On Friday we were eating lunch near one of the tvs on base and it was tuned to a cable news channel. Carter was listening inbetween bites of his scrambled eggs when he paused and asked incredulously, “Mom! Can they say bad things about the president like that?” 

“Yes, baby. That is the beauty of American free speech. They can’t threaten to harm him, but they can say they don’t like his decisions, that they disagree with what he is doing, and even that they hate him. Crazy huh?” 

Freedom of speech doesn’t exist here. I forget that it is a shocking concept for a kid who who is used to seeing posters of the Royal family plastered all over the island, or photos of the Sultan hanging in every store.