Rough landing Incoming.

Hello, now fellow ATS members. I am one of those who has been visiting this site often throughout the years and only now, when it seems as if the site is falling apart, decided to join. What can I say, I don't much care for joining things.

So... Who am I?

I'm a young guy, mid 20s. I am a father and a college student majoring in electronics engineering at a local university. Yes, I gave in to the system and willing signed off on becoming their indentured servant via student loans. For what it's worth, I didn't immediately do so. I waited a few years with no foreseeable hope in my future up to the point where I had no choice, I had to provide for my children somehow and that piece of paper was seemingly the only thing to even offer a glimpse of hope for escaping the poverty I had always known. See, told ya I've been visiting this site frequently, I know all about how the majority of you feel about college and student loans and I completely agree with the fact that student loans are debt slavery in the U.S.

Yeah, I just said I grew up in poverty, so I know many members here will automatically discredit anything I have to say as the waste of space ramblings of a poor person or an "entitled" kid, I am young after all. While I'm very sure that some people here would beg to differ, I like to believe that being born into poverty was no fault of my own and that I had absolutely no control over who my parents would be and this is probably where I should alert you that I'm not trying to make excuses for being poor as a child. Like I said, I frequent this site. Please don't jump to conclusions though, my parent's, while considerably uneducated and very poor, were not junkies or people trying to "live off of the system." As a matter of fact neither my mother or father ever used any drugs or alcohol, they didn't even smoke. With that being said, I cannot deny that they are both "crazy," but I also have to be fair and not deny that they can't really be blamed for that. I guess some would say that my mother is just plain wacko, and my father is an illiterate man who passed down something called Borderline Personality Disorder to me, he was fairly abusive, even going as far as trying to beat his religious opinions into me, which, in my opinion, is fairly ironic when you consider him being a poster boy for "blind faith" seeing as to how he's never actually read the bible, being illiterate and all...

Mom was a "mentally unstable" high school dropout, according to her because "they" told her she was too short to be a cop so she didn't need to finish school if she couldn't be what she wanted to be after finishing. See, told ya she's crazy. She was taken away from her parents at a very young age and grew up in what she calls an "abusive" and very "unfair" foster home situation, and she isn't the type to get into trouble, she wanted to be police officer after all. Needless to say, my parents never found work that would pay much more than minimum wage. My dad was an underpaid mechanic and my mom usually did house cleaning type work. For the longest time, because of the fact that childcare for three kids would more than cancel out a minimum wage job, my father was the only one who worked, working as a mechanic in the day and a part time job at a grocery store at night. Eventually my parents separated though and we had to move out of the trashy trailer park and into a form of "project housing" I guess. We moved to the city with my moms real parents, the ones she was taken away from around 5 years old, so they helped watch the children while she worked at some factory for minimum wage. We had to live in the "projects" where she paid rent based on how much she made.

So there's my self defense against those who will wish me dead for being poor. Enough about my past though, I'm here to complain about politics and stuff, not whine about how hard I had it only to hear others whine about how I'm something less than human because of that.

My interests as far as ATS is concerned:

Politics, yeah I'm young but I am very into politics. I kind of support Gary Johnson at the moment even though I consider myself somewhat of a realist and understand that he does not have a chance in this election. I consider myself to be an independent who leans towards progression, some would call me liberal leaning, I really don't care what you call me though because I've been called both an extreme right wing nutjob and a libtard on numerous occasions.

Science: As an electronics engineering major this one should be a no-brainer.

UFO and extraterrestrials: I've been called a skeptic but I am very interested in this stuff, I would love to see a real UFO that we can't explain.

Government conspiracies

Occasional philosophical and theological discussions: I'm an agnostic who likes to sometimes discuss this stuff but please don't think you can convert me to any religion because that's impossible.

Honestly, I'm probably interested in most thing here on ATS, otherwise I probably wouldn't have wasted my time joining the site. Anyway there's my introduction, don't say I didn't warn you about the rough landing.

My family did nothing whatsoever to help me in college. I worked 2 jobs, had scholarships, got federal grants, and even a few small loans.

I paid off my loans very early, and the final interest rate was around 2% - my loans were guaranteed by Wells Fargo and they kept dropping off interest points for on-time payment.

I didn't think of them as slavery. For me they filled a necessary gap so that I could finish my degree on time. Pell grants & government-backed students loans are an example of government gone RIGHT. They are part of why it's possible for ANYONE to do ANYTHING in America, if that person is willing to work for it.

OH... and welcome btw. It's about time you started pulling your own weight around here.

reply to post by Anundeniabletruth


Welcome to ATS. Very informative intro, but, I don't think anyone here will castigate you for your upbringing. We all have our story. Your story sounds very familiar here. You've made incredible gains in changing the course of your future, I applaud you for that. It takes strength, and determination, to strap on your hip waders and slog through one's past to get a leg up on one's future.

I think you'll fit in well here. I look forward to meeting you in the forums......

Des

reply to post by Anundeniabletruth


Welcome, see you around pal..

@ Schkeptick

I think many would argue that student loans in their current state are a form of debt slavery. Just look at what they have done to the price of education when the government got their hands on them. Now I'm not saying that student loans are a bad thing, I'm just saying that the government's version of them has helped to jack up the price to attend college by far more than it should be and look at how many Americans are beyond knee deep in student loan debt today. In our system you either go to school or you don't make any money, unless of course you're already well connected or you get very lucky. Other forms of government financial aid are not the same as the student loan option in my opinion but the student loans make it possible for them to have a very firm grip on you just so that you can go out into the world and be a productive member of their society. But student loans and that, what I can only hope will be temporary debt slavery, assuming I can find a job upon completion of my education, are what allow me to go to school and have a little hope for my future, rather than have to debate between selling drugs for a living or going to a dead end job with no hopes of advancement for a pay that I know I am too intelligent for.

I do have an opinion on what TPTB have done/ are doing to education in our society that I will be posting as one of my first big posts, probably the first, when I am allowed to do so.


Thank you guys for reading my intro and replying,

Welcome! Thanks for that absorbing and informative introduction. I don't think anybody on here will fault you for growing up in a poor household. We all have to come from somewhere.

As far as you taking out student loans, anybody who faults you for that is way out of line. We all do what we can to get where we desire to go.

You seem intelligent and able to contribute good things to this site, so if you feel that it is going downhill, then perhaps you can reverse that direction with quality threads that you wish to see on here.

I look forward to reading what you have to offer in the future!

reply to post by Anundeniabletruth


Anundeniabletruth, welcome to ATS enjoy your stay. You seem to be a down to EA*RTH being that should fit in well here with others take your time absorbing the information and use your personal filter to separate the hoaxes from the real hidden data within this site.