kill the poor.

[Illusional]

is there anyone looking for work because i'm offering my 5 bucks for a blowjob...hopefully it will be one of the females from the goddess thread, though i can't be very picky with 5 bucks.

raverboy

[nomas]

There is a sea of information and misinformation out there and people's opinions and biases will find basis on whichever proves their point. There are good people and there are bad people everywhere.

I believe it a fact that absolute power corrupts absolutely (except for me if I had power), and in the micro-economic sense, the store owner may rake in huge profits all for himself while paying the hard-working laborers just their salaries so that they can get by. Is this okay? Should the store owner be more fair and just with the profits?

A powerful country will exert a similar control over a lesser developed country. It can take advantage of its riches and its natural resources and hand out the scraps from the table. Is that fair? In my opinion, no.

I live my life trying to make the world a fairer place, but I have to accept that unless I go all out like Che Guevara, I'm not going to make a major difference and I'm not going to complain too much.

Humans move in masses and it's tough to change the momentum. Things really have to be unstable, and only then do empires fall.

[Indignant]

is there anyone looking for work because i'm offering my 5 bucks for a blowjob...hopefully it will be one of the females from the goddess thread, though i can't be very picky with 5 bucks.

raverboy

i'll do it for free. actually, no, i'll pay you 5 bucks.

[nomas]

Indy, you can pay me 10. That's twice as good a deal!

[Illusional]

i'll do it for free. actually, no, i'll pay you 5 bucks.

if you're willing to pay me to suck my dick, then you must really suck at this job... offer retracted.

NEXT!! haha

raverboy

[Lite]

bullshit. american policy is a big reason mexico is so poor.

Actually, Mexicans are the reason Mexico is so poor.

I had the chance to sit down to dinner with a gentleman who works at a local hispanic center here in Seattle. Prior to working there he was the head consulate at the Mexican Embassy in Seattle. Prior to that he was the Attorney General of Mexico.

Pretty much your basic Mexican is ambivalent about the law. Corruption and graft are such a part of the politics there that it's insane. They don't care about the law, or whether it applies to them. It's part of their culture due to Spain's culture when they invaded Mexico. (They were pretty damn lawless and corrupt themselves at the time.) Add in the inclusion of the aboriginal peoples rather than expulsion and replacement (murder, disease, force marches) like what happened in the US and it becomes a bit of a hybrid mess.

Now, Mexico is struggling with the same immigration problems we are. Most of today's immigrants are not from somewhat decently educated N. Mexico. They're from S. Mexico and Central America where you have aboriginal tribes who don't actually speak spanish, just a tribal dialect. Hell, there are over 60 tribal dialects in Mexico itself.

But, pretty much central America's even worse than Mexico, so the people there are fleeing poverty. Extreme poverty.

As for those who don't support borders. In Phoenix 3 out of the last 6 police officers killed on duty were by illegal immigrants. Over 50% of the crime is caused by illegal immigrants. Violent crime has risen dramatically as the illegal immigrant population has risen.

It isn't a simple problem to solve. We need immigrants in this country. We also need to control population growth so that they do not overwhelm public infrastructure (See AZ Schools, and S. Florida as well for good examples.)

[Lite]

I live my life trying to make the world a fairer place, but I have to accept that unless I go all out like Che Guevara, I'm not going to make a major difference and I'm not going to complain too much.

Humans move in masses and it's tough to change the momentum. Things really have to be unstable, and only then do empires fall.

Are you sure you don't mean Cesar Chavez instead? Marxist revolutionaries aren't really quite the same as people who sought rights for immigrant laborers.

However, even Chavez understood that an unlimited supply of cheap labor would drive down prevailing wages and hurt those at the bottom rung of income the quickest. Which were the immigrant laborers. Even he supported immigration control, however less strict than what we have today.

[IndiReloaded]

Why should they care about the law? Upholding the law means you have to actually pay law makers and law enforcers decent wages so they are (reasonably) above corruption. There, and in many asian countries, its basically expected you are padding your income with a gov't job.

Lite, I read a fascinating book on holiday, you should get it:

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Asian-Insider-Unconventional-Wisdom-Business/dp/1403916578"]Amazon.com: The Asian Insider: Unconventional Wisdom for Asian Business: Michael Backman: Books[/ame]

[Lite]

where do you people live? somewhere much different from where i do. not close to a lot of poverty apparently.

Poverty in the US isn't generally like poverty in many other countries. What we considering unlivable here, is pretty much average for many countries. So there's a pretty big disconnect for much of the US.

We look at a house full of 8+ hispanics and think, "How can they stand to be crammed together like that?" They look at that house and think, "I have a real floor that isn't dirt, a roof that doesn't leak, air conditioning, plumbing, fewer bugs (if any) than before.

No WONDER they want to come here. Even poverty here is a paradise compared to many countries.

Katrina was a huge ****-up on so many levels. Not just the Federal. People didn't evacuate, the city let an entire lot of school busses flood rather than use them to transport people out. The city refused a special amtrak train to help move people. A good number of people brought it upon themselves unfortunately.

The general response was dismal from much of the government, but we also had helicopter (Coast Guard & Army) pilots flying 30+ hour missions to rescue people from roofs of homes.

Now, the people you saw taking advantage of bad situations? New Orleans already had a very large unemployed percentage of the city. And a good number of those people are what are referred to as, "Unemployable." They're just basically worthless and don't want to work. It happens. That's why we have the Post Office, and the Army, and our government is the single largest employer in the US...

Anyway, yes there were idiots, and looters, but there were hospital patients that died or were effectively euthanized. There are large swaths of the city (See 9th Ward) where you basically have roads, but no homes. They're gone, wiped away. 3+ years later and they're STILL gone.

The trailers had levels of toxic gasses seeping out of them that were ILLEGAL. Not only was it harmful to live in them, it wasn't even legal to put people in them to begin with!

People should be pretty ****ing outraged at what happened w/ Katrina. Had they done the right thing and sent the army in, they would have had a centralized command structure to coordinate. Instead FEMA ****ed it all up and ****ed up other agencies below it.

Eco, the problems you point out are not as simple to solve as you seem to believe them to be. The US is larger than Europe, consider how many people there don't get along or agree on everything, and apply it to our country. That's pretty much just how it is. We're every bit as complex and disjointed (Think states instead of countries) as Europe is.

I always love when foreigners make broad accusations about the country, or blame the people for the political policies the government ****s up internationally. Do people think we LIKE to be a laughing stock or appear to be idiots? Hell, we probably hated Bush more than you did!

[Lite]

There, and in many asian countries, its basically expected you are padding your income with a gov't job.]

I'll have to look at it.

Jesus, don't get me started at how often I run into Asians who are literally out to screw government and businesses out of every damn penny they can. From shady business deals, to outright illegal behavior. It's insane. You'll hear them speaking English one minute on their cell phone, but the moment they are confronted for trying to leave a restaurant w/out paying they don't speak the language.

I see it about 10% of the time I go out to eat here (Large asian community in Seattle)... At first it was kind of amusing, after a while it gets old.

I have a gal at work who tries to pull this on me to get me to do her work, then acts like she doesn't understand basic English if you get frustrated.

I started writing down her repeated requests on a marker board and would tick them off every time she asked until she asked what I was doing. I told her I was keeping track of how often she failed to do her job, write information down, or asked me the same technical question and passing it on to management because she wastes my time.

The number of requests she makes of my department dropped by 95% in the first week alone after that discussion.

When I go to work, I go to do my work and go home. Not my work and someone else's. I don't do games, and I'll happily hang people out to dry for being inept. If I have to do their job too, I want their pay on top of my normal salary.

Anyway, the point being there are always bad apples. In some cases it is inherent to the culture they are importing. And in some cases those cultures adapt and become lawful. (See Irish history in the US... Except that they were corrupt and manipulative too.)

[nomas]

Are you sure you don't mean Cesar Chavez instead? Marxist revolutionaries aren't really quite the same as people who sought rights for immigrant laborers.

I meant Che because I was speaking to the removal of foreign influence in a sovereign land, getting rid of puppet governments, trying to stop the snowball effect. I wasn't speaking to immigration issues. Indirectly, if you have a more even distribution of wealth, the immigration issues dissappear as well. Crime would follow suit because the root cause for theft is normally need, though it morphs into something much uglier with time and as people become desensitized.

[misombra]

Pretty much your basic Mexican is ambivalent about the law. Corruption and graft are such a part of the politics there that it's insane. They don't care about the law, or whether it applies to them. It's part of their culture due to Spain's culture when they invaded Mexico.

it's not because of their culture it's because they're poor! here in new mexico (which was mexico for a long time and was also invaded by the spaniards) people are a little more willing to follow the law, because we have some money.

[misombra]

Poverty in the US isn't generally like poverty in many other countries. What we considering unlivable here, is pretty much average for many countries. So there's a pretty big disconnect for much of the US.

much more of a disconnect when you live as far north as you do.

[misombra]

how we contribute to mexico's poverty: 1. we build dams and mexico doesn't get sufficient water access. the water they get is incredibly polluted, because of the north.

2. drugs being illegal. people cannot keep money making crops. when something is illegal, you create criminals who are disenfranchised and willing to kill for the money that is so scarce.

both of those cause extreme constraints to agriculture. no food= mass poverty. mass poverty= mass immigration.

[Lite]

it's not because of their culture it's because they're poor! here in new mexico (which was mexico for a long time and was also invaded by the spaniards) people are a little more willing to follow the law, because we have some money.

Actually, the reasons why they're ambivalent about the law came from what their former attorney general said, not my own opinions on the matter. I'm pretty sure he knows far better why the culture developed how it did than you do.