Posted on 03/10/2012 7:36:57 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Edited on 03/10/2012 7:39:16 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
At the outset of this post I would like to make the disclaimer that America is the greatest country on earth. It invented the iPad, after all; it put a man on the moon, not to mention giving voice to the great and noble precepts set down in the Declaration of Independence.
We Europeans tend to scoff slightly at all that lofty US guff about freedom and democracy, particularly when it is used as a cover for invading oil-rich parts of the Middle East but go and live in China for three years, and youll quickly re-discover the point.
But and I expect you guessed there would be a "but" here as a new arrival to America I keep stumbling over things that I find gloriously, surprisingly how to put this? backward.
Really
Last check I wrote was probably 2 years ago.
Online banking and a debit card which helps avoid ATM charges by taking $100 in cash at checkout.
Only way to go.
I was stationed in England. I could complain about the road tax, the annual car inspections (what a racket!), the roads, the 50HZ electricity, the food... but hey, that’s part of the experience of living outside my culture. It was great fun.
Oh MAN! That is the truth! Ugh.
My German landlord actually liked renting to Americans so he went out and bought an American toilet to install in the rental apartment. I was so glad to not have to view yesterday’s corn.
I'd imagine it's easier for a smaller country Britain to maintain a few important highways than it would be for a large country like the US to keep all its arteries in top shape.
And I guess it's easier to introduce changes and apply them uniformly in a smaller country, especially if bureaucracy is more entrenched there.
I like this comment:
“I expected America to be the land of free commerce, but just about everything you try to do is a bureaucratic nightmare. Although, on the plus side, the booze is cheap and there aren’t many Muslims.”
Yet. :-(
I know.
But the Brits have their own problems. For one thing, a ridiculous leveling effort that has underrepresented letters like "u" tacked on to perfectly adequate spellings such as "color" and "favor". That one was done solely for votes from minority letters for the Labor - er, "Labour" - party if you ask me.
I realize they were our friends once - they burned down the White House in 1812 - but just try to get them to do that for us these days! You'll just hear a bunch of guff about special relationship and all that. One little, tiny napalm strike - is that too much to ask?
Gosh, I’m sorry, Peter. Feel free not to let the door bang you in the butt on the way out.
I use checks for charity and taxes, and to pay the maintenance service people who come to my house. Otherwise, debit card and online, and I know I'm not alone in this.
That tells us right there how much credibility the article has.
I’m surprised that he didn’t find it quaint and backwards that so many Americans own firearms. Maybe I can add it.
“And why so many guns? Are they still in fear of Indian attacks - or fighting off rustlers, or protecting the chickens from wolves? Thank goodness that China and England have taken care of the cattle rustlers so no one needs guns anymore.”
When I defended my PhD dissertation, one of my professors asked why I used English units rather than metric. Well the real reason was that all my instrumentation was in English units, and I felt no need to convert them.
However, what I said was, "This is America, and this is what we use here". I guess it worked because, I got the PhD.
And I noticed he didn’t mention that there’s a dentist on every corner. Hint, hint...
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