Y'know, there's something I found in my travels around this world: cultures and governments may be very different, and individuals vary wildly, but generally speaking, people are pretty much the same all over the world. That realization was what helped me to unlearn the racism I'd been taught in my youth.
So what that means, guy, is that no matter where you go - democracy or communist, third-world or first-world, blue state or red state - you get the same general mix of people: many will be hard-working, some won't be; most mothers still work their fingers to the bone to raise their kids properly; most guys, when they get a chance, sit down at bull sessions, each declaring to the others how to fix all the problems in their family/community/country/world.
Just. like. here.
The other thing one learns overseas - if one really gets to know the people and the way they live - is that if they had the same opportunities we do, they'd do at least as well as we do...which is why so many immigrants do so well here in America (like my wife, the former illegal immigrant who's now providing jobs for other people).
No, guy, the people living on less than two dollars a day don't CHOOSE to do that - all too often, 'choice' is a luxury they don't have. Speaking of which, if you get to know immigrants, the one thing that many immigrants will tell you they find is most daunting about living in America is...we have TOO MANY choices. Where they come from, there's all too often no choice to go wherever one wants, when one wants, to do pretty much whatever one wants (as long as it's legal).
Imagine that: the hardest thing for them to get used to is having so many choices - sorta boggles the mind, doesn't it? "Choices" isn't something they have much of in their home countries. And yet you claim they CHOOSE to be poor.
