Unfortunately, I don't think anyone would understand until they actually met Mom. Chris thought I was whining about nothing and exaggerating until he met her.

What are you talking about?

We live in a world where everyone has their own agenda, you just cant help some people.

"you arent tarnishing anything by enjoying a BBQ and some Beer"

That wasn't implied. Celebration goes hand-in-hand with honoring the date and so it is to be expected, but what I was referring to is when the lemmings skip the honoring and get right to the drinking.

Good post!!!

Anti-war or not, I personally am glad that the terrorist attacks are all happening in Iraq and not here in the U.S.

Even though what Josh says is correct, you arent tarnishing anything by enjoying a BBQ and some Beer.

It makes you realise that getting wound up about immigration isnt really that worth it (JOKE - I'll tell its coming this time).

...says the guy with a job, education, and home.

gay.

Great post, man! :)

Many people these days make the 4th about barbecues and beer. It upsets me tremendously. Anti-war or not, it isn't our troops who are starting them; they deserve all the support we can give 'em.

I agree with the sister unit.

See, I'm of the opinion that if you're not willing to make sacrifices for you kids, and raise them, and provide for them, you don't need to be having kids in the first place.

My mom has thrown it in my face before that she's had to "do without" because of me. My response has always been, "That's your problem then, not mine. I didn't ask to be born."

It seems a bit cold and selfish of me to say that, but it's a fact. It was her responsibility the day she decided to have a child to provide for that child and to "do without" so that the child could "do with".

Now that I'm old enough, I do things for my parents to show my appreciation, but I don't do things to pay them back for all they've done for me. There's quite a bit of difference there.

It is their job as parents to do these things and show the child how to do them. It is not the child's job to do it all as a stupid payback. There is no payback in life when it comes to who payed for your upbringing. As a parent, it is your sole responsibility to care for your child and pay for all bills and what have you. When that child grows up, it will become their job to tend and care for their own child; not grow up and serve their parents each and every moment like a slave. I hate it when people say it is only fair that their children give back to them what they gave to their child. That is a huge load of BS.

d) Start a webpage to get rid of these lawbreaking fucks so we can all sign it :) I'll host it as I do everything else.

I contribute over 30% and don't feel too hard done by considering it leaves me with almost 70% to do what I want. When you think that your parents looked after you for the first 16 years or so of your life at their own expense, it is probably not worth complaining till you are 32 and have given them 16 years back bearing in mind in them 16 years back you never had to change their shitty nappy (diaper) or wake up at 5am with teething problems. Sure from what you say your mum is actually taking the piss with her expectations but parents are like that. I would devise a rota almost where stuff is divided out. No one ever complains when they realise the next person is working just as hard as they are.

What was I supposed to do?

a) Stay at home and be angry, whining and complaining, and possibly getting even angrier and causing a fight with my parents or ruining their day somehow

b) Leave the house and be angry, whining and complaining to myself, and getting to work extremely early to calm down with nobody else around

c) Absolutely nothing

That's pretty much how it is. Don't get me wrong, I love my parents with all my heart, but the skewed logic in Mom's head just baffles me.

Tis true, it was like that when I lived at home. Vacuum the whole house, scrub the bathroom from top to bottom, make the kitchen sparkle and take care of every dish that mom used to prepare the meal, which is every dish the in the house, clean the cat box, take out the slop, put mom's socks on her feet, make her a "jar of ice water", get mom the "clicker", figure out for mom or dad why the downstairs computer has froze, then get yelled at because you are lazy and have an attitude problem because you let out a sigh when mom added yet another thing to your already hectic work load. Thank you very much for ruining my day, Mrs. Garrison! Yep, that's what it was like in that house, and now Tim has the load that I took care of. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, if mom drives you to any one spot in town, you have to fill up the entire tank with gas, then fork over 10% of your paycheck, then pay all the bills that mom feels is your obligation. Oh, did I mention, that there is no food in the house either? Yeah, that is the soul responsibility of the offspring as well. I think that almost covers it. I am sure there is more to the list, but I dont wish to dive into my memories and try to extract them and put them up here for you to read. So there.

"I saw this on the news this morning, and I became so angry that I had to leave the house."

So you had to leave the house because you were so angry like you said or was it for work purposes you left the house? Sorry but it just sounded a tad contradicting to me seeing as it can be one or the other that forced you to leave the house early.

If it is the former, then what did it achieve towards getting rid of them pesky illegal immigrants? And if it is the latter why the drama? My point was that getting so upset you had to walk out did nothing towards fixing this problem and it can only be bad for you and your moods. I am sure half dead you could drive better than any spastic who doesn't know the rules of the road and I was never questioning that.

I work 10 hours a day 5 days a week, 6 hours one day a week, and I put in AT LEAST 6 hours every night here at home with my own business. Even still, I'm fully expected to help out with the OUTRAGEOUS expectations around the house, along with contributing nearly 30% of my income to help with the bills that I benefit from.

Jason: I went outside and got in my truck and went to work early. There was no harm done towards anyone.

The first person that tries to say that driving while angry is worse will be pissing me off even more. Even when I'm angry, I still make clear decisions. I still notice every little thing that could cause my driving to change at a moment's notice, and I still follow the speed limit, stop at stoplights, and yield to the oncoming traffic.

Luckily now I'm working, all I am asked to do is put the hoover around and help mum with the shopping.

Oh yeah vigilantes work. Lets just arm everyone. Thing is citizens arrests don't work unless you are 6'5 and 400lbs. You think a person with no respect for the law will give two shits about slapping someone?

Also Josh you were just bang out of order there. Go look it up. Using every opportunity to take a dig at someone got boring a while back.

So in effect, you become a vigilante group/nation/collective? Hmm....

I agree taking action is a good step. Going outside though and getting yourself upset is not taking action. How many people noticed you outside? One? Two? Maybe your dogs also. That did not help the cause. All it did was piss you off. Rather than taking stuff personally, it might be better to channel them negative thoughts that force you to leave the house into doing something that resembles action.

If enough people take a stand and make sure that the laws are enforced (citizen's arrest comes to mind), then the law enforcement officials will start to get the message.

Tell me......What action will make a difference?

I honestly think that that's why the problem exists to the point it does today. Not enough people have gotten pissed because they didn't feel it was that big of an issue, that they had no control over it, that the US was founded by agressive immigrants, yadda yadda yadda... If the problem is going to be stopped, people HAVE to get pissed, they HAVE to voice their opinion, and they HAVE to take action.

Ignoring the point? Right....

What do you think happens here? Our immigration problem is as big as yours, we were recently told that there are around 700,000 immigrants were in our country "that we dont know about", thats just for starters.

You watched this on the news, you have gone from being placcid and relaxed to livid in the space of 5 minutes, all because of something that has happened for centuries: the English, the Irish, the Mexicans, South Americans in general....all the difference is that its being reported about instead of fought in the streets (its just makes good news doesnt it).

The reason I say this is because you exhibited this exact same behaviour about 2 maybe 3 years ago, when looking at Google News would invoke an over-zealous passion.

Enough of this "rainbow hugging" crap, who's the rainbow hugger? Im the one who WANTS id cards, is against the amount of Polish and Eastern Europeans in my country.

I think I deserved the condescension in your post because I was cutthroat with my posts, but I stand firm with my comment that getting pissed at something you have no control over isnt good for you.

Dammit, Matt. You're doing JUST what everyone always does: Ignoring the point.

The point is that there are immigration laws that AREN'T being enforced. LAWS LAWS LAWS LAWS. You know that paper you wrote about Copyright law? LAWS LAWS LAWS LAWS LAWS.

A law is a law. If it isn't followed, penalties need to occur.

If we didn't have laws, like the laws that say you have to be 18 or older to purchase a gun and 21 or older to purchase ammunition, there would be sooooo many problems with the 10 year olds buying a 12ga. shotgun, shooting their schoolmates they don't like, and in the process breaking their arm from the recoil of the rifle.

If we didn't have laws like the speed limit, everyone would be driving as fast as their cars could go, and they wouldn't be able to stop for the old lady crossing the street, they wouldn't be able to yeild to the car turning in front of them.

Okay, so we have these laws. Cool. Are they enforced? For the most part, yes. Does it change the quality of life for us? VERY MUCH SO.

Go back and read the entry from earlier this week. There's a point in there about a car breaking the speed limit in front of a police officer, and nothing was done. The same thing is happening with the immigration laws. BOTH THINGS PISS ME OFF JUST AS MUCH. What pisses me off even more is the liberal "human rights" activists who have the beliefs that if the immigration laws are enforced, it's a violation of human rights.

It's the sporadic enforcement of the laws. It's the "rainbow hugging" people complaining when the laws ARE enforced. These are why I get so angry. Why did I leave the house? Because there were other people present that I didn't want to spread the anger to, that I didn't want to have to worry about making upset with things I would say. It was a preventative measure.

(Pardon me if this entry is a bit disorganized. I've been interrupted through the entire thing.)

wtf? ^^^^

Josh, shut up.

The point Tim made I 100% agree with, but worrying about something like immigrants so much to make you physically angry and to leave the house is worrying, its unhealthy.