we've all lost

I’ve been watching the Brett Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford dealings now with a very heightened state of observance, and I’ve not offered anything on it yet, but I really feel like I need to finally say something about this. 

Should you care what I have to say?  Maybe.  If nothing else, it might serve to illuminate something you might have not considered in this matter.

I’m going to assume that you’ve watched the judiciary debate on Mr. Kavanaugh.  And, even if you haven’t watched it, I won’t assume you have an opinion on the matter- I know you do, whether or not you watched it all.  All of us seem to.  I’m not calling into question your opinion on whether or not Kavanaugh did what Dr. Ford alleges he did or not- you are completely entitled to your opinion, as am I.

Now, we’re basically down to deciding if Judge Kavanaugh should be confirmed or not, and the one thing that strikes me is that people have made their decisions on what they think.  And here’s the deal:

It doesn’t matter what you think.  And it doesn’t matter what I think, either.

The simple fact of the matter is that justice isn’t based on what we think.  It’s based on the facts that come from the case and the investigations that get that data.  Now, before you run completely off the rails and say, “but there was no investigation and that’s the problem”, let me correct you here- there was an investigation.  And, truthfully, there was more than one.  And all of them found no corroborating data to back up Dr. Ford’s allegations.  You can call into question the veracity and scope of these investigations and sworn testimonies, but the fact is that none has been found.

But that’s not the problem here.  Believe it or not.

The problem here is that the judiciary committee – both sides – have run roughshod over the entirety of the law in order to get what each other’s side wants, and they have done so at the expense of two people who are caught in the middle, Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh.

You see, the Republicans want their judge.  The Democrats don’t want the Republican judge.  It’s as simple as that.  Both sides are posturing and proffering their sides and hiding behind the legalese of the moment.  Yes, the Republicans did call for an investigation (that’s where Mark Judge’s sworn statement came from- it did not appear out of thin air) and Sen. Jeff Flake asked for another one that resulted in the non-findings we saw on Thursday.  The Democrats were presented with a letter from Dr. Ford in July and were asked to not make it public – and, by the way, they could have asked for an FBI investigation right then and there based on that letter, as is their right – and they chose not to do it until Judge Kavanaugh’s record failed to disqualify him, and then Sen. Feinstein’s office leaked it at the 11^th hour.  (and they did leak it- they had the only copy of the letter, and the entire letter was leaked to the press) The hope in leaking the document was so that they could delay the confirmation hearings until the mid-term elections in November, where they hope they will win the Senate and the House and turn back the nomination that way.

Both sides have committed egregious sins here.  BOTH SIDES. Both sides performed their tasks at the barest of minimums to be within the bounds of the law - just enough - and did so knowing full well that they would have plenty of places to hide.  Neither one is better than the other, and what we’ve been left with is a court of popular opinion as to whether Judge Kavanaugh actually assaulted Dr. Ford in the summer 1982.  Based on the findings of the FBI and the other sworn statements, it simply cannot be established. 

It’s important to understand that justice simply cannot be born out of what we think.  Facts have to be corroborated in any court case for guilt.  In this country, you and everyone around you is supposed to be innocent until found guilty of a crime, and the mere allegation of a crime is not and should never be enough to find someone guilty.

So, both sides have “gamed the system” here, and we are all left to our own devices.  Whether or not Judge Kavanaugh is actually guilty of Dr. Ford’s allegations is something we will never know, and our government has seen to that.  

All of that is really sad and troubling, but it pales in comparison to the truly troubling part- and that is that a very serious allegation has been weaponized for political gain by both sides.  Both sides have set investigating sexual assault back at least 25 years.  ANYONE who makes a claim of sexual assault, regardless of when or where it happened – they need to be validated and heard.  This is an awful, awful thing to have happen to anyone, and to have it marginalized in the fashion that we’ve all witnessed – and marginalized by BOTH SIDES FOR THEIR OWN GAIN is just about the worst thing I’ve ever witnessed in my 54 years on this planet.  Watching the testimony of Dr. Ford and then Judge Kavanaugh last week (I watched the entire thing from start to finish) made me physically sick to my stomach.  No one was listened to.  No one was heard.  Not Dr. Ford and not Judge Kavanaugh.  Both of them were equally compelling in their testimony, and I personally could reach no real determination based on what I saw, because all I saw was the Democrats pandering to Dr. Ford and doing their level best to crucify Judge Kavanaugh and vice-versa for the Republicans (while their side stepped asking Dr. Ford any real questions at all).  

I have to say that the single most egregious thing I saw all day was Sen. Feinstein’s answers to whether or not she leaked the letter.  That was amazingly disgusting to watch, but basically she knew she was caught, and when she knew it, she immediately threw Dr. Ford under the wheels of her own particular bus and actually suggested that Dr. Ford was somehow to blame for it.  The media pretty much ignored that, but that was seared into my brain and was a real tell on the entirety of the proceedings- there was no depth either side wasn’t willing to sink to in order to get their agenda met, including sandbagging their own “witness”.  Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans had even the slightest desire to hear anything that didn’t directly serve their purpose, and for the first time in my life I saw the very darkest side of US politicians.  They are all truly scumbags and none of them should be in any place of power.  Not one single one of them.

This weekend, we’re supposed to have the final vote to confirm.  I don’t know how that’s going to turn out, and now I don’t care.  The Supreme Court is supposed to be the final non-partisan arbiter of the law, and with this set of proceedings it is extremely clear that isn’t going to be the case anymore.  Maybe it never was, but at least it hasn’t been so obvious before.  At least not to me.

So, when that vote comes down and you find yourself just echoing the same crap you’ve been spewing from your pie-hole on what you “think”, think again.  No matter how that vote comes down, all of us have already lost.  You might just want to think about that and shut your mouth about it.  I know I plan to do just that.

heartbreaking

Seems the only reason I ever blog at all is because I'm frustrated.  And I'm frustrated today, so here we go again.

17 dead in a Florida high school.  God, have mercy on us all.

In terms of frustration ratio, my more than mildly irked that this has happened again.  AGAIN.  What's worse about this time is that, according to the news accounts, the shooter showed all the warning signs.  A lot of students predicted that this would happen from this guy, and yet-

It.  Just.  Did.

But, getting back to the frustration ratio, my real frustration is with the folks who chime in when these things happen who cannot and will not make suggestions to "fix" this ongoing problem with any kind of suggestion that is based on reality.  They have knee-jerk reactions and suggest things like smaller capacity magazines, a moratorium on gun ownership, more background checks- that list goes on and on and a lot of that has already happened- and yet, the problem persists. 

That frustration is heightened even more because no matter how many of these "suggestions" we put into play, they ignore two immutable facts:

1. All those "suggestions" do is make it harder for citizens who obey the rules.
2. Criminals - and would-be criminals - don't obey the rules.  That's why they are called "criminals" in the first place.

What this tells me is that the folks who make these "suggestions" fall into just a couple of camps: those who really don't have anything actionable on their minds and feel they must react (kind of like the guy writing this blog right now.....ahem) and those that have buried their heads so far into the sand that they might as well double for a fracking rig.

As long as we don't deal with reality, this is going to continue to happen.  We can confiscate guns- and then the bad guys will be the only ones with them - again, this is the reality we live in.  I don't make the rules here- but as long as there is someone who is willing to "bend the rules" and sell/give away guns in an illicit manner, folks like this latest shooter will continue to be able to get them.  And, don't fool yourself- it's easy to buy an illegal weapon from someone who obtained one thru illegal means.  Clearly, confiscation will do no good- and like it or not, it's prevented by the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution no matter how you'd like to read it or read into it:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Again- people can read into this all they want to, but the operative words here are the last 4- "shall not be infringed" - and if you actually did read the Bill Of Rights you'll already know that it says nothing about what the government can do- all of the Bill Rights has to do with what the government cannot do, and that's important delineation to note.

So, like it or not, the 2nd Amendment is here to stay, folks.  Confiscation is illegal, and it wouldn't help anyway since there's an awful lot of guns in this country and there's simply no way to get them all.  That's not gonna work.

I've been around firearms all my life, and consider myself to be somewhat of an "arm-chair expert" on them, and I can tell you that there has never been a case of a gun killing anyone when a person isn't attached to it.  That's incontrovertible.  Moreover, there's no such thing as "accidents" when firearms are involved- there is only "negligence".  That is also incontrovertible.  If it isn't an unintended firing it's worse because they meant to do it.  Again- incontrovertible.

The thing no one really wants to sink their teeth into is this - and I hate like hell that I'm about to sound like a GOP guy, but it boils down to mental health.  It just does.  No person in their right mind would do the things that this shooter has done.  In colloquial terms, they are "crazy" but in clinical terms they are mentally ill.  

And, that's really all there is to it.  It's difficult to take a step back on a day like today and dispense with the partisan rig-a-more-roll and just examine the facts dispassionately, but that's what needs to happen if anything is really going to be done about this.  Or, let me try to illuminate this another way:

Florida is well known to be a very liberal leaning state.  That's not a bad thing, mind you.  But, the mindset that seems to suggest sweeping reforms is largely from the liberal mindset- and, again that's perfectly ok - so it follows naturally that the predominance of the folks affected by this latest shooting are probably liberal in their stances on this issue.  (I am NOT saying, trying to say nor infer that there is anything wrong with a liberal stance here)  These same folks who think and understand these things from a common mindset are the ones probably paying the most attention to those things, and yet, when confronted with a known person who many said they predicted would do something like this - those same people didn't do anything about it.  Now why is that?

Because as a society we are plagued with the idea that this kind of thing happens only to others.  And, as a society, we want a "fix" in place that relinquishes all of us of the need to invest in the solution.  If someone had reported this, they would have to go to the police and make a complaint and that takes time.  If someone did go to the police with this, then the police would have to start a case and invest their time.  If the police did start a case and they contacted this person, then that person is going to be inconvenienced and that takes time.  And effort.  And follow-up.  And, also in this society, there is absolutely no tolerance for an undotted "i" or an uncrossed "t" and either of those make the litiphobes go nuts, so they don't even bother to put in either the time or effort.

So, the only real thing to do is bury your head in the sand and hope it doesn't happen, or you bury your head in the sand and hope someone else takes care of it- and let them be litigated when things go wrong.

We have to do something about mental health in this country, and not just because of school shootings.  The population that has mental health problems is so vastly "underlooked" after (note: NOT overlooked, because that would imply that someone is looking but not seeing) and that state of disarray is the single biggest common denominator in things like domestic abuse, homelessness and also wanton violence.  I'm all for mental health checks as part of a background check regimen for gun ownership, but the problem there is that only the lawful will participate.

People who have had diagnosed mental health issues should not own a gun.  I'm onboard with that.  Again, we're talking about just lawful people here- so what to do about the unlawful?  What do we do with the folks that absolutely will get their hands on a weapon and use it like this shooter did?

I have a partial answer to this:

1. If the perpetrator of an act like this is found to be in illegal possession of a firearm, they immediately and permanently lose their US Citizenship.  Even if they were born here and their entire family is US Citizens.
2. The perpetrator should be tried as a Terrorist.  Not "domestic" or "extremist" - terrorism is terrorism.
3. If the perpetrator is found guilty of Terrorism, they should be sentenced to life with no possibility of parole- and by that, I don't mean they get a parole hearing every 7 years as a formality- I mean they don't even get a hearing.
4. If the perpetrator has their citizenship revoked, they must immediately find - at their own expense - a country that will take them.  They will also be unable to re-enter this country on a work visa or even with a passport from that country.  They are literally pariah as far as this country is concerned.
5. Failure to relocate as a newly defrocked American citizen earns you a nice long stay in a Federal prison.  Without parole.  Without parole hearings.  You're done.

Now here's the worst part of my idea- culpability.  People who have heard of someone possibly doing these things and don't report it- they should be guilty as accomplices.  Perhaps lower in stature than what constitutes a normal accomplice, but nonetheless- they should be held responsible for their own inactions.  That doesn't stop with mere citizens- if the cops knew that this could happen and no one stepped in, they should be equally responsible as this type of accomplice.

The idea here is simple: this is a problem that we all face, and we all have to get involved if we're going to fix it.  No one is immune, and there should be consequences for those that think they are.

This is a problem that is going to take a lot of time and energy to fix, and it's not going to go away overnight.  If you're idea of fixing this is somehow related to purely gun ownership, then you're as much a part of the problem as those who hear stuff and don't do anything about it.

In the meantime, I'll just be over here, heartbroken.

clarifications

These days, I find myself in an interesting place in the political spectrum.  Although I've resisted - for quite awhile - writing any of it down and committing it to the halls of my own personal history, I just feel compelled to do so now.

As anyone who knows me knows well, I'm a Christian.  I make no secret of it, but I don't exactly hit people over the head with it, either.  As a Christian, I tend to somewhat "lean to the right" politically, but I am not a Conservative in the classic sense.  My Conservativism pretty much stops and starts at governmental size (I like it to be small and effective) and keeping the government out of business (I am laissez-faire capitalist)- but that's really it.  Darned near everything else in the political spectrum leaves me in kind of a "social liberal no-man's land" - I don't particularly care if LGBTQRSTUVXYZ folks wanna get married; don't like abortion, then don't get one; I don't want religion taught in public schools (the people that would do it can't)- and on more than a few political topics I don't even have an opinion, nor do I want one.

I am not really an Evangelical Christian, either- I definitely used to be up until fairly recently- but I don't want to digress into why the change of heart there- we'll save that for a later time - but the predominance of the people that I associate with on a daily basis are.  And, since I was an Evangelical Christian, I do know what they believe and why they believe it - and I don't really take all that much issue with those why's and how's.  There's much bigger things to be concerned with these days.  And, even though I am an ardent Follower and Believer in Jesus, I'm an almost equal and ardent student of history and I know, full well, that this country is not a Christian country, nor has it ever been- despite what others may think and say.  This country's founding fathers were at best Deists, but they saw the disadvantages of a state run church (which, btw, is where the idea of "separation of church and state" begins and ends) and a lot of them first hand witnessed what a state run religion does to its society.....I'm starting to digress again.

But lately I keep hearing how it's the Evangelicals or just "Christians" who are the ones who are responsible for the trials and travails that come in the form of our current POTUS rants over tweets and such.  I find that troubling for a number of reasons, and I thought I might try to explain something to my more "liberal" readers about what this actually is.  And, when I'm done with that, I'll address some of my more "evangelically minded" readers thoughts and point out a couple of fallacies there, too.  Now, remember- this is my blog and I can say what I want to here- and I'm voicing my thoughts here and I am absolutely guaranteed that I get to have my own opinion on these things.  So, read on if you dare, but if you flame me for this, you better have your stuff together first.

I don't really expect to change anyone's mind, but rather just seek to try to explain a couple of ideas from my own, limited vantage point.

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FOR MY LIBERAL READERS

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I *think* the reason that Mr. Trump might be appealing to some out there is because he doesn't represent the "normal" state of the current Politician Class.  In order to understand this more readily, as a more "liberal" minded individual, you're going to need to dispense with your preconceived notion of how much of an idiot Mr. Trump seems to be (I mean- Good God- there's enough proof provided daily for that, but....) and let's examine this for what it is- I think that the "moral majority" is just tired of politicians who just say and do what all the other politicians are saying and doing and they initially wanted someone to shake things up.  (as in "drain the swamp" )  I don't think that this statement is especially expository, but if you view it within the context of how partisan politics are these days and were before the new administration was here, I think you can probably see why this would have happened.  Was Hillary or Bernie Sanders going to rock the boat- no.  They're both pretty much status-quo political types, even though Bernie is a self-proclaimed Socialist.

The other thing to appreciate here is the fact that most of the mid-west has been completely ignored by D.C. for a long, long time.   When it comes time for elections, candidates show up to only those places that can be "gamed" for their Electoral College votes, but the vast geographic majority of "fly-over" country is ignored by these status-quo politicians for appearances, town halls, etc.  Perhaps the thinking was that a bonafide boat-rocker would be different?  Seems reasonable to think that way, and we all saw first-hand that the Dems lost in places they had never lost in because they just considered those places to be "wrapped up" - which plays right into the hands of that part of the populace who thinks that they're being ignored already.

That "ignored" populace is who voted for Trump, because whether or not you like him there is no debating that he is a boat-rocker.  But, therein lies the crux of the problem: he's an unlistening boat-rocker and if arrogance was people, he'd be China.

Here's the part that my liberal readers really aren't getting about this- a lot of the folks who voted him in are now experiencing what can only be referred to as "buyer's remorse".  Yesterday, I heard a news article about a documentary team that was interviewing people in Roberts County, Texas - a county where 95% of the voters voted for Trump, and every last one of them expressed misgivings around their choice after the first year of office, mainly on the topic of Trump's tweets.  They wish he would shut up, just as we all do.  They had other misgivings, too.

It's difficult for people to admit when they are wrong, even when the predominance of proof is there to do it.  These people are just like all the rest of us- they don't want to admit that, and they certainly don't want to admit to our 4th estate who they believe to have an agenda of bad-mouthing anything the GOP does.  (And make no mistake- they do have that agenda- but then again, the GOP doesn't really do anything to prevent that.  Ahem......)  So they continue to stay their course publicly, while in private they express their misgivings to each other where it is considered safe to do so.

The issue that really chaps my hide here is that you liberal folks just want to lump all Christians into this single bucket of group-thought (or group-non-thought) and just believe that we're all a bunch of Neanderthals who want to go back to 1955 and re-live the Eisenhower years, and that is just not true.  My Christian friends are appalled at where we are right now, just as you are.  No thinking, rational person believes for a second that this climate of abuse is something good.  They don't want things to turn back.  Just like you, they want a better world for their children and yours.  I know that's truly inconvenient to say, because it's so much easier to just cast them all into a bucket of "evil" or "stupid" and be done with the lot of them, but you gotta admit- that sentiment isn't really making anything better.  Is it?

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FOR MY CONSERVATIVE READERS

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First off, if you believe that God is a Republican, I implore you to stop breeding now.  He is not.  In fact, the very idea of God- his omnipresence and omniscience is actually way more Democrat than Republican.  God doesn't want to be and isn't small in size, and He is definitely not a laissez-faire capitalist either.  Omnipresence and omniscience is 100% incompatible with "separation" of things like that.  Truth be told, God is neither Democrat nor Republican, nor is He a Socialist or a Libertarian, Tea Party, SJW or Activist.  God is God.

Second off, if you believe that the US is a Christian nation, I again implore you not to breed.  This country, while founded on some Judeo-Christian principles, does not ascribe to a Biblical view of the world anymore than any other nation does.  Nor are we worse than others.  There is no equivalency here, so stop trying to create some.  The writers of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution merely invoked the idea of "God" in those documents (hence the statement "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights" as a prime example) and only did so to illustrate that the end of the line is that Deity, not modeling said Deity.

Third- while dispensing with any "I Hate Trump" sentiments- do you really think that this particular guy is doing a great job and is the best fit for our country- now, be honest.  His penchant for saying whatever is on his mind hasn't really served anyone well- the mote that has been set around him is only getting deeper by doing that, and while it's great fun to see the others on Capitol Hills writhe in pain from what he says (hey- I admit that I do enjoy that, too) it's only driving more and more dissension.  It makes it more and more difficult for him to get anything done - yes, you could make the case that it shouldn't be this way, but pragmatism has to win the day.  He needs to be way more diplomatic than he has been if he hopes to continue to do much of anything constructive.  No, that doesn't mean that he has to become "one of them", but it does mean that the adage of "you can kill more flies with a flyswatter than with a .50 caliber machine gun" is still very much a real thing.

When Obama was a candidate, I heard many of you question whether or not he was qualified to be in the office.  I questioned that as well, and I still think he wasn't- but I will say that I think he gained that qualification over time.  Trump is a businessman, and having a businessman running this country is something I thought I'd actually like- but we all forgot that Trump has not been a successful businessman.  All of his businesses have failed, and the way that he ran those businesses is somewhat questionable- so again, we didn't really get what we bargained for here.  And, if we add to that some of the things that no one debates that he didn't do - that interview with that schlocky "news" magazine where he said "grab 'em by the pu....." - that definitely speaks to a lack of professionalism and there's just no getting around that.

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FOR ALL MY READERS

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Because I don't seem to fit the molds on either The Right or The Left, let me try to sum up my vantage point.

Q. Do you like Mr. Trump?
A. No, I do not.

Q. Did you like Mr. Obama?
A. I liked him as a person, but I did not like his policies while he was in office.

Q. Who was the last POTUS you liked?
A. As a person, Mr. Obama.  As someone who's policies I agreed with, George H.W. Bush.  (I also liked him as a person)  Before that, we gotta go all the way back to either Harry S. Truman or Woodrow Wilson.

Q. Is Mr. Trump a danger to the US?
A. No.  His office- the Executive Branch - is the weakest 1/3 of the US Government and there are too many checks and balances on him for him to do anything truly bad or long lasting.

Q. Is Mr. Trump a danger to the rest of the world?
A. THAT is a good question.  For some, yes- ISIS/ISIL/Daesh/Boko Haram and groups like that as well as countries like NK and Iran should be very afraid.  Nobody else needs to be.

Q. Do you think that Mr. Trump is dangerous in general?
A. Kind of, but not for the reasons you might think.  I think he's dangerous because no one who really matters takes him seriously.

Q. Is Mr. Trump the worst POTUS we've ever had?
A. No.  Not even close.  That dubious award goes to (in this order) US Grant, Warren Harding, Andrew Johnson and Andrew Jackson.  (Look it up, kids)

Q. Should Mr. Trump be impeached?
A. The only reason that Trump should be impeached is if he A) is found to be in collusion with the Russians B) impedes the investigations of Russian Collusion.  His comments on various things are not, and will not, be impeachable offenses.

Q. Do you think that Mr. Trump is unfit for office?
A. No more so than Mr. Obama was.  I do think that Trump is an arrogant ass-hat and Obama was not that.

Q. What the worst thing about Mr. Trump as POTUS?
A. The fact that no one has taken his Twitter account away.  They really should.

Q. Do you think that Mr. Trump colluded with the Russians?
A. Yes.  I think he did so to get dirt on Hillary Clinton.  And I believe that if that can be proven, he should be impeached.

Q. Is Mr. Trump your President?
A. Yes, unfortunately he is.

Q. Since Mr. Trump was elected by The Electoral College and not the people, should the Electoral College be rescinded?
A. Hell, no.  The Electoral College is the prime reason that makes peaceful transitions of power in this country possible and makes us different from the rest of the world.

Q. Do you believe that Mr. Trump is a corrupt individual?
A. Yes.  Absolutely.  Just as all politicians are.  Every, single one of them.

Q. Are you a Republican or a Democrat?
A. I am neither.  I am an American Citizen with a fully working brain that I use on a daily basis.

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I hope that maybe some of the above statements can clear some things up.

FBO - For Bass Players Only - The "F" Word

I subscribe to a number of groups on Facebook, and many (read:most) are somehow either musical or bass in nature (in the case of slap videos, those terms are mutually exclusive most of the time - ahem) and there's a topic on the bass related ones that crops up from time to time.  I should add that it is a topic that is near and dear to my heart:

"Is a Fender bass worth it as an instrument to own?"

Which, somehow invariably morphs into this:

"Are Fender basses the best basses?"

As a session player, I do have a somewhat different take on this topic.  When I started my career (in the late 70's) there were 3 things that were important:

1. Show up on time.  Early is better.
2. Make sure your gear works.
3. Make sure that you have at least one Fender with you.

I know that sounds trite, but it's 100% true.  If you didn't have a Fender with you, you were gonna have a bad day.  And, it really didn't matter if it was a Precision or a Jazz- it just had to have the name "Fender" on it somewhere, and it needed to sound like a Fender.  Period.

Now, why do you suppose that is?  Well, it might not seem terribly obvious to you, but there really was a reason, and it all boiled down to two things: the gear being used and the people using it.

In 1951, Leo Fender turned the recording industry on it's ear by introducing the electric bass guitar.  It wasn't for the reasons you might be thinking, either- it's because, up until this time, bass playing was being done by bass players playing upright basses.  Playing the upright was (and still is) a pretty demanding thing and is really only taken on by people that want to do it.  The chief problem wasn't the size of the instrument, but rather the fact that uprights don't have frets, which meant that unless you knew what you were doing, everything would sound really, really bad.  When Leo released his first production instruments, he did so to attract guitar players to be able to play bass and play it in tune, hence the name "Precision" bass.  This little marketing ruse actually worked, too- all the session guitarists of the day suddenly found themselves with the ability to double effectively, and that also meant more money for them if they could do it.  Every single bass player in studio bands like The Section, The Wrecking Crew and Muscle Shoals started out life as a guitarist, and migrated to this new instrument.  My old teacher, Carol Kaye, who is known as the ultimate session bassist is, in fact, an absolute terror on the guitar, too.

And, since Leo had "standardized" the idea of the bass guitar, he also inadvertently standardized the parts that went into them, too.  Most notable here was the signal chain that would be needed for a bass guitar to sound as good as an upright bass did.

This meant that pre-amplifier manufacturers were forced to redesign a lot of their wares for this new instrument.  In 1951, recording a bass guitar direct wasn't done, so it really mattered what the miked up amp sounded like.  That meant creating circuitry to accommodate much different voltages than guitar pickups- guitar pickups are generally much higher in output voltage ("hotter") than bass pickups are, and the other problem is that a hotter signal means more distortion, and more distortion means less usable low end- all of which are problems for a bass guitar.

And, since Fender was the only real bass company, all these manufacturers used for designing these circuits was- you guessed it- a Fender bass, and only the Precisions at that.

So, back in 1951, the expense of running a recording studio was enormous, and generally, studio owners and engineers could only afford a few preamps, let alone the idea of something that was of special use, like a bass amplifier.  But they bought them- and when some bass player came in with something like a Gibson EB0 or EB-2, nothing quite worked the way they were used to hearing things.

This problem continued as time went on, because from 1951 to about 1976, Fender virtually ruled the bass world.  Every piece of studio gear out there was based on the voltages and impedance of the Fender bass- a passive, low impedance signal that had to be shaped by either the desk (for a DI) or by the preamp that the mike was plugged into.

All of that changed in 1976-77 when Leo Fender released the new Musicman Stingray on the world.  The Stingray was the very first production model bass guitar to have an active preamp in it.  (Yes, Alembic was doing it in the early 70's, but Alembics were not common, and still aren't)  hat Leo did with the Stringray was pretty ingenious- while the output was hotter and had treble and bass control to it, the impedance to the preamps was largely unaffected and all that Fender based gear still worked pretty well with the active electronics.  Manufacturers did some small tweaking to their input stages (like adding buffers to the input) but all bass amplifier manufacturers pretty much kept on with the Fender based spec.  

To this day, pretty much every bass guitar amplifier out there is still loosely based around the Fender architecture.  People today who have bass heroes all want to sound like those heroes, and all of them are using amplification systems that are still based on the input characteristics of the old Fenders.  

These are just inescapable facts.  But it doesn't answer the question- but to do that, I have to add my personal experience here.

My '62 Precision and my Regenerate Pro 5 -
there's a '65 Reissue Jazz back there, too

I like to think of my Fenders (I currently own 5) as "equalizers".  With the exception of my '62 Precision, none of them is terribly special, but they are absolute war-horses.  You can't kill them, and they sound good no matter what amp, DI, preamp or filter I put them thru.  I know what they're going to do every, single time I plug one in, and it's for that reason that I never put preamps in them and I always have one with me on a gig or session date.  They just work.  

I can and do play other things- my mainstay these days is a Regenerate Guitar Works Regenerate Pro 5 string with Honey Badger Heavy Hitters and a Noll 3-way active preamp- and I absolutely LOVE IT.  It works for about 90% of what I do - but every now and then, it doesn't and that's where the Fender comes in.

There is absolutely no such thing as the perfect bass- a single instrument that can just do it all - that's a myth and I don't care which manufacturer tells you that they have it.  They don't.  But, the bottom line in my mind is that if you do have only a single instrument in your arsenal, it probably ought to be one of the "F" word basses- because no matter how hard you try, you just won't go wrong.  

To sum it up- yeah, I'm a Leo fan.  I think he got it right, and by and large the rest of the bass world - whether they know it or not - actually agrees with me.  Are Fenders perfect? No.  Are they able to bridge every single kind of musical genre out there- absolutely not.  But they do work, and their work can be heard on 90% of everything you've ever listened to, and that is something that just can't be ignored.