L'ancienne candidate à la vice-présidence des Etats-Unis et vedette de télévision Sarah Palin a conseillé samedi 8 mars, à sa façon, au président Barack Obama d'adopter une stratégie plus ferme face à son homologue russe Vladimir Poutine dans la crise ukrainienne.
La phrase, prononcée en clôture de la grande conférence du mouvement conservateur américain (CPAC), près de Washington, est calquée sur le fameux slogan du lobby des armes à feu aux Etats-Unis, la National Rifle Association (NRA) : « La seule chose qui puisse arrêter un méchant avec une arme à feu, c'est un gentil avec une arme à feu ». Mme Palin a raillé l'administration Obama pour avoir menacé le président russe avec « un téléphone et un stylo ». (AFP)
They laugh, until they need our help. Then, they squawk about how the powerful United States with its nukes and guns and money isn't giving them enough aid.
ReplyDeleteThey still laugh even when asking foreign aid.
DeleteActually, more than laugh, it's often a shaking of the head in disbelief.
If they can't show proper gratitude, I'd have no problem telling them to piss off.
DeleteBe Proud
ReplyDeleteI am. Despised by the despicable. Their contempt is a badge of honor.
It appears to me that the French might have missed a second (tangentially) related gun politics double entendre. When Palin referred to Obama confronting Putin "with a phone and a pen," I assume she was deliberately quoting Obama's use of that phrase in reference to his intention to exercise executive authority, including, perhaps, for "gun control."
ReplyDeleteI didn't comment on this piece for a while because I really don't get into the whole "Oh no! They don't like us!" thing.
ReplyDeleteHowever, just to toss in my two cents:
Do they laugh at us? Sure. Just like we laugh at them for other things. Most people don't understand other countries and laugh at them. And yes, this has something to do with misunderstanding. For example, my inlaw from Finland grew up in the city--she was a bit surprised about us country folk and our guns, and she knew all the stereotypes about Americans and their guns. She actually found us to be quite reasonable. She also found that we weren't that different from Finland when we visited her "redneck" cousins over there. A discussion of their Moose hunts led to talking guns. Turns out they had an old Winchester that was a type I'd been looking for over here (very pretty) and a small, folding stocked .22 which would be classed as an assault weapon over here. Oh, and the .22 had a suppressor on it to not disturb the neighbors when they used it to shoot squirrels--and they didn't have to pay a 200 dollar tax, etc. etc. for the suppressor. Yeah, their laws aren't as liberal as ours in some ways, but they're more liberal in other ways, and my in-law saw that we weren't too different from her cousins there. Of course, she only got that impression from getting to know us, not from watching the media report on crazy folks' comments or spin the comments of more reasonable folks.
The Finns also laugh at us and talk about how Socialist America is compared to them.
Let that sink in a moment.
They have free healthcare, free college, etc. But they don't have as much meddling as they see the media report on from over here.
I could tell other stories about misperceptions I've found, both on my part about other countries and on the part of other folks about the US, but why drag this out. The point is that misperceptions are common and lead to a lot of the laughter, so it can be discounted.
And as for when there is no misperception and the laughter is about a genuine difference--go on and laugh and mind your own business. I'm not moving to Finland and trying to change the free systems, or moving to the Netherlands and trying to outlaw prostitution; I'm minding my own business over here and I thank the Europeans, the Saudis, the Chinese, etc. etc. to all do the same.