I spent some time in Central America and it is the last place I would want to be as a non-Spanish speaking person. If you can't speak Spanish there is no telling what you may end up eating, whether or not you'll have hot water in the bathroom, or how may days you registered for and will have to pay for regardless of how long you stay. Fortunately, I lived on the economy in small towns and had just finished attending all-day long Spanish immersion school at DLI in Monterrey California so I could communicate fairly well. Spend a few months living with the locals and you can no longer speak English or Spanish but you will excel in the local dialect! :o) Truly, I enjoyed it immensely though and if the political system were improved (it would have to improve 500%) I would take my daughter there and stay with friends I have there. It looks like I won't be returning until my daughter is on her own though...


>I speak Spanish, Grew up speaking Spanish, lived in Central America for 4.5 years and spain for 3...
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>I feel more at home with the hispanic population than I do with any other, but it galls me to have to choose english at atm machines, etc. We have bent over way to far backwards to the various politically correct solutions. When I first went to Central America, there was no option for bi-lingual ballots, newspapers, plus, if you didn't learn spanish, you didn't eat, buy a beer or travel.
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>Anyway, i'm not allowing my blood pressure to go any higher. You all have a nice day..
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>>>That's what you get when you allow 40 years of unchecked liberal democrat politics.
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>>Good morning John;
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>>Excuse my sense of humor. I do not wish to start a war but…
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>>What this country needs is Presidents like Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush the elder and Bush the not so elder! A Republican majority in the congress and senate would help resolve the problem!
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>>Seems like we had and have that phenomenon. Perhaps all those Republicans are just Democratic liberals in disguise? :)
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>>I am not sure if it is Democrats or liberals (would you believe some Democrats are not “liberal”?) that are the cause of this problem as well as other things going on. Something is terribly wrong with our system and I do not think it is one simple thing. To all this we must add the court system. Not all federal courts are liberal.
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>>In California we “enjoy” the Ninth Circuit, which has given bizarre decisions since its inception in 1850. By the way my family has been in San Francisco since 1846, so there are many stories I have heard while growing up! :)
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>>Just an aside if I may. My family is Irish Catholic, and like other Irish Catholic families got along well with the Spanish and Mexican population in California. Along came the United States and things changed.
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>>The Americans grabbed everything possible through the courts or vigilantes, and the climate of California changed. It took many decades for the Irish to gain any rights, and even longer for the Spanish – Mexican population to do so.
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>>Today our state has many problems but we do have an interesting climate. That is a term with many meanings. We have experienced several population migrations in our history.
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>>I see no answer to this fact unless we become a police state and create a form of utopia. The question then becomes, “Who’s utopia”? I am thinking of an Austrian who was the leader of Germany – he had a solution to the question.
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>>Typically, our Supreme Court is known or said to be “Conservative”. Terms like “conservative and liberal” to me are subjective. I believe we each have a different concept of their meaning. People may be “conservative” on one issue and “liberal” on another. This does not dictate or define ones politics. I think we are each too complex to be given a title of belonging to one camp or the other.
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>>The last element of society in our country (outside of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches) is the individual. Who needs individuals (except for tax purposes) when we have such a fine political system? Even less desireable is the family.
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>>Sixty percent of the voters of California voted to accept Proposition 187, which would forbid giving medical help and social services to illegal aliens and forbid educating them. This was done out of taxpayer frustration but overturned by the - you guessed it – Ninth Circuit Court, or as we call it the Ninth Circus Court.
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>>The projections for the population of California indicate that the white man will be a small percentage of the total. This can be seen throughout the state.
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>>I understand that in France there is great concern for the exploding population of Muslims living there. They propagate at a high rate and the BBC newscast said, “The concern was that they would within twenty years be a large percentage of the voting population”! Perhaps that can be resolved by not allowing Muslims the right to vote?
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>>I do not see a remedy that would be acceptable.
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>>Tom