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America Goes Away: Fred Left Behind in Mexico
Fred Reed On Everything ^ | May 12, 2016 | Fred Rees

Posted on 05/17/2016 7:50:15 AM PDT by Iron Munro

Mail arrives in my inbox all the time, telling me that by going to Mexico I have sold out, fled, abandoned the United States. I’m a coward and a traitor, just like Lord Haw Haw, and Kim Philby, and probably hate America more than Barack Obama does.

It is is irrational. They think that just because I went to Mexico, I left the US. They don’t understand. I didn’t leave the United States. It left me. It was a bait-and-switch operation. I signed on to one country, and they slipped another in under me. I want my money back.

In the country where I grew up, if you woke up and found a naked intruder headed for daughter’s bedroom with a Bowie knife and a hard-on, you shot him and arranged to have the rugs cleaned. The sheriff wasn’t greatly interested and the county prosecutor didn’t see anything to prosecute. The scum floating on the gene pool wasn’t a protected species. It wasn’t the driving engine of the culture. It was just scum.

Today you would be charged with the use of excessive force. The cadaver’s family would sue. They would end up with your house unless they just ran you broke with legal bills. The outcome would depend on the racial make-up of you, the intruder, and the jury. Your daughter would be married with grandchildren before the courts reached any conclusion.

Think I’m exaggerating? When I used to have the police beat for the Washington Times in the Yankee capital, the cops told me, dead serious, that if I ever shot an intruder, I should shoot him again to make sure: You can’t afford to have two stories, they said, especially if he’s black which, in Washington, was pretty much a foregone conclusion. They’ll hang you, said the cops.

In the country I grew up in, you got on an airplane by walking up these funny little steps with wheels on them. Then you sat down. That’s all you did. I know, I know: You don’t believe this. It’s true. You just walked on. Further, the stewardesses were not merely civil but — so help me — friendly and pretty. Flying was actually enjoyable. The seats were big enough that you didn’t sit with your knees beside your ears and your feet in your pockets.

Today, getting aboard is like going into max security at some ghastly penitentiary. I once flew a bit around the old Soviet Union, as distinct from our new one, on a junket. Security was less oppressive, though the food was marginally worse unless you liked green chicken. The service was just as peremptory.

Maybe that’s what I miss most about the Old Country. People were courteous. They could afford to be because everyone else was too. It’s hard to be pleasant when the odds are even that the next official you deal with will be an ill-mannered lout who knows he can get away with it.

I think people were courteous also because they lived in an agreeable country and were pretty happy with things. The new country seems angry — quietly so, not sure what to do about it, but looking for someone to hit.

Yet further still, in the Old Country they didn’t have these funny little Japanese cars with itsy-bitsy four-bangers. Nope. They had great virile monsters thirty feet long with eight huge cylinders like buckets. A dog could have slept in them. Sure, those rocket-barges were probably ridiculous and left a trail of parts that fell off because quality control wasn’t that great, but they were real cars. They embodied a spirit I liked. Today cars seem to be designed with hair-dressers in mind.

The Old Country music was vibrant, vigorous, much of it springing from the great black bluesmen of Mississippi and then Chicago, some of it from the mountains and from the jazz dens of the big cities. In the music of the new country, the whites whine and the blacks grunt angrily and the lyrics seem to have been written by a retarded computer. From Tampa Red to Eminem is a long way down.

In the country I signed on to, things worked on the principle of individual responsibility. If you robbed a bank, which people generally didn’t, everyone figured you did it because you decided to, and you went to jail and everyone was satisfied, except you, which was the idea. Most people knew how to behave, and did. It saved a lot on police departments and you could walk around at night.

In the new country of course everything is somebody else’s fault, unless you are a white male, in which case everything is your fault. Never mind that if it weren’t for white males everybody else would be living on low-hanging fruit and saying “ugga-wugga” because they couldn’t figure out how to make a big-block hemi to crash into things with. Or figure out how to make anything else.

In the Old Country, the government was pretty much benign or actually useful. It built roads and largely left you alone. The public schools were not great but neither were they terrible. People ran their own lives. The federal government tended to be somewhere else, which was a splendid place for it, and you mostly didn’t notice.

In the country that is now where America used to be, the government is the cause of most major problems instead of a solution, however inefficient, to a fair number of them. The government keeps you from educating your children, holds standards down, prevents you from hiring the best people you can find to work in your business. It won’t allow local jurisdictions to control crime, prevents localities from enforcing such moral standards as they see fit, virtually illegalizes the religion of most of the population, and generally won’t permit people to live as they like.

Now, I used to be fond of the United States. Granted, I wasn’t much of a patriot. The word nowadays seems to mean one who doesn’t so much love his country as to dislike other people’s. I figured live and let live. A lot of other countries struck me as fine places. But America was my favorite. It just suited me. I liked the people in their wild variety and the countryside and the music and the brash independence. It wasn’t perfect. Still, given the sorry baseline for comportment in human agglomerations, it was about as good as you could get.

I’m still fond of the United States. I just can’t find it.


TOPICS: Government; History; Society
KEYWORDS: federalgovernment; mexico; usa
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To: Iron Munro

I hear you, Fred, and agree. However,
Mexico is not the direction I’d go for improvement.


21 posted on 05/17/2016 9:12:32 AM PDT by sparklite2 ( "The white man is the Jew of Liberal Fascism." -Jonah Goldberg)
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To: Iron Munro

That’s odd I never missed him and i don’t think I will.


22 posted on 05/17/2016 9:18:09 AM PDT by JayAr36 (At 80 I thought I had seen it all. America is swirling in the toilet now. And daily getting worse.)
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To: elcid1970

Well, you can have guns there in Mexico.... Once.
Same for ammo. Those Mexican Army boys who manned that checkpoint sure did right by me, and didn’t even want a bribe. Their thorough search helpfully located a loaded magazine that I had lost months before.

That’s all I’m going to say. Had a book on the seat beside me with a reverent photo of Zapata and Pancho Villa on the cover. I think it, and the rounds being .38 Super Auto saved me.

They even let me keep the loaded mag and drive away. A mile down the road I threw that radioactive thing out the window. So yes, the Mexican Army treated my innocent error with common sense and compassion that I would never get in DC or NYC.


23 posted on 05/17/2016 9:22:59 AM PDT by DesertRhino ("I want those feeble minded asses overthrown,,,)
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To: elcid1970

Did he ACTUALLY move to Mexico (geographically) or is he making a pun about Mexico moving to America?

Because there are some places HERE that now look and feel like Mexico, not by the swarthy color and Latino swagger of the citizens, but the corruption and lack of care of the citizens, politicos and police.


24 posted on 05/17/2016 9:31:45 AM PDT by Alas Babylon!
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To: Iron Munro
I don't care if people leave the USA....let them...if they find something far better...let them...

what I mind is them posting like it makes any difference to them...it does not....they left....ran away if you will....they don't have any skin in the game anymore....whatever they say is meaningless because nothing affects them where they are....

again, they have no skin in the game...

I do assume though that they are getting a nice fat old Americano pension check from the taxpayers back here in the good ol USA....

25 posted on 05/17/2016 9:36:18 AM PDT by cherry
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To: Snowybear
my big question for these wordy expats is this.....did you leave children behind?...grandchildren?...nieces?...nephews?...maybe even your parents?...

maybe not all but I assume that most of these expats have left their families......

that tells me all I need to know about them....they left their families....

26 posted on 05/17/2016 9:39:44 AM PDT by cherry
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To: elcid1970

Pity ... I lost ‘em all in a boating accident ... really drunk up on a lake in Canada .... can’t even remember the name of the lake ... or even WHEN it happened !


27 posted on 05/17/2016 9:49:03 AM PDT by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof, but they're true)
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To: Mark17

I will never lose hope. Most of my people have been here since the beginning. They were at Valley Forge and Yorktown. One signed the Constitution. They fought for and against the Union. World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm and the current wars. My son still serves, my grandson will shortly. I will not abandon the only hope for the whole world. God bless America. I will support her with my last breath.


28 posted on 05/17/2016 9:54:41 AM PDT by Himyar (Sessions: the only real man in D.C.)
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To: elcid1970

The writter definitely does not get out much in Mexico, but there are areas where the Drug Cartels are kept out. It is where locals band together to keep them out. The writer correctly notes in the US you are not allowed to band together and self police. And the Cartels within the US have offices in DC. For example, if the EPA Cartel decides your pond is a wetland containing an endangered species, you have no recourse.


29 posted on 05/17/2016 10:00:44 AM PDT by justa-hairyape (The user name is sarcastic. Although at times it may not appear that way.)
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To: DesertRhino

What is it about Mexicans and the Colt .38 Super cartridge? They seem to have nationalized it.

IMO it’s because most Colt 1911’s in that caliber are older generation models with the deep blue finish & higher quality of an earlier time, say 1950’s on back.


30 posted on 05/17/2016 10:23:05 AM PDT by elcid1970 ("The Second Amendment is more important than Islam. Buy ammo.")
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To: sauropod

.


31 posted on 05/17/2016 10:32:10 AM PDT by sauropod (Beware the fury of a patient man.)
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To: Himyar; knarf
That's an impressive list. I was in Vietnam, though I certainly did not volunteer for it. My dad survived World War 2. My uncle did not. He died on the infamous Bataan death march. He wasn't even fortunate enough to make it as far as Tarlac or Pampanga.
I know another USAF retiree in Bataan right now. I asked him to look for my uncle's name on the monument, to see if it is there.
32 posted on 05/17/2016 10:35:11 AM PDT by Mark17 (I traded my shackles for a glorious song. I'm free, praise the Lord, free at last.)
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To: Himyar

Sounds like my family tree as well. There’s a few of us left.


33 posted on 05/17/2016 10:37:06 AM PDT by Pelham (Trump/Tsoukalos 2016 - vote the great hair ticket)
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To: Alas Babylon!

He lives south of Guadalajara on the north side of Lake Chapala.

http://www.fredoneverything.net/00Uncle%20Fred’s%20Mexico/UFM%20Columns/MexLinks.shtml


34 posted on 05/17/2016 10:52:30 AM PDT by Pelham (Trump/Tsoukalos 2016 - vote the great hair ticket)
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To: Mark17

Me neether ... or NIther .. or me too !!


35 posted on 05/17/2016 11:02:57 AM PDT by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof, but they're true)
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To: cherry
a pension check doesn't come from the taxpayers ... SS does

Ain't supposed to ... but it does

I didn't realize nor understand SS until about 10 years before I retired ... by then I had payed in quite a bit .... a little late to start thinking idealistically about my money ... where it goes and where it (will be ) coming from

36 posted on 05/17/2016 11:08:02 AM PDT by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof, but they're true)
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To: cherry
You make it sound like they dropped little kids off at the church steps

I'll venture for the most part they're older men, probably widowed or divorced and their "families" they "left behind" are thirty year olds plus, well ensconced in their OWN lives of work and mostly the trap of mortgage and wish THEY could go with Dad too ....

You should think these things through before replying

37 posted on 05/17/2016 11:11:04 AM PDT by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof, but they're true)
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To: knarf
. a little late to start thinking idealistically about my money ... where it goes and where it (will be ) coming from

You are correct sir. I don't recall anyone asking me for my consent, to pay, or not pay into SS or Medicare. The government just took it. I despise politicians.

38 posted on 05/17/2016 11:23:00 AM PDT by Mark17 (I traded my shackles for a glorious song. I'm free, praise the Lord, free at last.)
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To: knarf
You are correct again sir. Are you ever wrong? 😆😄
39 posted on 05/17/2016 11:25:57 AM PDT by Mark17 (I traded my shackles for a glorious song. I'm free, praise the Lord, free at last.)
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To: elcid1970
What is it about Mexicans and the Colt .38 Super cartridge?

Gun politics in Mexico

Type of firearms permitted[edit]
In regard to what type of firearms are permitted, Title II, Chapter I, Article 9 of the Federal Law of Firearms and Explosives states:
(translated) It may be kept or carried, under the terms and limitations established by this law, weapons of the following characteristics:[26]1.Semi-automatic handguns of caliber no greater than .380 (9mm Browning, 9mm Corto, 9mm Kurz, 9mm Short, and 9×17mm). Left excepted are calibers .38 Super and .38 commander, and also calibers 9mm. [Such as] Mauser, Luger, etc., as well as similar models of the same caliber of the excepted, from other brands.
2.Revolvers of calibers no greater than .38 Special, left excepted is caliber .357 magnum. Land tenure owners, common land owners and farmworkers outside urban zones, may keep and carry, upon registration, one weapon of those already mentioned, or a .22 caliber rifle, or a shotgun of any caliber, except those of a barrel length shorter than 25 inches (635mm) and of caliber greater than 12 gauge (.729" or 18.5 MM).
...
... it goes on and on.

40 posted on 05/17/2016 11:54:50 AM PDT by meadsjn
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