I know that this is supposed to be more of a political blog designed to put me into the oval office in the year 2020, but it also is meant for me to help fix the horrors that haunt our world such as the oh so stupid notion of global warming (which I am halfway done with a blog concerning this). Well, there has been something that has been bothering me lately that I have wanted to yell about and so I decided that I would do it here. It is concerning to me the way women are treated.
A few weeks ago, I was at work and my friend came up to me and asked if I had seen the new girl that was working in the Halliburton department. I told him no and he went on to tell me all about her and how beautiful she was. I think the thing that stood out to me the most was when he asked if I could imagine being married to her. Now reading this, you would think that this was completely harmless, and I'm sure it was meant to be... but all I could think about asking him was if he were married to her would he say the same thing about his wife (who was 8 months pregnant) should she walk by. The thing that really bothers me is he does it often, checking out other women and many times asking me what I think about them. I know that he loves his wife and that he would never cheat on her, but how would she feel if she knew he was looking at all these different women?
Recently, one of my friends who had been married for over two years decided he was getting bored with his wife. He met this cute young girl at work and they started texting. What was a friendship at work turned into over 1200 texts in a month, then to her coming to watch him in his soccer games, and then to, eventually, an affair. He called his wife the night he first "officially" cheated and told her that he was unhappy and that he wanted a divorce. She was completely devastated.
Everyone tells me that marriage is harder than it looks and someday I'll understand. Maybe, but not likely at the dating rate I'm going... but right now I don't understand. What is it that is so hard? If you haven't gotten bored of reading this yet and know, please e-mail me a heads up or something. But, until then, this is what I have come up with. I think that marriage (or any relationship) is so hard due to just simple selfishness and lack of concern for your companion.
Ever hear the saying that chivalry is dead? I believe it. Look around. Nobody cares anymore. Guys treat women like crap and women want a guy that will treat them like crap because that means they're tough. It blows me away when a girl, especially one in a relationship, asks me why I'm so nice to her. Did I really just get asked that? Doesn't your boyfriend treat you like this? Doesn't he treat you with basic respect? It is so simple and always makes the biggest difference. It's always the little things that counts. When I am in a relationship I will make it a point to compliment my girlfriend every day. I won't lie, sometimes finding a compliment can be pretty hard, especially considering some of the beasts I've dated, but I still try. Since I was 16, I don't think there has been a girl that has gotten into the front seat of my car without me opening the door for her, even for my sisters. I never invite a lady to dinner without me paying, even if it is just friends.
But probably the biggest thing that you can do, is to watch what you say around your companion. This is the one that bugs me the most. I was at a party a few months back and we had a movie on. The guys there started talking about this actress in the movie. It quickly became an argument on who was hotter between two actresses. They started talking about which one they wanted a poster of for their walls. Their wives were sitting next to them the whole time and not one of them even said a thing. What kind of self esteem do these women have that they would allow themselves to be degraded like this? I wonder if each night in bed if any of these guys are comparing the mother of their children to some slut they saw on a movie. The same thing goes both ways though on this one. My last girlfriend and her roommate never once saw a six pack that they didn't point out. Now I'm not really fat, but definitely a long ways away from a six pack. I always felt so embarrassed and second-hand when they would do that.
I know that this is getting long and it is definitely preachy, so I'll try to wrap it up. I started dating a girl a few weeks back that I just fell head over heals for. She moved away to Idaho and it damn near put me into a depression. Despite her good looks, perfect figure, and being an absolute blast to be around, probably that thing that made me fall for her the hardest was the way that she treated me and I'm not even sure how she felt about me. Every time I opened the door for her she would say thank you and lean over and open my door for me as I walked around the car. When I would cook for her, she would clear the table and help with the dishes. When I would take her to a movie, she was insistent on paying for dinner. She constantly did things just to be courteous to me and show her appreciation for what I do for her. The point is, she made me happy. I was told that if you really want to learn to love someone, you should serve them. I never believed it until I tried it. Thanks for letting me vent and remember vote Jeff 2020.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Monday, March 31, 2008
Invasion: Welcome to the United States of Amexica,
In a history class some years ago we got on the topic of English being the only language of the USA. Of course this turned into a very heated argument. I made the point that I don't expect anyone to speak English to me down in Mexico. this girl in my class made the argument that when the pilgrims came over her that they made the Native Americans learn English rather than taking the time to learn their language... a good point except for one little thing, they conquered the Native Americans!!! They over ran them, forced their language and culture upon them, they killed them and usurped their resources! I pointed out these basic facts and announced that should Mexico come up here and conquer America then I would gladly learn Spanish to cater to them. Be careful for what you wish for. Our borders have been overrun, Spanish has become the official language of Wal Mart, various Hispanic flags are flying high, gangs are running rampid, and our resources are being usurped through free medical care and the payout of welfare. Can you deny these things? Are we not slowly, but surely being conquered?
As I pointed out in my last blog that I am not a racist. I am all for immigration. It isn't at all an immigration problem, but an illegal immigration problem. We are not a closed country, but rather, we merely regulate how many immigrants we let in. We do this for the sole purpose to prevent all the things that I have listed above. We filter those that apply for a visa because there are certain people we just don't want in our country. I'll start with some of the obvious ones. If you are a murderer or a rapist, we don't want you in our country. If you are a gang member or a drug dealer, we don't want you in our country. If you plan to rob our 7-11s, we don't want you in our country. Now I am aware that not a whole lot of the illegal immigrants that are crossing over our borders fall into that category, but some are. Those that cross over our borders illegally do so simply because they don't meet the requirements for a visa. I have asked almost all my Hispanic friends why it is that people can't get a visa and the most common answer is a money issue. Well, this might come as a bit of a shocker, but if you can't support yourself in America, then we don't want you in our country. You can't find a single person that has their head on straight that would be glad to send their tax dollars to help people that are breaking our laws. It's not that you won't be a good citizen here, but basic economics. If you are not an asset to the economy then you are a liability and are costing us money. Now I'm not talking about our citizens living in poverty. Don't think that I'm saying 'we should cast out our homeless.' We are willing to help all those that stand in need, but our welfare is for citizens and immigrants that are here legally. If you can't get a visa and are in need of help then we'll gladly give it to you, but stay put and we'll send it to you through humanitarian aide.
I've listened to many debates on the issue. You can make the argument that they make up or buy a SSN and pay taxes and never file for a refund so they put money into the government. You can make the argument that they do the work that most Americans don't want to do. But the fact is that illegal immigration is hurting the economy. The amount of taxes that they pay (assuming that some even are) is not making up the difference of the amount they are taking out. We've always joked about what the border patrol must be saying. "Stop, don't run, you might fall and get hurt so we'll have to give you free medical care!" I worked construction for a few years and wanted to start up my own business. We were getting paid around $2.20 a square foot. My boss was telling me that ten years ago, they were getting paid around $4.00 a square foot. You would think the amount would go up instead of down, but the problem is crews started popping up with crews of illegal immigrants getting paid $3.00 an hour and they can now drop their prices and keep the profit up. It basically ruined our market.
I'm pretty sure that there isn't a lot of illegal immigrants that are going to read my blog and say 'you know, he's right. We're breaking their laws, taking their jobs, and we should try to do this legally.' and pick up and move back home and work on getting a visa. We need to do something about the problem. Nobody seems to have a clue, so, after discussing a few ideas with Pappy, this is what I propose. We should establish a team in every state, the size of the team would vary on the size of the state. The duty of this team would be to inspect every company in that state at least once a year, whether it has 1 employee or 100,000 employees. These inspections will be completely random. For every illegal employee the company has, they will be fined $50,000. I can imagine that this will be a pretty major hit to a lot of companies. I would establish a center that companies can call to inquire about an applicant to verify the SSN. The problem is that a lot of illegal immigrants buy a SSN. The employer would be able to call the center and gives them the SSN and the birth parents and they will be able to look up that number and tell the employer if that number has been made up or if it has even been issued yet. The reason businesses hire illegal immigrants is they can pay them ridiculous wages. Which, for the life of me, I can't figure out why an illegal immigrant would want to work back breaking labor for less than minimum wage. It becomes a wise financial decision to hire illegal immigrants. But if you set up a system where it would no longer be wise financially to hire illegal immigrants, then it would no longer be worth the risk.
The point that I'm trying to make is that illegal immigrants come here to make a better life. They do, but they make do so at the cost of everyone else. A poor, impoverished family has this dream of a better life. They decide to chase their dream by giving up all they have at their home and putting it all on the line for just one shot. They abandon all their belongings and hike through miles of desert, suffering through heat, exhaustion, and thirst, with the icy fingers of death creeping up their spine, just to make it here to America where they make less than minimum wage doing back breaking labor. But through it all, they made a better life for themselves and their children. This story gets me all misty too. This is illegal. I want a better life too but I don't steal someone e;es's SSN and take out all sorts of loans and really screw that person over. I know it's wrong, but at least my kid can go to a better college right.
I know this is rapidly becoming a novel, but I wanted to address amnesty. This has to be one of the stupidest ideas that I have ever heard. I know Reagan gave amnesty, and I believe that was a stupid move. You can't reward someone for breaking the law, it will only send the wrong signal. If I was a German immigrant and spent thousands of dollars getting here just to find out that we are giving amnesty to everyone that simply walked across a border, I'd be pissed. They recently raised the speed limit here in various places. If I walked into the courthouse and demanded that the state reimbursed me all the speeding tickets I had to pay and my record wiped clean, they'd lock me away. I know that there are a lot of people that come here illegally and have kids here. The kids are citizens, you are not. The sins of the fathers do not fall on the sons, nor do the sons provide atonement for the fathers. I'm not splitting up your family, you did that when you made the decision to come here illegally. You wanted a better life for your kids, well now you have your chance. You can take them home, or leave them with a friend or legal relative. It's a hard decision to make, but one that needs to be made. Thanks for reading and remember to vote Jeff 2020.
As I pointed out in my last blog that I am not a racist. I am all for immigration. It isn't at all an immigration problem, but an illegal immigration problem. We are not a closed country, but rather, we merely regulate how many immigrants we let in. We do this for the sole purpose to prevent all the things that I have listed above. We filter those that apply for a visa because there are certain people we just don't want in our country. I'll start with some of the obvious ones. If you are a murderer or a rapist, we don't want you in our country. If you are a gang member or a drug dealer, we don't want you in our country. If you plan to rob our 7-11s, we don't want you in our country. Now I am aware that not a whole lot of the illegal immigrants that are crossing over our borders fall into that category, but some are. Those that cross over our borders illegally do so simply because they don't meet the requirements for a visa. I have asked almost all my Hispanic friends why it is that people can't get a visa and the most common answer is a money issue. Well, this might come as a bit of a shocker, but if you can't support yourself in America, then we don't want you in our country. You can't find a single person that has their head on straight that would be glad to send their tax dollars to help people that are breaking our laws. It's not that you won't be a good citizen here, but basic economics. If you are not an asset to the economy then you are a liability and are costing us money. Now I'm not talking about our citizens living in poverty. Don't think that I'm saying 'we should cast out our homeless.' We are willing to help all those that stand in need, but our welfare is for citizens and immigrants that are here legally. If you can't get a visa and are in need of help then we'll gladly give it to you, but stay put and we'll send it to you through humanitarian aide.
I've listened to many debates on the issue. You can make the argument that they make up or buy a SSN and pay taxes and never file for a refund so they put money into the government. You can make the argument that they do the work that most Americans don't want to do. But the fact is that illegal immigration is hurting the economy. The amount of taxes that they pay (assuming that some even are) is not making up the difference of the amount they are taking out. We've always joked about what the border patrol must be saying. "Stop, don't run, you might fall and get hurt so we'll have to give you free medical care!" I worked construction for a few years and wanted to start up my own business. We were getting paid around $2.20 a square foot. My boss was telling me that ten years ago, they were getting paid around $4.00 a square foot. You would think the amount would go up instead of down, but the problem is crews started popping up with crews of illegal immigrants getting paid $3.00 an hour and they can now drop their prices and keep the profit up. It basically ruined our market.
I'm pretty sure that there isn't a lot of illegal immigrants that are going to read my blog and say 'you know, he's right. We're breaking their laws, taking their jobs, and we should try to do this legally.' and pick up and move back home and work on getting a visa. We need to do something about the problem. Nobody seems to have a clue, so, after discussing a few ideas with Pappy, this is what I propose. We should establish a team in every state, the size of the team would vary on the size of the state. The duty of this team would be to inspect every company in that state at least once a year, whether it has 1 employee or 100,000 employees. These inspections will be completely random. For every illegal employee the company has, they will be fined $50,000. I can imagine that this will be a pretty major hit to a lot of companies. I would establish a center that companies can call to inquire about an applicant to verify the SSN. The problem is that a lot of illegal immigrants buy a SSN. The employer would be able to call the center and gives them the SSN and the birth parents and they will be able to look up that number and tell the employer if that number has been made up or if it has even been issued yet. The reason businesses hire illegal immigrants is they can pay them ridiculous wages. Which, for the life of me, I can't figure out why an illegal immigrant would want to work back breaking labor for less than minimum wage. It becomes a wise financial decision to hire illegal immigrants. But if you set up a system where it would no longer be wise financially to hire illegal immigrants, then it would no longer be worth the risk.
The point that I'm trying to make is that illegal immigrants come here to make a better life. They do, but they make do so at the cost of everyone else. A poor, impoverished family has this dream of a better life. They decide to chase their dream by giving up all they have at their home and putting it all on the line for just one shot. They abandon all their belongings and hike through miles of desert, suffering through heat, exhaustion, and thirst, with the icy fingers of death creeping up their spine, just to make it here to America where they make less than minimum wage doing back breaking labor. But through it all, they made a better life for themselves and their children. This story gets me all misty too. This is illegal. I want a better life too but I don't steal someone e;es's SSN and take out all sorts of loans and really screw that person over. I know it's wrong, but at least my kid can go to a better college right.
I know this is rapidly becoming a novel, but I wanted to address amnesty. This has to be one of the stupidest ideas that I have ever heard. I know Reagan gave amnesty, and I believe that was a stupid move. You can't reward someone for breaking the law, it will only send the wrong signal. If I was a German immigrant and spent thousands of dollars getting here just to find out that we are giving amnesty to everyone that simply walked across a border, I'd be pissed. They recently raised the speed limit here in various places. If I walked into the courthouse and demanded that the state reimbursed me all the speeding tickets I had to pay and my record wiped clean, they'd lock me away. I know that there are a lot of people that come here illegally and have kids here. The kids are citizens, you are not. The sins of the fathers do not fall on the sons, nor do the sons provide atonement for the fathers. I'm not splitting up your family, you did that when you made the decision to come here illegally. You wanted a better life for your kids, well now you have your chance. You can take them home, or leave them with a friend or legal relative. It's a hard decision to make, but one that needs to be made. Thanks for reading and remember to vote Jeff 2020.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Spanish: The Official Language of the USA
I want to point out that I am NOT racist. Most of the friends I have made in my professional life are Hispanic. With that said, I’m sick and tired of going to Wal-Mart to see all the little t.v.s they have playing ads in Spanish. I hate it when I need something and ask an attendant for help and they get this shy look and say “Que?” At which point did this become socially acceptable? I understand that English is a hard language to learn and there are a lot of immigrants trying desperately to learn it, but why do we cater to Spanish? How is this helping them? Just the other day I went to the bank, they had a separate ‘Spanish only line’. I had been waiting for over a half hour and some girl walks in, five minutes later walks out. My Dad moved to Germany years ago for military service and tells me the first thing he did when he got there was went and bought a German-English dictionary and a map. He didn’t expect anyone to cater to his English. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be tolerant of those trying to learn English, but let’s not cripple them by making it unnecessary to learn it. My little sister worked in customer service as an operator. She had this call where this lady asked if there was anyone there that spoke Spanish. She replied no that everyone there spoke English. Then the lady said “oh, that’s ok, I can speak English then.” My sisters quick response to that was “why don’t you then?” Hats off to her. Personally, I feel that was a bit aggressive, but she did a great job of putting the point across. The reason that it bothers me so much is because it isn’t a matter of ignorance, it’s the state of mind that they have. I saw a few years ago in California a big immigration revolt in a high school. The Hispanic students took down the American flag and flew the Mexican flag with the American flag flying under it inverted. Then they stood guard at the flag pole so no one could take it down. I don’t think I have ever seen a picture that has so instantly pissed me off. I found it very offensive. I am all for immigration. Come to our country, bring your culture with you. That is what helps us be diverse, just let me keep my culture. I understand that I am here because my ancestors immigrated here. I also I keep in mind how my ancestors got here as well. They were immigrants from Denmark. The saved up money, went through all the paperwork, and set up arrangements for when they got here. They lost two kids on the way over to America and when they got here, they found that they guy they set up all their arrangements with had stolen their money and disappeared. It sucked, but they changed their last name to an American name, learned English, and started over. I understand that it’s hard. But isn’t that why we come here? To work hard and achieve the impossible? This is just my thoughts on the whole Spanish speaking issue. In my next several blogs I plan to address the issue of illegal immigration and what I think can be done to fix it. I hope you visit them soon. Remember, vote Jeff 2020.
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