go to the last post to see where it has been taken. Usually it is on politics or religion or name-calling. What a bunch of thick-headed, left-wing buddists!

As far as fishing, I've got a crappie spot on stockton I can fish from the bank that produces like mad in the spring. But while a few other people know about it, I'm not opening my mouth.

My secret to catching fish is to fish in water.

[Smalliebigs]

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.

Give me a break!!!! This is very much YOUR opinion....whatever

[Phil Lilley]

I thought we weren't supposed to do politics...

I'm not going to read all this - I've read Al's last statement and that's all I need to close this thread.

There are other threads that step over the line too. And basically it's the same crowd that keeps pushing the limits further and further. It's like kids seeing how far they can push the parent's limits, although I'm NOT the daddy. Actually, sometimes I'd like to shut the whole thing down but there's still alot of good things being posted on this forum so I'll keep on keeping on.

If you can't control your fingers, don't post. Go find another forum that allows bashing and leave us alone.

If anyone takes this personally, don't. I'm just trying to keeps lines in place.

BTW - good post, Al.