Archive for June 14th, 2009
Which Flag?
Today is Flag Day. I haven’t even turned the TV on today, so I have no idea whether any Americans are celebrating it. Increasingly these days, I don’t much care. Watching my country disintegrate all around me is depressing and there is a nagging component that keeps reminding me that the sheeple in this country are getting exactly what they deserve.
I always remember Flag Day because it is also the day I got out of the US Army 43 years ago. It is interesting that now I harbor some pride in my service; but at the time, 14 June 1966 was the happiest day of my life. Three years on a voluntary enlistment was more than enough to convince me that I wasn’t cut out to unquestioningly follow orders given by mental midgets. One sees old veterans decked out in their uniforms on patriotic occasions. All I kept was my field jacket. Perhaps it was the times; but Vietnam era veterans were seldom respected for our service, much less thanked for it. The esprit de corps was cool; they made a man out of me; and I did my duty; but I learned I preferred to give sensible orders to following foolish ones.
I now have a new reason to remember this supposedly patriotic day that is rather sad, when one contemplates it. I got up at 0230 this morning for a mission I generally steadfastly refuse. In my mind, everything from Ventura to San Diego is “LA.” To me, it is a vast urban wasteland sans intelligent life. I eschew all attempts to get me to travel south of Santa Barbara, but I agreed on this morning to take my partner to LAX to catch a plane bound for India. We are exploring a joint venture with an Indian company in the process of franchising Montessori schools there.
She is providing a Montessori Teacher Training Course for them this summer and will be gone at least two months and perhaps twice that. It is somewhat exciting to be able to assist folks seriously interested in a real education for their children, which is not just a government provided Marxist indoctrination. One would think that with California about to go bankrupt, they might reconsider their decision to add universal preschool to their budget, which is devastating the private preschool business here. It is also intriguing to notice that India is growing and modernizing, not crumbling and dying like America. After reading Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat” a few years ago, I have had a very different perspective of India.
Thus, I asked her to investigate and look seriously into the idea of emigrating to India to get the hell away from these Progressive fools, who are choking the life out of my country. I have lived in eight countries, and as patriotic as I am about my own, I am always amused by the American mindset that we live in the best place on earth. While I agree that the average American generally has a better lifestyle than the average citizen anywhere else, there is much to be said for being in the aristocracy of a third world country.
An educated entrepreneurial American living abroad has a much better lifestyle than is generally available here. The pinnacle of my life was my time in the Seychelles Islands at the age of 22, literally making more money than could be spent there. My five bedroom mansion on a 30 acre coconut plantation cost me $300 a month. Servants were $10 a month each, so I had five of them. The manager groveled every time I walked in the bank. They put “Esquire” after my name on my bank statements, because nobody could have that much money without a title. I was automatically invited to all the Governor’s diplomatic cocktail parties. The police tipped their hats and said, “Good Morning, Sir” as they stepped aside when I walked down the street. Life has been downhill every since. 
I doubt that I will move to India, but the very idea that I am considering it at this age says a lot about my assessment of the prospects of the future of America. It is dim and growing dimmer by the day… and that is indeed sad. ◄Dave►
