An Expatriot's Perspective

It wasn't an attempt to throw out useless statistics to make an irrelevant point. It is an example of how the media manipulates us and has manipulated us for decades.

 

What do we expect when we elect people to run our country who couldn't run a laundromat. I am sick of the entitlement mentality. You know what the sad part is, it seems to be most prevalent in our youth. They are being taught that everyone should have exactly the same thing and there should be no haves and have nots, that everything should be fair. Unfortunately for them, life is not fair. Some people have better opportunities for success than others mostly dependent on family socioeconomic status, intelligence of the individual and work ethic. While you cannot change your family you CAN have some impact on the others. If people payed attention in school and actually got a high school diploma their lives would be much easier than those that don't. Then they might have options about getting some additional training in either the trades or some useful college degree. (Not underwater basket weaving). Instead, they quit school or get en education but in something useless and end up on the government dole. The American dream is not dead. It is just harder to get. Unfortunately the way things are running now, we might all be on our way down the crapper. That is why I have packed myself a life preserver. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

 

Sea, you have some interesting comments but I would like to make a few re military... the military has been a vehicle to the middle class /upper class for most of the last century... while we have a large proportion of minorities since the draft it all volunteer... pay while it's lower many jobs is higher than the vast majority of jobs starting with a HS diploma, no experience, and with benefits/training can be a great boost in income when you leave... if you stay in you can retires earlier than your contemporaries with benefits (until Obama takes them away). There are flaws in any system including ours but I'm not sure that the rosy picture he paints is much better than what we have... just an opinion... YMMV

 

What stuck out when reading the letter is that the author loved the free health care, free higher education and lots of vacation time. I will agree with the author that the food in our supermarkets is not the healthiest for a person but we can choose what we want to eat. The author can make fresh food, he's just being lazy and a whiner. He also slammed the drugs. People make a decision to take those drugs. Just because a Dr writes a prescription doesn't mean you have to take it like a good little sheep. As for the Americans work ethics in that we work all our lives, well yeah we do. I am one of those that the author ridicules, I have taken about 3 weeks of vacation and one sick day in the last 6 years. I work, I like to work, it is what I do and it is how I was raised. This is probably why they need to disarm Americans, cause if things collapse and people aren't working they will have lots of time to work on righting the country. Imagine the American work ethic funneled into working on saving the country, that is a powerful machine.

I have thought about leaving America. But while talking and exploring the idea, something inside gets heavy. I love my country and will stand up for the country I love. I do wonder if the author would stand up for his new country? Is the author just looking for a country that will provide what he needs to make his life comfortable without feeling patriotism to his new country?

 

I have lived or worked in 27 different countries over the past four decades. Many of them had free health care and taxes were not higher than here, in fact, taxes on income were non-existent in most of them, rather they rely on a VAT, a tax on items purchased and paid at the time of purchase and it is still usually less than our typical sales taxes. I never had any problems with the police or governments that couldn't be handled and was able to get permits to own firearms in many of them, for example in Trinidad. I applied to purchase a firearm at the Police Department in Port of Spain, was issued a permit, carried it to the Hardware Store, the only gun dealer there, picked a micro-uzi out of their catalogue and paid a fraction of what one costs here for it. It was delivered to the Police Station within a week and they notified me to pick up my weapon. When I left Trinidad, I turned it into the Police Department and it remains stored in their weapons locker, should I decide to return and still feel the need to defend myself and property.
As for military, I am all for it. Being a soldier is a time honored profession, Soldiers are needed to fight wars and project global policy. I just don't buy into the bullshit flag waving about it, even if you did. Yes, it is a hard and dangerous way to make a living. Yes, it serves our country's interest, or at least the interests of those that rule and profit most from it. But no, it hasn't done one god damned thing to protect our freedom, liberty, or had even a remote relationship to it in any way in any war we have engaged since the War of Northern Aggression and unfortunately, the side that was fighting for freedom and liberty got their asses handed to them by the Republicans. And before someone drags their star spangled banner out to beat me with, no I would not prefer to live under Tojo or Adolph. But we might well have either ignored WW II or fought with the Axis if Hitler hadn't Nationalized and stole ITT. And we didn't discover the concentration camps and holocaust until the end of the war, we just get to wave that banner if we ignore the timeline.

 

I have enjoyed reading and catching up on some of these forums since joining. As a young person with a family, once all this info was delivered by the so-called dr doom ( the guys earlier in life thought to be conspiracy therist) giving a lot of information that doesn't make much sense at the time. It has begun to be a growing concern all the way down to teenagers now graduating high school. So I would have to say the there is a growth in the understanding of what's going on in this country. We may have lost a generation or two, but there is a wealth of knowledge and history that has been shared in the last few years on great forums such as this. It took me awhile to swim thru a lot of bs out there. We must remain steadfast, share and teach the coming generations and remind them of what this country and old glory stand for. I am hearing of less kids joining the brainwashing and are more inclined to fight for the original cause and not waste their lives on lies for the profiteers. This will be a race of endurance along with a lot of sacrifice