You obviously haven't visited Quatemala City have you? And by your ignorant comment it is unlikely you have ever spent much time in Central America at all. You are unfairly maligning a class of people who on the whole bust their asses more to provide for themselves and their family members just to survive than you would ever have to endure in your entire lifetime.
It is no fault of theirs that that there is no industrialized infra-structure to provide jobs such you have had the privilege of enjoying. After all, isn't it you and your like minded anti-NAFTA crowd who are so damn opposed to our country's major industries expansion in Central and South America? You can't have it both ways dude!
It is no fault of theirs that those who are not land owners have to slave from dawn to dusk in the cane fields or the banana fields or the cocoa fields or the pineapple fields all the while providing you with your precious sugar for your coffee, bananas for your breakfast and cocoa for your latte's........
And as for that three room, one bath cinder block house that you are so up in arms about this guy building on the enormous monies he was able to send back to his home, I can tell you from experience what that probably entails.
One combined dining/living room area, two bedrooms and the bathroom. Quite likely behind the wall at the back of the dining area is the small cooking area..............Unfortunately the article didn't mention how many folks will be living in that new, enormous, (maybe 1,600 sq. ft. at the absolute most) house..........
I could tell you about my Brother-in-law’s family in Honduras, how their sugar cane plantation yields on the average of $18,000 per year, and how his now deceased brother and sister-in-law lived in the same house dimensions along with 8 other family members. And when Mario, Ray and Miriam came to San Pedro from Tegucigalpa, it then got kinda crowded.
And I could also tell you how that money provided an annual subsistence for all and also helped send Miriam to college to become an Attorney, Mario and Ray to medical school and Rosie’s son to a private American speaking school and her three daughters to university.
And I would also tell you that Mario was able to establish a very successful medical practice netting him approx. $12,000 per year salary prior to his untimely death 4 years ago leaving a wife and two beautiful daughters who are now residing in the house. Ray too was able to begin a successful medical practice until he too died 4 years ago leaving behind a wife and a daughter. Malpractice insurance? Life Insurance? Medical Insurance…….LOL! What’s that?……..
So don’t even begin to give me your crap of how the people in Guatamala or any other Central American country are lazy and deserving of what they have………..There is no Workers Comp for the field worker who loses a finger or a hand or gets bitten by a poisonous snake, there is no extended wage for a worker who gets injured and loses a week, two weeks or maybe even 6 months due to injury on the job. There also isn’t any medical insurance to cover their injuries, they’re on their own!
And for what it’s worth my friend, it hasn’t been until the last fewl years that residents of Honduras were even given access to automobile insurance……….That’s another story I’d love to tell you about my BIL’s purchase of a new truck for his brother Pepe’ in Honduras that was stolen within a month of ownership………..
And I'm not even going to get into how difficult it was for Rosie to obtain a passport to just visit the U.S. which was finally approved after 10 years of trying. Or the doctor Mario who wasn't able to obtain one at all until my BIL provided him with a credit card account that allowed him to purchase medical supplies for his practice then basically assure that he would return to Honduras after his visit......
I am on the front line when it comes to opposition to illegal aliens coming to my country but when it comes to individuals such as Mr. Sanchez as opposed to the rest of the dead beats that you claim he and his kind are taking jobs from, well, I'll side with Mr. Sanchez any time............
As for you, you need a reality check my friend. Instead of condemning the peoples of the third world who have little control over their futures, maybe you should volunteer with your local church and do some missionary work down there to see what life is really like for them...........
Fundamentally, economic progress depends upon having enough honesty and good will in the culture to allow trust. Without trust in your fellow citizen it is **impossible** to make the contracts and enforce the contracts needed to build a local business, a local community, and finally a nation. Without honest good will, trust becomes impossible. The end result is brutal tribalism and loyalty only to a clan or gang.
So...Yes, fundamentally, their plight is their own. If they are failing to make progress, and if they elect corrupt people to lead them, the first place to look is inside their own souls.
Conservatives understand this principle of honest good will. It is why we are so distressed to see the cultural and moral dry rot growing around us. We know that in time, if it continues, the U.S. will be a banana republic as well. We will be ruled by warlords.
That the U.S. has the standard of living that is does is not a **privilege** that was granted to us by some fairy godmother.
We **earned** it, and we **worked** for it.
We start by being a basically **HONEST** people. A people that are honest enough and moral enough that our neighbors can trust to make contracts and loans. We trust that our courts and police will be honest in the enforcement of those contracts.
Scratch a country that is poor and disarray and you will soon find a dishonest and immoral heart beating in its chest.
Correct, I visited the CIA world factbook instead. It's informative, free, and I won't come back with multiple stomach parasites.
Let's see, 56% below the poverty line, $5000 per capita income. These people sure don't produce a whole heck of a lot, do they?
Time to face facts: America didn't rise to the top of the heap because we had the best damn banana pickers and granite countertop installers in the world. We work smart so we don't have to work hard.
You are unfairly maligning a class of people who on the whole bust their asses more to provide for themselves and their family members just to survive than you would ever have to endure in your entire lifetime.
I am "maligning" nobody. Not everybody wants to (or can) achieve American levels of prosperity. My message to them is simple: STAY HOME.
Worldwide, there are about 3 billion more people just like these folks, living at the subsistence level and busting their backsides just to put food on the table. You can respect them for that, but at the same time realize that our way of life (and the traditions, values, and people that brought us here) are vastly superior. I take no comfort in this fact and feel no joy that others are suffering, but the facts of life are what they are.
After all, isn't it you and your like minded anti-NAFTA crowd who are so damn opposed to our country's major industries expansion in Central and South America? You can't have it both ways dude!
I don't recall ever discussing that topic with you, "dude."
And as for that three room, one bath cinder block house that you are so up in arms about this guy building on the enormous monies he was able to send back to his home
You're reading an awful lot into the two sentences I posted.
Instead of condemning the peoples of the third world who have little control over their futures, maybe you should volunteer with your local church and do some missionary work down there to see what life is really like for them.
You don't have to convince me that life in the third world sucks. And that is precisely why we should not import any element of these failed civilizations into the U.S. We probably cannot do anything about their pitifully low economic output, but we can definitely prevent the cancer from spreading here.
Guess what? The anti-illegal immigration movement contains racists ... lots of'em. This is unfortunate, largely for them.
I say "unfortunate," because it gives the crazed moonbats on the Left more ammunition than their cause of unlimited immigration as a key to Democrat Party power than it deserves.
However, Tabasco, the fact that many Americans are racists does not provide an excuse for the illegal alien invasion of our country from south of the border. Many Americans are not as educated as one might wish, and blame the immigrants for the problem, instead of their government. But millions upon millions are here, and they shouldn't be.
Neither does it provide you the excuse to wallow in unpatriotic sentimental pity for the plight of the poor immigrants who are forced, one way or the other to return to their homeland.
How would the authorities in Tegucigalpa feel if Honduras were to be invaded by a horde of illegal aliens from the Sudan, or closer to home, Haiti? After all, as hard as life is in Honduras, it is a paradise compared to those unfortunate lands.
Illegal immigration, and yes legal immigration, are wrecking this country and bankrupting many locales. Yup, racism is bad. But it is not as bad as your taking sides with "a class of people who on the whole bust their asses more to provide for themselves and their family members just to survive than you would ever have to endure in your entire lifetime."
These people are worthy of our respect. But it would be better if they respected our laws and stayed at home. And it would be best if our government did its job and kept them out. You are just as wrong to blame "racists," for these problems as the racists are to blame the immigrants.