Lots of folks feel that way. Gun show vendors can't keep stuff on their table. Sporting good stores are out of ammo.
The current president got 52.5% of the popular vote, and claims a 'mandate'. I will admit that if every American was FORCED to vote, his total would have been much higher. I am afraid that's the current sentiment of Americans. They are scared, and lazy, and want a government tit to suck on. Makes them feel better.
Outside of a few, there are FEW banks that are failing. Is the bank where you keep your money in any trouble? I doubt it. AIG isn't a bank. Lehman Brothers isn't a bank. Merrill Lynch isn't a bank. Yet we are being fed the line that the 'stimulus package' is stimulating......banks.
Have you had any problems borrowing? Or does your mailbox look like mine, and continues to be full of daily pleas from banks for me to acquire their credit card, that I'm "pre approved"? Is that a credit crisis? Or is possibly the only 'crisis' that normal credit rules are finally being applied and a few illegal immigrants without jobs are being denied home loans? If you know a local banker, ask him. Also ask him how much 'stimulus money' his bank got, and if he needs it, and what he will do with it.
You make good points about the side issues of gun ownership. I made the same ones months ago, before the board moved. You can own a gun, that's been to the SCOTUS. But they will make it impossible to use it, carry it, transport it, sell it, or carry it.
Like you, if 'we' try to discuss this we are labelled Pessimists and shunned. We're crying wolf, they say. Like Race, this is an issue that can't be seriously discussed in polite company.
AIG is worth $2.6Billion based on their stock price as of yesterday, yet the Feds (me and you) bailed them out to the tune of $170B. If GW Bush had done that, folks would be storming Washington wanting his head. Bailing a company out is one thing, and arguable, but paying 85 times the worth of a company for a TEMPORARY fix is indefensible.
That money is a drop in the total bucket, however. Make no mistake, this is not a bill or program to stimulate anything. This is a simple mis-named attempt to adopt the entire Socialist and Liberal Agenda all at once.
Www.stimuluswatch.org lists all the places this money is going, and it'll blow your mind.
Lots of words are being written and spoken and thrown around these days. I'd caution everyone to listen with a careful ear to everything, from everyone.
What is really happening is that the "Red and Blue" are growing further and further apart, and the Chasm is widening to the point that no reconciliation can ever occur. Democrat and Republican used to mean minor differences in how finances were acquired or spent. Now they are labels to define two groups so far apart I'm about to conclude one is a different species than the other. Each has their spokespeople.....the National TV News, or Talk Radio, etc. As I say, lots of words are being thrown around.
I'm glad I'm old. I am afraid I'm not going to like much of the goings on that occur in the last part of my life. I fear for my grandchildren, innocent as they are today. I fear for a lot of folks.
And I can't afford to buy the amount of ammunition I need. Not to fight back against the government, that's futile. But because much of it may never be available for sale again in my lifetime.
For the first time in the history of this country, using our history, basing thoughts on how it 'used to be', believing things will continue because they have done so so far......is becoming dangerous thinking.
Think I'll go fishing.