Life in 3D

A BIG “I’m Sorry” to our friends across the pond

At this point in time I would like to offer my sincerest apologies to the people of the Great Britain for our president acting like the complete at total narcissistic ass that he truly is. All I can say is that now that he has been anointed by the left as the new savior of the world little things like ‘common courtesy’ are not so common in the White House.

As he headed back home from Washington, Gordon Brown must have rummaged through his party bag with disappointment.

Because all he got was a set of DVDs. Barack Obama, the leader of the world’s richest country, gave the Prime Minister a box set of 25 classic American films – a gift about as exciting as a pair of socks.

Mr Brown is not thought to be a film buff, and his reaction to the box set is unknown. But it didn’t really compare to the thoughtful presents he had brought along with him.

Marking the special relationship: The Browns put a lot of thought into their gifts for the Obamas – but the gesture did not seem to be reciprocated

The Prime Minister gave Mr Obama an ornamental pen holder made from the timbers of the Victorian anti-slave ship HMS Gannet.

While Prime Minister Brown and his wife both gave very thoughtful gifts indeed, I am afraid that Barry Obambi decided that actually THINKING about a gift was too much work. But, rather than give a gift card he apparently sent an aide over to Best Buy to clear out the best sellers section. The worst part to me is that while the original Star Wars is in the set, now PM Brown has to go and buy the other two himself, which is crap because what if he makes a mistake and buys the re-mastered ones which SUCK!?

Geez, Barry, that was as screwed up as a soup sandwich.  You should have stuck with a Visa Gift card, and made it more than a $30.00 one too.

As for Michelle and her woefully inadequate gifts of a $15.00 toy helicopter for the boys, all I can say is that she probably looked and said “Well, what I want to know is how does this help my children” and then said to hell with it. But you know, since this is the first time she has ever been proud of her country, you can forgive her for being out of practice of being courteous.

Seriously though, What the Obama’s did is not only a huge insult to one of our best allies in the world, but shows a lack of class that, while expected from people like Code:Pink, and MoveOn.org, I would expect to be set aside by the President.

I guess he figures that if anyone questions him on it he can just look at them and say “I won.”

I promise that our next President will be delighted to stand with you for some photos in front of both our flags, will have a press confrence with you, and even spend more than ten minutes thinking of what gift would be really nice for a visiting head of state.  I know she will because Sarah is classy that way.

“Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.” Theodore Roosevelt

Crossing Borders

I was talking to a fellow student of mine from Norway the other day. We were discussing politics, he is a socialist, and the US government. He was doing his best to convince me that the government had an obligation to help the people and provide for them while I was arguing that the government’s best move was to stay out of the people’s way and allow them the freedom to move forward on their own.

I will say that it was interesting because here was an avowed socialist, not a communist, but a person who believed in true socialism explaining his way of thinking and trying to be reasonable about it while I was trying to convert him over to the dark side of the force.

It began with concealed carry laws (he against, me for), we moved from that to taxes (he supporting taxing the rich, me supporting equal taxation across the board), and finally discussing the role of government in people’s lives and as we discussed it all I realized something that I knew, but took it in only as an intellectual knowing instead of a ‘universal truth’ kind of knowing.

We are unique in the world.

Here was a man who had grown up in Europe and as we talked I got him to agree with me on almost every point as he realized that while the programs that he loved in his country worked very well for them, they would never work in the United States due to our vast sized and differences from state to state. The population of Norway is 4,644,457 while the population of California alone is 36,553,215. Hell, the population of Los Angeles is 3,849,378

It became obvious why he could be so comfortable with socialism and still end up agreeing with me on every subject. When a country has a population that is less than that of most of our states the federal government can actually be more responsive to the will of the people. Add in the fact that this is a people who have always had a ruling class that was in control and that kind of mentality it leads to the socialism he is so happy with.

He had never seen American independence in action. It was an alien concept that, living in San Francisco I guess, he still had never seen until he ended up having a class with me and my attitude towards it. He kept asking me questions like “Why DON’T you want the government to help make your life better?”

“Because,” I said, “the price they would want for it is too high. Besides, I can make my own life without their help.”

True independence was something new for him. We are a unique people whose government, lifestyle and attitude will be found nowhere else on this planet .He had never thought of doing something totally on his own without some help from his society, that’s the way his world is. His government is a deep part of his life and control quite a bit of it.

I happen to carry a copy of the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence in my book bag. I gave it to him so he could see what our government was intended to be. He was stunned that the foundation of our country fit into a booklet so small that it was the size of most travel brochures. He said the Constitution for Norway was about 1.5 inches thick and lays out every detail of what the government will do for the people.

We talked for a few hours and by the time we were done he was very excited to have the booklet to read and learn from and I think I realized that Europe really doesn’t hate us, they just really don’t understand us at all. Like Football, NASCAR and shooting, it’s just one of those things that I guess you have to actually experience before you can understand it.
But I’m working on them – one at a time.

They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security - Benjamin Franklin