I don't know enough about situation in Laos to vote but...

Since I am learning much about my native land from listening to you all, I will tell you a little about life in America since I am here.  First, in my case, I am very fortunate in that I have a wonderful husband who is a lawyer and we have a very good life. We live in a big house in the country and our 4 boys (tall and athletic like their father) attend an all-white/all-Asian school (no blacks) so they are receiving a good education. The boys are all good students and good athletes and will probably all receive college sholarships.  The American people are very nice (although somewhat provincial and ignorant about almost everything not concerning them), very hard working and have no prejudice against Asians.  In fact, my boys have been chosen Captain on their athletic teams and "class favorites" a their school. Thats the good.

Now the bad - although the American people are friendly and nice, esp in the South, the governmental policies are hard and cruel.  The government wages these terrible imperialistic wars against other peoples and commits all kinds of war crimes.  It makes my husband so mad but the people are ignorant of what is going on and think the are defending themselves.  Also, there is a terrible race division in this country.  The white people detest the black people although the government protects the blacks from harm. Whenever blacks attend the schools in large numbers the schools fall into violence, anarchy and chaos. The other students are not safe. Thus, all the whites (and Asians) flee to the country to attend all-white/all-Asian schools.  Also, crime, violence, welfare, joblessness and drugs are all rampant among the blacks.  At some point I think there may be a race war here if the federal government is ever weakened sufficiently so that it will be unable to protect the blacks against the greater population.  In a way, there is a race war going on already consisting of black-on-white and black-on-Asian crime (rapes, assaults, theft, robbery, burglarys, welfare crime, etc) against the other races.

It is this racial division which probably more than anything else accounts for the bizarre government policies which offer very little social safety net to the poor.  Everybody thinks the blacks are lazy and won't work, thus they see assistance to the poor as just hand-outs to non-deserving blacks.  It results in great hardship for the working poor. The burden falls on the middle class since the tax rates on the rich are very poor.  A typical middle class family will pay close to 50% in taxes (inc tax, sales tax, soc sec tax, medi care tax, prop tax, school tax, etc) whereas the rich who live off inheritance/investment income pay only 15%.  Ridiculous!!  Our school taxes are $10,000 per year for example.  Even then because we live in an affluent area they double tax us to send additional money to the poorer school districts.  Meanwhile, there is no free medical for anyone (you pay through the nose to an insurance or drug company (who have bought off the government), no free education, no disability for those laid off work after a year, etc...   All the policies are to the benefit of the very wealthy, big corporate interests (Wall Street, Big Insurance, Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Industrial Complec, etc) and the middle class is squeezed between give-a-way programs for the poor blacks and corporate welfare and tax cuts for the very rich.

Its a stupid policy too.  The last time the Republicans were in power for a long time they squeezed the middle class for the benefit of the rich and the income disparity peaked in 1928 with the resultant Great Depression shortly thereafter (the people were tapped out with no money to spend so demand dropped and production stopped).  Same happened after 30 years of Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush, we have again peaked out at the highest income disparity since 1928 with the people again tapped out, no demand, etc.   Morever, the j

I change mind and vote no.  After all, I am Lao even though I live in US. What is Ho to Laos?  He is hero to Vietnam. Yes?  Not Laos.  That would be analogous to Great Britain putting up a statute of George Washington.  Yes?  Or Mexico putting up a statute of Sam Houston.  Makes no sense to me.