Image and Substance

What I think you are talking about is the cowboy image, but sometimes it's hard to distinguish between image and substance. I believe that song you quoted was sung by Willie Nelson, a professional entertainer who rode the cowboy image to fame and fortune. I don't know if Willie ever was a cowboy in real life, but he might have been. I understand that Roy Rogers owned an actual cattle ranch, so he might have been a cowboy in both image and substance although, technically, owning a cattle ranch would have made him a cattleman, while the guys who worked for him would have been the real cowboys.

I borrowed the term "card carrying party member" from the old Red Scare days, when it was used to distinguish an actual member of the Communist Party from the sympathizers and fellow travelers. I think that's what you are with the Democrats, a fellow traveler. Of course you can call yourself a Democrat if you are a Democrat at heart, but that's not the same thing as being a card carrying party member. I used to be a card carrying Libertarian, and now I'm not, but that doesn't mean I can't vote for them. Ron and Rand Paul are Libertarians at heart, but they run as Republicans because they want a snowballs' chance in Hell of getting elected. They may or may not hold cards from either or both parties, but they are certainly Libertarians at heart.

I don't know why there is so much drama associated with this election, everybody knows that Hillary is going to win. The best the Reps can hope for is to hold on to their majority in at least one house of Congress or, failing that, regaining it in two years when people get tired of Hillary just like they got tired of Obama. I'm surprised they are even mentioning the Libertarians in the polls, it must be part of the plan to add more drama to the show.

I was polled once you know, back in my card carrying days. I think it was a real poll too because they didn't ask me for money. This nice lady called me on the phone and asked me if I was planning to vote Democrat or Republican. When I told her I was voting Libertarian she said that wasn't one of the options on the form she was using. She said the only three options were "Democrat, Republican, and Undecided". "Nevertheless", said I, "I'm still voting Libertarian". After some hesitation, she said that she was putting me down for "Undecided". "Put me down for anything you want," said I, "But I'm still voting Libertarian". "Okay", said she, "And have a nice day."

I had another look at your machine gun definition and, you're right, it is plenty specific enough for our purposes. Like I said, though, such guns are already illegal for civilians to possess. What you are after is the assault rifles, although my ilk prefers to call them "tactical rifles". This is what I was giving up with my Great Compromise, the semi automatic tactical rifles that are sold on the civilian market. I believe your man Obama was making an effort at the time to get those guns banned, and I said I could go along with it if I could be sure that was all they were going to ban. Since then those guns have become so popular that I'm sure everybody who wants one already has one, so go ahead and ban them if you want. Of course you won't be able to do much about the used market. Indeed, if they stop selling new ones, the market value of the ones already out there will go through the roof. It has happened before when a company stopped making a popular model in favor of a cheaper version.

From what I have seen in my magazines, the definition of "tactical" is evolving as we speak. I saw an ad the other day for a "tactical rifle" that looked like an old fashioned bolt action to me. A closer look revealed that the gun had a bipod attached to it. This might improve the gun's accuracy, but it wouldn't make it shoot any faster. It looks like you can  attach any kind of gizmo to an ordinary rifle and sell it as "tactical" these days.