Vigilante

Oh man you're a dick sometimes. No, I didn't go to school in Louisiana, but I used to live close to it. Houston isn't that far away either. I agree that sometimes travel isn't about being a tourist, but if you got some kids that think red lobster is high-class dining, you think they'll be immersed in the culture when they go overseas? You think they'll go find a little hole in the wall diner to sample local cuisine, or will they go hit up a nightclub and get blitzed and not remember half the trip? What do you think? Knowing the people I grew up with, I know what they'd do, and it's not the ideological government-funded multicultural event you portray it to be.

I'm the stay-at-home kind of guy usually, don't go out much, don't care to. I prefer to examine the behavior of an insect running into a predator over taking in the bustling cityscape of humans I would see if I happened to look up. You have traveled alot, I have traveled little. In fact if I traveled, it would be more to observe the wildlife of the region than to experience the humans contained therein. I enjoy studying plant environments more than I do chatting with people that I barely know. Sometimes I even cut a conversation short so I can get some peace of mind. Fuck it, if you only live once, you might as well enjoy it. I spent most of my weekends in the freakin woods, so I could get away from the howling madness of the orphanage I spent my teenage years in. I got treed by a silent pack of dogs that thought of me as food, and literally covered in banana spiders a few times, but it was still more pleasant than dealing with a bunch of tards squirting God-knows-what out of improvised waterguns (shampoo bottles with a pinhole) and stabbing each other with scissors and pens. I mean that literally.

That said, just because you think something is best, doesn't mean I have to agree. I know some people live shitty lives, I can turn on the tube and see that, or I can drive downtown. Or I can think about sleeping on a bench myself in my younger years. I think of this as one of those classic examples of the privileged know everything. That is how I see you; privileged. That is no doubt how some see me as well. Maybe you aren't, who knows. Maybe you worked into the ability to travel the world, but it doesn't sound like it. Feel free to enlighten me on that. When you come in stating everyone is the US should be forced to travel, spend some cash, live a leisurely life for a few months and take in culture, you assume that is what everyone wants to do - take in culture, and what everyone can do - be at leisure. Personally, I could give a rat's ass about culture. I tolerate my own species because the women are hot and some guys are funny when you get them drunk....and I get paid to tolerate them in IT, but only barely.

But I suppose if I was forced to travel, I would go fishing in the amazon and collect some plants for my aquarium. I'd have to buy a few extra cornell drawers because I would FILL them with exotic insects. I'd probably have to devote a closet just to that. And I would ignore the culture going on several miles upstream. Gov't funded fishing trip. Sign me up.

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We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill