Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness! Good questions.

I take opposition, however, to your assertion that Commissioner Pauken “indirectly” supported the goals of George W. Bush. This is a classic case of guilt-by-association.

I’ve known Mr. Pauken for a long time and he was no strong supporter of either Bush Administration. If anything, Mr. Pauken was in DIRECT opposition to the rise of “The Bushies” following the Reagan years and kept the Republican Party of Texas conservative during the mid-to-late ’90s.

I invite you to read Mr. Pauken’s book “Bringing America Home” (available on Amazon — see excerpt at the link above), which not only criticizes George W. Bush, Karl Rove, and their ilk, but also questions our intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan and the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs under a so-called “conservative” Administration. It’s a fascinating read from a true conservative who stemmed the tide of neoconservatism for as long as one man could.

I see where your father is coming from, I got the same grief from my grandparents. In a perfect world, those who live in societies were caste-like social stratification systems exist, should call us out. But this not a prefect world.

Democracy is founded on the ideals of liberty, equality and popular sovereignty, and the belief that we are allowed to govern our personal lives and social histories. If we take that definition as face value, then your father’s does not hold water, due to Article 4 and 5 of the Mexican Constitution.

Article 4
All people, men and women, are equal under the law. This article also grants all people protection to their health, a right to housing, and rights for children. Everyone has a right to an appropriated ecosystem for their development & welfare.

Article 5
All Citizens of the United Mexican States are free to work in the profession of their choosing, as long as it does not attack the rights of others.

Democratic laws generally tend to promote the welfare of the greatest possible number, why then did your father and a million others experienced “real” poverty or as you put it “experienced true hunger?”

That is why when talk about poverty, it must be looked in terms by the person’s environment. We must do this because real environment altogether too big, too complex, and too fleeting for direct acquaintance. We are not equipped to deal with so much subtlety, so much variety, so many contributing factors.

Some when someone like your father or the commenter those comparisons, it is done because they have already reconstructed their view on a simpler model to navigate through it. His comparison of what life was like and his reason for leaving is not fair to you. The limitations a person as access to another person’s surrounding combine with the obscurity and complexity of the facts that thwart clearness and justice of perception, to substitute misleading fictions for workable ideas, and to deprive us of adequate checks upon those who consciously strive to mislead.

Our current law is guided by economical and political principles that contradict the current conditions of today. The problem we have in this country we do not first see, and then define, we define first and then see.

The reason is simple: they have lived through absolute poverty back home. Once you have experienced that, what the United States calls “poverty” is really seen, to them atleast, as more of an inconvenience than actual poverty – and an inconvenience largely based on ones bad decisions, compounded throughout the years. My dad still recounts to me stories of picking up old tortilla pieces off of the dirt floor, to eat. When I was young, and a real picky eater, he would tell me that the reason I am a picky eater is that I have never experienced true hunger. Food pickiness, is a luxury of rich countries.

One of my favorite economists once suggested that to solve the immigration problem in the United States, we should start allowing US citizens to sell their citizenship to foreigners. I am not sure how I feel about this proposal on net, but one positive aspect of it is that a little foreign interaction, a global experience of what true poverty is like, would humble some of the more radical views of the United States poor.

However, I DID work myself out of that situation. Family didn’t help me. They didn’t get in an pitch in. Friends didn’t help me. They preferred to sit back and say: “It can’t be done…” Or “Get a job” Which I did and it just killed a year and a half of my life, and left me poorer, and my car more run down than ever.

And you know what? I persevered. I had no money, the fan on my laptop was broken, so that it only worked 20 minutes at a time, and I had no Internet connection anyway. I persevered.

I had no capital. I persevered. I had no backing, no investors, no food, nothing. I persevered. I had no way of starting up, I had nobody willing to help. I had nothing, I was poor.

I persevered.

I know poverty.

I persevered.

I can say it as many times as anyone else can yell poverty, define poverty, show me poverty, and all I can do is speak from my own experience, I PERSEVERED.

I now am starting a nationwide Magazine and have over 750,000 connections. From nothing. I am not rich. I am just starting this thing out.

I’ve been offered a quarter million for it. It’s all sweat and work, and you know what? I’ve built it from literally nothing.

I persevered.

Out of poverty, I found the vision to see a future, a bright future, I ignored the poverty pimps, and I ignored the Unemployment line, I never took foodstamps, I never begged, I never blamed anyone.

I persevered.

I Tweet at @ProNetworkbuild

And I am Editor of http://SocialNAustin.com

Have a great day.