WHY BE AN EX-PAT IN THE PHILIPPINES?

A lot of people ask me why an American would want to be an expat, especially here in the Philippines. Well, there are probably a lot of reasons for that. A lot of expats over here are married to Filipina women and contrary to popular belief, not all Filipina women see an American as a ticket to the United States. A lot of them are happy to stay in their own country. Since many of the guys who marry these girls did so when they were stationed here in the military and most of those guys did multiple tours here, the Philippines inadvertently became their home.

A lot of guys here are also married to Filipinas and want to go back to the states but they can't get visas for their wives. It is much easier for a mexican to sneak across the border and get away with it and live in the USA and draw unemployment and get medicaid than it is for a Filipina woman to get a VISA to go to the USA if she isn't considerably rich, even if she is married to an American. If an American man is married to a Filipina, he has to go back to the states and maintain a home there for one full year before a VISA can be granted for his wife to come. That kinda makes things a little difficult if he has kids because the kids are going to either have to be separated from the mother or the father for that year.

A lot of guys came here for vacation, met a Filipina girl, either got married or moved in together and are enjoying life here. If an American is retired military and has a pension, he can live very well off of that pension on the Philippine economy and he can live in an American community here and not really have to deal with many of the day to day hassles of the Filipino culture.

Most of the Americans living here are retired military. Most of them did multiple tours of duty in the Philippines. In my case, I spent nearly 17 years of my 20 years in the military overseas, all of it in either Asia, Central America, the Middle East or Africa. After I retired I spent another 10 years travelling in Asia, Africa and Central America extensively. I learned when I was in the military that home is where the heart is. Home is also where you make it as long as you bring your heart with you.

Some people in the states may think that living in the Philippines has got to be a horrible experience. It's a dirt poor, third world country and that doesn't appeal to most Americans. However, almost all of my military time was spent in dirt poor, third world countries. Wherever I was, I had a choice. I could sit around and count the bad things about that country and be miserable while I was there, or I could look around for the good things and be happy. I did the latter and I managed to perceive all of those places I served in as a paradise by focusing on the good things about those places and just accepting that there are bad things wherever you go.

I love living in the Philippines. I'm able to live well with my retirement pension. The people treat me well and some would say that is because I have money, but I've found that isn't the case at all. I enjoy the warm smiles of the people here and it is inspirational to see how people who have so little, can find so much happiness.

Regards

A BRIGHT SIDE?

I'm hoping that there is a bright side to the results of these elections.

What I am hoping is that the things that are going to happen will wake the American people up.

Now that we will no longer be occupying the terrorists time, manpower, money and other resources in Iraq and other countries where they train and operate, the terrorists will have now have plenty of time, manpower, money and resources to resume their campaign on US soil. It's not a matter of if that ill happen anymore. It's only a matter of when. When it does, I hope that every one of you liberals who voted in these socialist scumbags are so filled with guilt that every time you look in the mirror you consider suicide. That would be one positive outcome of all of this.

Away from total cynicism though, maybe the American public will wake up and realize the limitations of a two party system. Maybe they will understand that by sticking to a one party ticket and voting for someone just because that candidate is in the same party, even though he or she may be a complete moron is moronic in itself.

Maybe the American public will wake up and realize that neither the republicans or the democrats have any realistic solution to our nation's problems. Maybe they may even consider that the Libertarians have a pretty realistic concept of how things should be ran, with very little government and putting most of the responsibilities outside of government administration and defense into the hands of the people themselves. You see, that's one of our biggest problems. Americans aren't patriotic anymore because in order to be patriotic, one has to accept some responsibility at a personal level for the welfare of his or her country. Neither the republicans or the democrats have been able to get that message across to the American public. The republicans are better at it than the democrats because liberals have no sense of personal responsibility at all, but the republicans still fall short.

Maybe the American public will realize that the priority of our government needs to be the defense of our country and our way of life and that fighting wars abroad occupy our potential enemies abroad and takes away their ability to operate as effectively in our own country.

Maybe there is a bright side of all of this and maybe the American public will wake up by 2008.

If there is still an America in 2008 that is. We may have done such damage to our honor and credibility at this point that we may never recover from it and self destruct.

Sometimes I think we have more enemies among our own people, native born Americans than foreigners.

I doubt the American public wakes up though. At this point, most Americans are too selfish to really consider anything other than their personal needs.

TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET

Well, the democrats have won the house and probably the senate too. As I said before, I'm not a republican, but I do see republicans as the lesser or two evils. It's sad to me that the American public has been conned by the liberal democrats into giving them so much power. Once again, my fellow Americans you show the world that history has taught you nothing at all.

The polls say that the war in Iraq is the primary reason people voted for democrats. I think that is a crock. I don't think that's the real reason at all. The real reason is that Bush alienated so many conservatives with his wimpy attitude towards the illegal aliens. That was the straw that broke the camel's back for many former Bush supporters. What happened is that these former supporters of the Bush administration just stayed home and didn't vote because they feel betrayed by Bush. That's the stupidist and most childish reason not to vote that I've ever heard of. I say that if you don't vote, you don't have the right to bitch. The downside to this is that mostly liberals showed up to vote and of course when questioned, they whined about the war as the reason for voting for the democrats.

They also whined about corruption in the administration. I've seen a lot of things come out of the White House that puzzled me but I am not aware of "corruption". They also whined about thing the homeland security folks are doing to protect Americans because to them it is an invasion of their privacy to have their phone calls and internet activities monitored. Cry me a river folks, whether or not these idiots know it, phones and internet activites have been being monitored since the invention of telecommunications and the internet itself.

Oh yeah, the best one is the whining about the mistreating of the poor terrorist prisoners and the violation of their rights. I guess it doesn't matter than an American that is one of their prisoners has no rights. I guess it also doesn't matter that terrorists and guerrillas are not covered by the Geneva convention. I guess it doesn't matter that in truth, drastic measures during interrogations do indeed get results.

I guess it doesn't matter to the liberals either that it won't be long before we experience another attack on our own soil by terrorists since the democrats will most likely force a "cut and run" policy towards Iraq, just like they did in Vietnam.

Then again - maybe our troops should come home, but not for the reasons the liberals want them here. I'm starting to think the majority of the American people are to stupid to be worthy of having our troops laying their lives on the line for them.

America - you have lost your honor once again because of your lack of resolve. You and your liberal viewpoints will give us another Vietnam through your cowardice and lack of fortitude and make us the laughing stock of the world once again.

Shame on you - both you liberals who are nothing but communist/socialist traitors to America and you conservatives who wouldn't vote because of your anger at one man.

To the majority of the American people: I am thoroughly disgusted with my you right now and almost to the point of regretting that I ever risked my life for you.

POLITICS AND VOTING

I would like to say first that I am NOT a Republican. I'm not a Democrat either. If I were to identify myself with any party it would be the Libertarian Party. I like the Libertarian Party's philosophy because they don't believe in big government. The only problem for me and quite a few others is that in this day and age, a vote for someone other than a Republican is a vote that will go to the Democrats.

Republicans don't believe in big government either, or at least that's what they say. There's a small amount of truth in that because they believe in only getting involved in the private lives of citizens when it will benefit the big business corporations. They don't really want to get involved too much in a lot of programs for the poor or special interest groups. I have to say that I don't wholeheartedly disagree with this. We do have to remember that almost all of the jobs available to our public come from those big business corporations either directly or indirectly. In a sense, when the Republicans are in office, the government and the big business corporations subsidize each other. I don't like that. That's why I'm a libertarian, but I can understand that is the reality right now. Right now, if the big business corporations don't support the government, it will collapse. If the governments don't subsidize big businesses the unemployment will rise faster than any of us can imagine. In a way it's a catch 22 and the only way to change it is to totally restructure the government. It is true that this trend causes hardship on small business owners and many family businesses and farms collapse under the republican system and I don't like that part either. However, like it or not those big businesses are the hand that feeds most people and under the republicans we have a solid middle class economically. The poor may suffer more and the rich may benefit from it but our government was setup to take care of the majority. That's what a democracy is and the majority of our country are middle class working people.

The democrats on the other hand favor very big government. Every aspect of every person's life is micromanaged as if none of us were smart enough to make our own decisions. The democratic party of the 50's and 60's was somewhat conservative but liberalism has become the ideology of the Democratic party we know today. Anyone with any intelligence knows that liberalism feeds socialism and socialism feeds communism. If the liberals had their choice, all of the money that people earn would be collected by the government and then redistributed where considered appropriate. I have a problem with that - a big one. You see, the potential to take away what those who are willing to work have earned and give it to those who are not willing to work is a reality when the democrats are in office. It's not fantasy, it's reality. It's been proven every time the democrats are in office through programs that pay heroin addicts almost a thousand dollars a month disability (which comes from our social security money) to welfare programs that encourage people to be poor by paying them to be so.

There is another problem when the Democrats are in office. That's national security and defense. It does indeed take a lot of money to insure that we are secure from our enemies. It takes a lot of money to recruit, train and maintain combat readiness for our military. Unfortunately the democrats see the military as an obstacle to their socialist agenda. Spending money to maintain our national security and defense takes away from their programs that pay people to do nothing, be drug addicts or compensate people medically who caught diseases through their own bad lifestyle choices. Do you think these liberal politicians of the democratic party do this out of some sense of humanity? If you do, you are stupid. There are plenty of people who want to get money for nothing who don't want to work and choose to be a burden on society. There are plenty of drug addicts who are so messed up on drugs all the time that they can't work and are happy to receive a big check every month from the government and their clean needles so that they can continue to do their drugs and remain unemployable. There are plenty of people on welfare who continue to reproduce like rabbits and receive more money from the government for doing so. There are plenty of people who have diseases that they contacted due to their lifestyle of homosexuality or drug abuse and expect their medical bills paid and to receive a disability check from the government. The liberal democrats know this and the way they get into power is by promising these dregs of society that more money is forthcoming.

Meanwhile - our intelligence and security agencies are so crippled by the lack of funds when democrats are in office that they can't afford to pay their electrical bills much less collect intelligence and provide internal security. At the same time, our soldiers return to their bases and pick up pine cones, paint tree stumps and broken down vehicles because there is no money to train and no vehicles to train with because there is no money to fix them when they break down.

The democratic party IS the enemy within. It's politicians are traitors to our nation. The Republican party is not my party, but at least at this moment, their ranks are not filled with traitors. Maybe someday people will realize that this "two party" political system we have takes away many realistic options to solve our problems.

Personally, my philosophy is do what you want to do and I'll do what I want to do but if you mess with me or my loved ones, I'm gonna rip your heart out and show it to you before you die.

Regards

I'M BACK

Looks like something happened to my blog and it disappeared for awhile. It's back up now and I'll be posting shortly.

Regards