Want to talk to the 28%? Try the gun range.

[Deep13]

I was leaving the shooting range last night when somehow I got sucked into a conversation about Sens. Clinton, Lautenberg and Schumer are enemies of the USA. The shop owner who I know pretty well was talking about that bill that would allow the Feds to confiscate firearms with no warrant in the event of an energency (and the AG decides what is an emergency.) I had to agree that it is a pretty scarey bill as it seems to be just another way to consolidate power in the executive banch. Somehow, though, he made the leap to treason. I tried to explain what treason really is. Aid and comfort means war materials.

Well, then he pointed out that most Senators are not veterans. (Still wonder what that has to do with anything.) Then they got to Kerry. Oh, he didn't earn those medals you know. And anyone with a movie camera must have just been making a resume. I said the Navy thinks his medals are genuine and that I believe him. I also said I was not interested in reading a propoganda book called Unfit for Command. Then the other guy, a customer, said I must be a liberal for not believing their paranoid crap and because I'm a lawyer (which in fact is a pretty conservative profession.) I told him I was a prosecutor and that surprised him just a little. Then the customer started in on the whole liberal media delusion. It occured to me then that our side had already won the election so I just let it go.

Later I realized how insulting the "you must be a liberal" remark really was. It did not occur to me then because I don't think the term is derrogatory, but he certainly meant it as such. What I should have said was, no I am an American citizen who happens to think the liberal point of view is usually right. I make up my own mind based on the evidence. I could have said, "Yeah, that's why I'm in a gun range," but that would be a denial I did not want to make.

Wow. It was like being in Stephanie Miler's Right Wing World for real where the laws of nature no longer apply.

[catmandu57]

1. 25% now

and shrinking, you can find these people everywhere not only at the firing range. Their world is shrinking and imploding daily.

[Deep13]

2. "...shrinking and imploding..."

Sounds good to me.

[EstimatedProphet]

3. I know exactly what you mean

I own guns and like to shoot, but I hate the fact that the freeptards think that gun ownership solely belongs to them, and assume that if you own a gun you're just as stupid, paranoid, and bigoted as they are.

[xmas74]

4. The actual phrase I hear on a regular basis is

"You must be one of those fucking godless lib assholes."

Yes, it is used as an insult on a regular basis and yes, I do hear it at least a few times a week. I don't force my views on anyone and I don't talk about politics unless someone brings the topic up and there seems to be interest. I don't yell over others and I don't try to convert them to my view-I state what I think, offer some facts that back up my thoughts and then drop it. Yet I am yelled at, I am not allowed to state my views and I am supposed to kiss some idiot's ass for regurgitating whatever Rush or Bill have recently said.

In my town it's not worth the fight. They teach their children that liberals are the enemy and that they should be confronted, shouted down and threatened with deportation. (Though I don't understand the deportation bit. Every so often I feel a bit onery and state how long my "people" have been here in the US and how my ancestors probably wouldn't appreciate having given their lives so some upstart can insult one of their own and make threats toward them. That usually shuts them up for a few until someone tells me to go "Back East" instead of leaving the country, even though I've never lived on the east coast.)

I've given up the public discussions. Right now I just work and go home. I don't do anything in town anymore because I can't stand the level of discourse in our small town.