First entry
Statement of purpose
Setting up a business requires that one define his goals and to state how he plans to achieve them. Well, this is not a business but I think I should do the same for this blog.
Here’s what I’d like to do here. I like how bloggers PhilippinesPhil and MarkinMexico combine local news and opinion with those on a global level. Phil is a fellow expat, an American living here in the Philippines. He also has many personal anecdotes, a format which seems to work quite well for him and his readership stats. Mark is American as well and lives in Oaxaca, Mexico; his blog reports events occurring in Mexico, a country in which I too have lived and gone to university. Both of these bloggers, as am I, are on the right of the political spectrum.
Left-right, liberal-conservative, Democrat-Republican. I don’t like these labels because once stated people tend to lock you into whatever their idea is of that group. Once when I was being admitted to a hospital the clerk insisted that I tell her my religious affiliation. I kept telling her I have none but she went on and on about this, to me, insignificant issue. She then asked about my family and I naively said that they are Catholic. She apparently was under some pressure from the administration. . . or she was just plain bullheaded. . .to put something, anything, on the form. Well, you guessed it; I soon received a priest in my room. That’s the kind of mentality I’m trying to avoid here, by trying not to put a label on my politics. But if you must, if you absolutely insist, then I’d say I’m rightist, conservative, and Republican. Sorta, kinda. Okay?
Let’s make a few assertions to better explain where and who I am:
Iraq.
I supported the invasion and still do. It did have a noble purpose and still does, although it’s become harder and harder to defend now. The goal was to remove Saddam but keep Iraq as a strong nation to counterbalance Iran in the region. Well, Iraq is not now strong nor do I expect it to be in the near future; we failed to achieve that goal. Iran has already assumed its role as the local power broker. So, perhaps the recently advanced proposals of simply dividing up the country into Kurdish, Shi-ite, and Sunni regions would have some effect.
Education.
Both here in the Philippines and in the USA there are crises in public education. Here the Department of Education is very top heavy with many more administrators than it needs, while students are packed 70 to a classroom. There is a horrible drop-out rate as well. This supposedly free education is not free when students must pay “exam fees” of 2000 or more pesos, about US$40. In the US we are also very limited by having too many administrators but also by teachers’ unions which are more interested in defending their privileges instead of working to improve education. I like what Thomas Sowell has written about this subject.
Terrorism.
The US seems to merely react to security concerns instead of being pro-active like the Israelis. When 19 hijackers used fiber glass knives to take down four planes our security people started focussing on sharp objects aboard aircraft. Yeah, sure! Once passengers know what’s going on they will defend themselves as did those in the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. Hijackers know they will have to find new methods because the same tactic will never work a second time. But our security people don’t see that. Same with the recent scare related to liquids taken on board aircraft. Security started prohibiting liquids only after they received a tip about it. All these years since 9/11/01 I’ve been carrying alcohol-base hand wash on board every flight I’ve taken. I know all I’d have had to do was douse my immediate area with it and light it up if I wanted to bring down the plane. I knew that! You knew that! So why didn’t our own security folks take some action before?
Immigration.
Immigration has been good for the US. . . legal immigration. But when 11 million illegal residents of my country say they have a “right” to be there and parade with Mexican flags, then I know we are in real trouble. But the problem continues because too many so-called conservative businessmen want to hire these people at lower wages than they will pay Americans. Sad to say though that the American workers vote for the same scoundrels who are trying to displace them from the workforce.
Well, there are many more issues that interest me but I will leave them for another time.
I have a website that deals with tourism and history here in the Philippines. It’s not interactive as is a blog, and it wasn’t intended to be that way. I’d like to keep the website focused on its original purpose and use this blog as a forum for expressing other opinions.
opass 