Why did you move to New Mexico? (Albuquerque: buying, living in)

[rybert]

Originally Posted by huffenanpuffen

I moved here from up state n.y.because of my line of work. I transported autos coast to coast and here I am 14 hours to my house from long beach,ca-new orleans, la St lou,mo. Got home more often.education sucks,high crime ,but home owners tax a year cheap.

Most difficult post to read EV4R!

[Cathy4017]

Originally Posted by Tim Rankin

Next time you're @ Smith's, get yourself several cans of Cafe La Llave or Cafe Bustelo [for cheap $$$]. Once you find the right coffee/water ratio, you'll never need Starbucks again.

I think Starbuck's is overrated, too, but.....whatever, LOL!!

I have been thinking of trying Cafe Bustelo....I'm looking for a decently strong coffee to mix with chicory to get my own blend.

I usually have French Market, but it costs over $7/lb here, so I order it from NOLA, but still not cheap (the only thing I liked about NO, along with the food).

I can get the roasted chicory much cheaper, but I haven't found the right ratio yet. Folger's (even the newer darker blends) doesn't cut it.

[Diamondhead]

Look's a though we'll be a transplant but the area of NM is not too impressive as far as I can tell from research on the net. - Hobbs, NM - look's like it will be a transplant to Andrews,TX.

DH

[Cathy4017]

Originally Posted by Diamondhead

Look's a though we'll be a transplant but the area of NM is not too impressive as far as I can tell from research on the net. - Hobbs, NM - look's like it will be a transplant to Andrews,TX.

DH

I'd pick Andrews over Hobbs any day.

[Diamondhead]

That's what I'm finding out as we go one - look's like it will be about a 35 mile drive to Eunice, NM. where the job will actually be.

Would you know of any rental houses in Andrews or a contact?

DH

[Cathy4017]

Originally Posted by Diamondhead

That's what I'm finding out as we go one - look's like it will be about a 35 mile drive to Eunice, NM. where the job will actually be.

Would you know of any rental houses in Andrews or a contact?

DH

No, sorry.....rentals have been tight and hard to find in the general area with the uptick in oil/gas and booming economy. However....

I left Midland a couple of years ago, and things may be a little better for rentals/housing these days, so I'd suggest that you contact some of the RE companies in Andrews, as some of them manage rentals. A search on Google turned up a few hits.

[Thunderbomb82]

Originally Posted by mike0421

This is a tough post to write, because I've been thinking about something that happened five days ago, and it's sticking with me. And because what I am going to articulate is bound to offend some here. That's not my intent, but rather to be as honest as I can. The reason my wife and I chose to move to New Mexico is one that is common to many: namely, to put our family in the best possible position financially. We have two small children, ages 6 and 5. When we moved here, they were 2 and 1. On June 8th, 3 days from now, I will have been a New Mexico property owner for 4 years. I moved here ahead of my family in January 2005, so I have been here a little longer than that. We moved here after I accepted a position at Holloman AFB. (I no longer work at Holloman, however) I come from New Jersey. One of our regular posters here, Tigerlily24, is also from New Jersey. She might be able to relate to what I am about to articulate here, and perhaps some others will as we

When I first arrived here, in advance of being offered a position at Holloman, we drove up to Alamogordo from the El Paso airport. It was December of 2004. I've said in other posts and will say it again: I am a summer person. Love the warm weather as opposed to my New Jersey home, where the weather is, to me, horrible. The initial feeling of arriving at El Paso in December with the temp 65 degrees and no humidity was euphoric. We were excited to see Alamogordo, had never seen any pictures. (Back in 04, no Google Street View either!) Upon approaching Alamogordo, my wife and I recoiled. Coming from suburban NJ, we both lived lives that up until that point, I hadn't realized how relatively fortunate we were. In suburban New Jersey, outside of New York City especially, there are neighborhoods of affluence that abut each other. Towns where median 6 figure household income is the norm. Driving into Alamogordo, after 80 miles of nothing, was quite an eye opener. There were dilapidated trailers lining Rt 54, scattered, no real sense of order. Pressing on towards the center of Alamo, we encountered White Sands Blvd, and the commerical district. This too, was unlike anything we were used to in New Jersey. My wife actually started to cry. When you work at Holloman AFB, Alamogordo is the anchor town for the base. My wife immediately dismissed Alamogordo, which was really unfortunate, because from a practical standpoint, living in another town was going to involve a lot more of a commute. We drove on through High Rolls and Cloudcroft, and identified more with these areas. Cloudcroft especially felt like a cousin to many rural towns in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania, something we'd had prior experience with. However, after meeting with a realtor, we discovered that the prospect of living in Cloudcroft was impractical, because the cost per square foot of household there was appreciably more than we were willing to spend. Our intent upon moving was to lower our mortgage, our living costs. Cloudcroft wasn't going to fit the bill from that standpoint. There was also continuing education to consider. I had already started pursuit of my Master's degree. So, the following day, we drove through WSMR and onto Las Cruces, where another realtor was awaiting our arrival. The same feeling, driving down through Tortilla Flats and Butterfield on Rt 70 as the one we felt driving through Rt 54 in Boles Acres was one we experienced: another conglomeration of poverty on the outskirts of a New Mexico city. However, unlike Alamogordo, the realtor was able to take us to some very desirable neighborhoods in LC. Without exception, all these neighborhoods had homeowners associations. I knew when we toured the areas around Roadrunner Drive that we were going to be ok, because these neighborhoods somewhat resembled what we were used to in NJ. I enthusiastically accepted the position at Holloman, and we were ready to turn the page, new chapter to our lives, etc.

In the four years we have lived here, my wife has made some lifelong friends. People here are very approachable at first encounter, which is something we did not experience in NJ. (I will say however, that in NJ, once you break down that initial wall of suspicion, you are going to meet some extrodinarily fine individuals.) The one overwhelming negative, that I have been occasionally been able to shake, since I've lived here, remains the poverty. Many times, I've been to the point where I think I've finally been able to shake it. There have been times, however, when I've gotten quite upset, primarily last winter when my wife and I had our cars broken into, in our own driveway, and when our neighborhood was vandalized with graffiti. I thought to myself then, that living in what is considered to be a middle to upper-middle class neighborhood, if this were in New Jersey (or for that matter, most of New England, the northeast) this would never, ever happen. I've similarly stated that in NJ, I could leave my doors unlocked during the day while at work, and I'd have no fear of burglary. That is not possible here, and I've learned that the hard way.

In my first sentence in this post, I alluded to something that happened to me this past Monday, and I will share it with you now. I took the day off from work because I had to babysit my kids. I had to go into downtown LC on El Paseo Drive because one of my kids had a dentist appointment. Afterwards, I took them to Sonic for lunch. As I mentioned previously, my kids are now 6 and 5. The six year old is particularly approaching the age of reason, and now, fluid conversations are the norm. I was waiting at Sonic for the carhop to deliver us our meal. As I was doing so, I noticed a teenager, perhaps early 20 something, stalking back and forth between the drive in aisles on either side of the Sonic parking lot. Having spent nearly every day of my life working in urban New Jersey, in some horrible neighborhoods, has really spun me up on when knowing something very bad is about to happen, in advance of it happening. I was saying to myself, out loud: "Something's up. There's something wrong here." My son, listening to my every word, suddenly says, "Daddy, what's wrong?" No sooner was he saying this, than right there in front of my eyes (AND MY KIDS EYES) , emerge two Las Cruces police cars on either side of Sonic, proceed to rush this kid, detain and handcuff him, instanteously. There is instant commotion, the kid is dragged off to the side of the restaurant, a waitress is attempting to approach the area where the scuffle is occurring, and the police are frantically telling her to go back to the area where she was at previously. My kids are both watching all this happen, as the kid is being shoved into the police cruiser. The inevitable questions from my kids follow: what happened? Why was he bad? Then my daughter asked me a question that just floored me: "Daddy, did you see this happen when you were a boy?" That question was my 'breaking the fourth wall' moment, an epiphany of sorts. My answer to her was the truth: "No". In fact, growing up in New Jersey, I had never seen anything the likes of what I saw until I was about 19 or 20, when I began working in downtown East Orange. I had been in New York City previously, and had seen some illicit activity, but nothing approaching a restraint, arrest, and multiple police convening on a suspect in the middle of a fast food restaurant. As I answered her sincere question, the rest of the day was occupied with thoughts of my childhood, and the state I grew up in. Either I really, and truthfully led a very charmed and privileged childhood, or, perhaps the spatial dynamic in New Mexico is such that such exposure to these incidents is unavoidable. For instance, it is very VERY unlikely we would have seen anything approaching this had we decided to move to Cloudcroft. But then again, there are no Sonic restaurants in Cloudcroft either. There are in Alamogordo, but could the incident my kids witnessed in LC happened also in Alamogordo? You bet it could. However, I grew up in a town that had plenty of restaurants, plenty of stores of every conceivable variety, where as a 9, 10, 11 year old kid, I remember vividly being able to walk to and never, ever see what happened this past Monday. What I think I am trying to formulate here is that what I've observed in New Mexico is that there is a substantial risk of encountering illicit, criminal activity any time you decide to foray into the center of a substantial population center, and by that I mean anything over about 5,000 people. That number is intangible, but it is the one I come up with offhand. In addition to transparent poverty, there are drifters almost everywhere, once you leave residential communities. And with that, especially as the father of two small (but rapidly growing) children, there is that undercurrent of unsettling feeling. As I've said, there is definitely a spatial component to this. Once you leave population centers in NM (with the exception of ABQ) there are no really built up neighborhoods that reflect any degree of affluence. There is, instead, nothingness, for the most part. Perhaps in this sense, New Jersey is more a national exception to the rule. As I've said, you can literally drive 40, 50 miles away from New York City, or 20, 30 miles outside of Philadelphia, and drive through one prosperous town after the next. And I think I took that for granted when I lived there. I assumed that's the way a good deal of the U.S. was laid out. But it really isn't. I think the best comparison, at least with Las Cruces, is to look at each zip code as a separate town. I've thought of many different ways to look at the situation at hand. But since this past Monday, I've really thought of what happened, what my kids saw, and contrasted that with what I was brought up with. And I have been wondering to myself ever since: is this really a place where I want to raise my children? Is this place conducive to an American run of the mill middle aged family of four? I have my doubts, and that is sad, because this place is beautiful indeed. The natural beauty here unparalleled, certainly more than most places east of the Mississippi River. The weather, the climate, that too is sublime. But this can become wallpaper after a while. The real brick and mortar in one's life is people and community. You have to feel comfortable in that skin. Perhaps this sentiment won't linger, and try to look past it. I am hopeful it will.

This is such a TRUE and I mean A TRUE post of the reality in many of New Mexico's smaller towns. I can't say much about the bigger towns of NM because I have never lived in or close to Albuq. or Santa Fe.

1. The part about our state being very nice in terms of weather and beauty is very true. There are a lot of wonderful people that I have met as well.
Along with looking at the wonderful beauty, weather, hiking, and scenes, can you put up with these situations.

1. Can you put up with just about every other young person (many even well into their 40's) abusing some type of substance illegally? Especially if you are not into illegal substances? Especially in some of the smaller towns. This is one thing that still is the problem for me. It's hard to meet people that don't abuse something or another. I have a couple drinks and few cigars myself, but I'm not into the illegal matters. As the writer said, "Do I want my kids growing up in this". It's not the 1960's anymore but some don't take a stand to this. People everywhere will still do illegal drug use but here it's way more prevelant that say for instance, the Dallas Fort Worth area. I lived there for 15 years.

2. Can you put up with the lack of alternative conveniences and simliar culture from the place you were from? The culture is different. It's great, but do we really like it "all the time"?

3. Even though the attitude is sometimes perceived as "great", you pretty much have to be the "servent" for many of the small town store and eating owners. Despite we are the customers! Because there are pretty much only one or two restaraunts in each small town. This, along with the owner's possible abuse of some type of substance, won't come friendly if you expect some type of service you get in a bigger city. So forget about anything like TGIF or Chili's. Believe me, once you get used to this, it's not as bad as one may think.

I'm not saying my paragraphs 1, 2 or 3 or bad. I think it's just good to know what to expect.

[wendicowne]

there are a few rental places here that i know of. there are also two apt. complexes here. can't remember the name, but it's right on the main drag called mustang dr. they're right next to the hospital and they rent. it will depend on the lenght of lease, i'm sure.

[sundance35]

Hi,

I read your post a few times...I usually don't answer these but this one sounds like it was written by me!!

As we speak I am "decluttering" so we can move out to NM by spring.
We are originally from Pgh. PA. Never, never liked the north east. It took us much too long to move to TN We've been here 19 years. Been going out to NM for over 25 years and now we're finally going to get off our duffs and move out there and start living!

I've always felt like I belonged there. I thought maybe in another life I lived in NM but I've been told no, that isn't true. I thought if we decorated the house in a SW style maybe I would lose the urge to move because it's such a hassle. We had some beautiful pieces made in Santa Fe and bought some things in Albuquerque. All of my Christmas decorations are from New Mexico. Mostly native american made. Unfortunately it has not worked. We need to be there.

We have reservations for the Balloon Fiesta in October. This year we're staying right at the fairgrounds. I can't wait. We were out there 2 years
ago for Christmas and in all my years that was the nicest Christmas EVER and
the most beautiful Christmas ever. We even had a little bit of snow!

Just a thought, Pecos is 25 min. out of Santa Fe and it's very green. Tall pine trees and green grass. There are a lot of areas that are green.

Hope you get to make the move!

Sandy

Originally Posted by Greyhnd

I read this forum alot although generally don't write anything. I love NM and I hope/plan to live there someday. From NJ most of my life and just relocated to TN so it will be awhile but at least I am heading westward. Unfortunately, my husband doesn't care for the desert topography/climate, so that's what's holding me back.
That being said, I fell in love with NM when we went on a skiing vacation to Taos quite a few years ago. Just thought it was beautiful. I have always liked the west in general.
I just have a feeling that I "belong" in NM, I can't really explain it. My dad, who believes in reincarnation, says maybe I was from NM in another life.
Love the open sky, love the history, the American Indian influence, love the architecture. I admit I could do with a little more green (hubby's reason he doesn't like it there) so I am always looking for areas a little greener - near the river I suppose. Love the climate (I think). Love the fact that there is more opportunity for sustainable living (solar, etc.). When we were younger, we had an interest in the tire houses around Taos, have the books on building them and stayed in one once. I really regret that we didn't move there a long time ago when we were younger. We did come out to Santa Fe to get married so at least I have a wedding certificate from NM I don't know what else to say other than I love, love, love NM and I really hope I get to live there someday. As it is, we haven't even been out there for vacation in years. I try to fill my home here with some special things from NM - we have carved furniture from a custom furniture store in ABQ, an old photo of Taos pueblo, many fetishes from Keshi in Santa Fe. It's in my heart even though I have only been there a few times. My husband is concerned it won't live up to my expectations if we do move there, and I know that is possible, it's not perfect, but I will have one huge regret in life if I never get to live there. I am unemployed right now due to a layoff in NJ and am looking for work here in TN and in the back of my head, I try to think of something that would be transferable to getting a job in ABQ someday

[ognend]

Originally Posted by mike0421

This is a tough post to write, because I've been thinking about something that happened five days ago, and it's sticking with me. And because what I am going to articulate is bound to offend some here. That's not my intent, but rather to be as honest as I can. The reason my wife and I chose to move to New Mexico is one that is common to many: namely, to put our family in the best possible position financially. We have two small children, ages 6 and 5. When we moved here, they were 2 and 1. On June 8th, 3 days from now, I will have been a New Mexico property owner for 4 years. I moved here ahead of my family in January 2005, so I have been here a little longer than that. We moved here after I accepted a position at Holloman AFB. (I no longer work at Holloman, however) I come from New Jersey. One of our regular posters here, Tigerlily24, is also from New Jersey. She might be able to relate to what I am about to articulate here, and perhaps some others will as well.

When I first arrived here, in advance of being offered a position at Holloman, we drove up to Alamogordo from the El Paso airport. It was December of 2004. I've said in other posts and will say it again: I am a summer person. Love the warm weather as opposed to my New Jersey home, where the weather is, to me, horrible. The initial feeling of arriving at El Paso in December with the temp 65 degrees and no humidity was euphoric. We were excited to see Alamogordo, had never seen any pictures. (Back in 04, no Google Street View either!) Upon approaching Alamogordo, my wife and I recoiled. Coming from suburban NJ, we both lived lives that up until that point, I hadn't realized how relatively fortunate we were. In suburban New Jersey, outside of New York City especially, there are neighborhoods of affluence that abut each other. Towns where median 6 figure household income is the norm. Driving into Alamogordo, after 80 miles of nothing, was quite an eye opener. There were dilapidated trailers lining Rt 54, scattered, no real sense of order. Pressing on towards the center of Alamo, we encountered White Sands Blvd, and the commerical district. This too, was unlike anything we were used to in New Jersey. My wife actually started to cry. When you work at Holloman AFB, Alamogordo is the anchor town for the base. My wife immediately dismissed Alamogordo, which was really unfortunate, because from a practical standpoint, living in another town was going to involve a lot more of a commute. We drove on through High Rolls and Cloudcroft, and identified more with these areas. Cloudcroft especially felt like a cousin to many rural towns in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania, something we'd had prior experience with. However, after meeting with a realtor, we discovered that the prospect of living in Cloudcroft was impractical, because the cost per square foot of household there was appreciably more than we were willing to spend. Our intent upon moving was to lower our mortgage, our living costs. Cloudcroft wasn't going to fit the bill from that standpoint. There was also continuing education to consider. I had already started pursuit of my Master's degree. So, the following day, we drove through WSMR and onto Las Cruces, where another realtor was awaiting our arrival. The same feeling, driving down through Tortilla Flats and Butterfield on Rt 70 as the one we felt driving through Rt 54 in Boles Acres was one we experienced: another conglomeration of poverty on the outskirts of a New Mexico city. However, unlike Alamogordo, the realtor was able to take us to some very desirable neighborhoods in LC. Without exception, all these neighborhoods had homeowners associations. I knew when we toured the areas around Roadrunner Drive that we were going to be ok, because these neighborhoods somewhat resembled what we were used to in NJ. I enthusiastically accepted the position at Holloman, and we were ready to turn the page, new chapter to our lives, etc.

In the four years we have lived here, my wife has made some lifelong friends. People here are very approachable at first encounter, which is something we did not experience in NJ. (I will say however, that in NJ, once you break down that initial wall of suspicion, you are going to meet some extrodinarily fine individuals.) The one overwhelming negative, that I have been occasionally been able to shake, since I've lived here, remains the poverty. Many times, I've been to the point where I think I've finally been able to shake it. There have been times, however, when I've gotten quite upset, primarily last winter when my wife and I had our cars broken into, in our own driveway, and when our neighborhood was vandalized with graffiti. I thought to myself then, that living in what is considered to be a middle to upper-middle class neighborhood, if this were in New Jersey (or for that matter, most of New England, the northeast) this would never, ever happen. I've similarly stated that in NJ, I could leave my doors unlocked during the day while at work, and I'd have no fear of burglary. That is not possible here, and I've learned that the hard way.

In my first sentence in this post, I alluded to something that happened to me this past Monday, and I will share it with you now. I took the day off from work because I had to babysit my kids. I had to go into downtown LC on El Paseo Drive because one of my kids had a dentist appointment. Afterwards, I took them to Sonic for lunch. As I mentioned previously, my kids are now 6 and 5. The six year old is particularly approaching the age of reason, and now, fluid conversations are the norm. I was waiting at Sonic for the carhop to deliver us our meal. As I was doing so, I noticed a teenager, perhaps early 20 something, stalking back and forth between the drive in aisles on either side of the Sonic parking lot. Having spent nearly every day of my life working in urban New Jersey, in some horrible neighborhoods, has really spun me up on when knowing something very bad is about to happen, in advance of it happening. I was saying to myself, out loud: "Something's up. There's something wrong here." My son, listening to my every word, suddenly says, "Daddy, what's wrong?" No sooner was he saying this, than right there in front of my eyes (AND MY KIDS EYES) , emerge two Las Cruces police cars on either side of Sonic, proceed to rush this kid, detain and handcuff him, instanteously. There is instant commotion, the kid is dragged off to the side of the restaurant, a waitress is attempting to approach the area where the scuffle is occurring, and the police are frantically telling her to go back to the area where she was at previously. My kids are both watching all this happen, as the kid is being shoved into the police cruiser. The inevitable questions from my kids follow: what happened? Why was he bad? Then my daughter asked me a question that just floored me: "Daddy, did you see this happen when you were a boy?" That question was my 'breaking the fourth wall' moment, an epiphany of sorts. My answer to her was the truth: "No". In fact, growing up in New Jersey, I had never seen anything the likes of what I saw until I was about 19 or 20, when I began working in downtown East Orange. I had been in New York City previously, and had seen some illicit activity, but nothing approaching a restraint, arrest, and multiple police convening on a suspect in the middle of a fast food restaurant. As I answered her sincere question, the rest of the day was occupied with thoughts of my childhood, and the state I grew up in. Either I really, and truthfully led a very charmed and privileged childhood, or, perhaps the spatial dynamic in New Mexico is such that such exposure to these incidents is unavoidable. For instance, it is very VERY unlikely we would have seen anything approaching this had we decided to move to Cloudcroft. But then again, there are no Sonic restaurants in Cloudcroft either. There are in Alamogordo, but could the incident my kids witnessed in LC happened also in Alamogordo? You bet it could. However, I grew up in a town that had plenty of restaurants, plenty of stores of every conceivable variety, where as a 9, 10, 11 year old kid, I remember vividly being able to walk to and never, ever see what happened this past Monday. What I think I am trying to formulate here is that what I've observed in New Mexico is that there is a substantial risk of encountering illicit, criminal activity any time you decide to foray into the center of a substantial population center, and by that I mean anything over about 5,000 people. That number is intangible, but it is the one I come up with offhand. In addition to transparent poverty, there are drifters almost everywhere, once you leave residential communities. And with that, especially as the father of two small (but rapidly growing) children, there is that undercurrent of unsettling feeling. As I've said, there is definitely a spatial component to this. Once you leave population centers in NM (with the exception of ABQ) there are no really built up neighborhoods that reflect any degree of affluence. There is, instead, nothingness, for the most part. Perhaps in this sense, New Jersey is more a national exception to the rule. As I've said, you can literally drive 40, 50 miles away from New York City, or 20, 30 miles outside of Philadelphia, and drive through one prosperous town after the next. And I think I took that for granted when I lived there. I assumed that's the way a good deal of the U.S. was laid out. But it really isn't. I think the best comparison, at least with Las Cruces, is to look at each zip code as a separate town. I've thought of many different ways to look at the situation at hand. But since this past Monday, I've really thought of what happened, what my kids saw, and contrasted that with what I was brought up with. And I have been wondering to myself ever since: is this really a place where I want to raise my children? Is this place conducive to an American run of the mill middle aged family of four? I have my doubts, and that is sad, because this place is beautiful indeed. The natural beauty here unparalleled, certainly more than most places east of the Mississippi River. The weather, the climate, that too is sublime. But this can become wallpaper after a while. The real brick and mortar in one's life is people and community. You have to feel comfortable in that skin. Perhaps this sentiment won't linger, and try to look past it. I am hopeful it will.

Hmmm. I have lived in former Yugoslavia, Canada, Missouri (Kansas City and Columbia), New York City and now in West Palm Beach. When I was in Canada and I moved to Missouri I thought that was an upgrade. For all the natural beauty and low crime Canada has (and free healthcare!) I could not stand the weather. Missouri was OK but this is when I first came to understand what life in the states is about, regarding crime and poverty! I worked at a beautiful brand new medical research institute in Kansas City but right across the street was a slum with fires burning in the barrels at night, hookers out and pimps and druggies and dealers all over. I could not fathom that! Then we moved to Columbia, MO and even though it was a relatively small town in the midwest, they had their share of crime and bad areas. I could not understand how a small town can have a slum! But, I guess they can... NYC was NYC - where the wealthy were it was safe and patrolled by police non-stop. Then we moved to south florida and you would assume that wealth concentrated in Palm Beach county would mean low crime. Well, not true. Again, there are slums and the wealthy drive around them, the cops contain them from spilling and that's about it. Where I live burglaries happen, almost everyone is armed and I live in a nice (not gated!) community where everyone has about 1.5 acres of land.

I grew up in socialism - there was no violent crime to speak of, the occasional mugging or burglary. To me this was all foreign. I lived surrounded by a lot of pretty poor people but yet there was no crime. This is the case with a lot of other countries in the world. So clearly, poverty does NOT equal crime, at least not in other countries. What I think is different here is the free access to guns. Also, the police seem to be more focused on containing the crime from spilling outside of poor areas than actually focusing on preventing and uprooting the crime. I guess I should not say "police", I should say the "system" - police is just the guys on the street dealing with the finished product of the society. At that point (on the street), containment is probably the only option.

As a response to the growing masses of underemployed, TV-seduced, sugar and cheap processed unhealthy food fed poor masses with access to guns, the wealthy in this country have developed a strategy - gated, affluent communities. These communities offer kindred spirits - middle-to-high income earners looking to be alongside of similar people with similar interests (most important of which is no interest in crime!). They drive to work or school and assume the daily risk of running into a crazed poor criminal who has nothing to lose. When this happens we mourn the affluent person and we celebrate what their life was and what they could have achieved had they remained alive. We also breed contempt for the poor and label them all the same.

In my mind there is a difference between the poor who work in the field, pick the oranges, clean homes or do whatever $7/hr pays for. They lead honest lives and have no interest in crime. They also happen to have stable families and their children usually achieve more than the children of the affluent who have long lost the interest to become anything better and are usually forced into careers by their parents. The element that everyone is scared of is the unemployed kind which roams the streets all day looking for trouble, sits on their front porch playing cards when they should be working, owns a gun and even though they probably do not understand the meaning of the "right to bear arms" gets lumped into the same basket with someone who believes in the same right afforded by the constitution for the right reasons. The former kind is difficult to deal with in our current political environment and has no long term solution. This kind of lifestyle breeds the same kind of lifestyle and maybe even worse (that's maybe why you all feel that the next generation is crazier than the one that bred it). Since we as a society believe that throwing more money at a problem will solve the problem, we will just throw more money into containment and arming the police with bigger weapons. But, this is not open warfare, it is street-by-street civil war.

So, yeah, I understand your rant. I rant about the same thing every day. Unfortunately, life has changed for all of us - 50-100 years ago people used to spend every hour working on their home, their crops etc. Now all that is pre-processed for us and if we don't have a job, most of us would starve. Or turn to crime?

Just my two cents.