Blogging — Perfectly Petersen

by Jesse Petersen on May 20, 2011

Obama & Bush – Arrogance vs. Humility

Notice the difference in tone between our last two presidents. The use of “I” hits you like a cheese grater on the cheek if you’re a student of writing and speeches, yet we ate it up as a country. Now that the polls have dropped again, we can look at this as a possible reason why.

George W. Bush’s speech after the capture of Saddam:

The success of yesterday’s mission is a tribute to our men and women now serving in Iraq. The operation was based on the superb work of intelligence analysts who found the dictator’s footprints in a vast country. The operation was carried out with skill and precision by a brave fighting force. Our servicemen and women and our coalition allies have faced many dangers in the hunt for members of the fallen regime, and in their effort to bring hope and freedom to the Iraqi people. Their work continues, and so do the risks. Today, on behalf of the nation, I thank the members of our Armed Forces and I congratulate ‘em.

Barack Obama’s speech after the killing of bin Laden:

And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda, even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network. Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and [I ] authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad , Pakistan.

Filed Under: Blogging

by Jesse Petersen on September 15, 2010

Know Your 5th Amendment Rights

I’ve placed two parts of a law class lecture below that provide a perfect illustration and explanation about what the 5th Amendment is about and why it is in place. It is in place to protect you. Nothing you say to law enforcement or the government in a criminal investigation can be used to help you. It can only be used against you in an effort to prosecute you.

This is very important. Don’t think that you’ll never be questioned by police because you’re a good person living a good life. My wife and her entire office were questioned a couple of years ago by a SWAT team just because of where they worked, so no one can say with certainty that they will never be questioned by the law or government.

I’ll come out and say that the first man comes out of the chute sounding like a political wacko with a couple of his first statements, but he fully and completely supports everything he says and the second man (an officer with 28 years of interviewing experience) confirms everything the first man said, so keep that in mind when you hear the first man’s fast-paced lecture.

This was very, very eye-opening to me. You can safely ignore the title of the video. The other compilation of this lecture was in 6 parts and entitled “In Praise of the 5th Amendment.”

Filed Under: Politics, Video Tagged With: 5th Amendment, incriminate, James Duane, lecture, protect, Video

by Jesse Petersen on September 3, 2010

The State of Our Litigious Society

I read a quick piece in our free, local paper yesterday that a school district in Cabell County in western West Virginia is removing all swing sets from their playgrounds for safety reasons; more accurately, to avoid further lawsuits from litigious parents who see dollar signs when their kids are being kids as they have been for millenia.

Some daredevil young soul decided to do a “Superman jump” off the swing and broke his arm and his parents sued and won a judgment of $20,000 against the district. I ask you this:

As a kid, did you ever perform a Superman jump off the swingset, see who could go highest while jumping, or see if you could go all of the way around the set and got a blood blister from the chains as the slack went away and pinched your fleshy hands?

Yes! Every boy who has a decent set of kahonies has done one or all of these stunts on a swing set.

The difference is that in the 1950s through the early 1990s parents knew innately that “kids will be kids” and some of them have fragile bones and would break them playing on the playground. We always had a kid in a cast somewhere in the 2-3 grades surrounding mine. I broke my nose jumping onto a raft in our pool when I was about 7 years old. Did my parents sue the pool manufacturer, raft manufacturer, or God for creating water that is denser than air?

NO! That would have been laughed out of court in 1988, just as this should have in 2010.

Has every lawyer and judge in this country lost sight of the fact that breaking arms and legs is part of growing up? I would dare say so.

Second item, and this is purely judgmental based on where the lawsuit came from: maybe if the kids parents had a job and weren’t on food stamps, they wouldn’t have needed $20k, because that sure isn’t much money after the lawyer takes his cut. All they succeeded in is making their kid a weenie (he’ll realize it by the time he’s 40) and ruining the fun of all of the other kids in the school district.

This ranks up there with the coffee lawsuits against McDonalds 1n 1994 and a recent one this year against Starbucks after SHE spilled the tea on her son. Amazingly, the Starbucks lawsuit had over a decade of warnings printed on coffee and tea cups as a result of the McDonald’s lawsuit to warn those who should wear helmets to protect their precious few brain cells that the drink they have just been served hot is, indeed, HOT!

Let’s work on personal responsibility, people.