Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Oh Brother!
Prince Charles is in town to pontificate...
Dear Lord, Prince Charles is in town and he plans to help educate us Americans on, of all things, religion. First off, despite my love for the people of Great Britain, I'm no fan of the Monarchy and of Prince Charles in particular. It's not a Diana thing, it's a dilettante thing. Here's a guy who's full time job seems to be collecting a huge taxpayer subsidy and then roaming around and spouting off on a variety of topics he may, or may not know anything about. If I wanted to be lectured by a Welfare Queen, I'd watch Jerry Springer.
Prince Charles seems to think we need to be more tolerant of Muslims in the U.S.A. and more tolerant of religion in general. Umm, outside of the Arab world, Mr. Prince, we are one of the more religious countries around and I think President Bush has gone out of his way to praise and reassure the 5 million or so Muslims in the United States that he (and we) respect their faith as a religion of peace. Yes, there is legitimate criticisms of our treatment of war prisoners, but that's not what's being discussed here.
It's often said that the U.S. and Britain are two countries separated by a common language. That's true, but we've got other differences as well. British intellectual elites like to paint us all as swooning over televangelists, toting guns, driving big cars and ignorant of world events. A truism perhaps, but certainly not an accurate view of the whole of America. Some folks across the pond 'get' us, Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher did, I'm afraid the spoiled prince does not.
It won't help the cause of U.S. Muslims to have Prince Charles lecture us about them and worse yet it makes me sympathetic to President Bush and I really hate that feeling.
Dear Lord, Prince Charles is in town and he plans to help educate us Americans on, of all things, religion. First off, despite my love for the people of Great Britain, I'm no fan of the Monarchy and of Prince Charles in particular. It's not a Diana thing, it's a dilettante thing. Here's a guy who's full time job seems to be collecting a huge taxpayer subsidy and then roaming around and spouting off on a variety of topics he may, or may not know anything about. If I wanted to be lectured by a Welfare Queen, I'd watch Jerry Springer.
Prince Charles seems to think we need to be more tolerant of Muslims in the U.S.A. and more tolerant of religion in general. Umm, outside of the Arab world, Mr. Prince, we are one of the more religious countries around and I think President Bush has gone out of his way to praise and reassure the 5 million or so Muslims in the United States that he (and we) respect their faith as a religion of peace. Yes, there is legitimate criticisms of our treatment of war prisoners, but that's not what's being discussed here.
It's often said that the U.S. and Britain are two countries separated by a common language. That's true, but we've got other differences as well. British intellectual elites like to paint us all as swooning over televangelists, toting guns, driving big cars and ignorant of world events. A truism perhaps, but certainly not an accurate view of the whole of America. Some folks across the pond 'get' us, Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher did, I'm afraid the spoiled prince does not.
It won't help the cause of U.S. Muslims to have Prince Charles lecture us about them and worse yet it makes me sympathetic to President Bush and I really hate that feeling.
