Home › Forums › Costa Rica Living Forum › In Defense – Violence in Costa Rica
- This topic has 1 reply, 14 voices, and was last updated 17 years, 11 months ago by Marcia.
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January 17, 2007 at 2:19 am #180780vegaskniteMember
maravilla: time for me to question you again. How can you judge St Louis as a horrible place having driven through it as fast as you could. Had you stopped you might have been enlightened. If you had gone to an area called the Hill you might have enjoyed one of the best Italian meals, if you stopped at the St Louis science center or the zoo you may have enjoyed a day of education. If you stopped at the arch and walked through the museum you would have learned about our move to the West. If you smiled at a minority person you might have made a friend. Isn’t the mountains region outside of Denver where Columbine is located home of the worst school massacres in US history carried out by the white middle class neighbors of yours. What I hate more than crime is stupidity ignorance and Racism.
I dislike making this personal it’s just the words you chose cut into me and my knowledge of St Louis and many of the beautiful people living there tells me a different story. Black Brown or poor doesn’t make one a criminal. Take note maybe 1-2 % of people are criminals no mater what their race. They cause 99% of all crime.January 17, 2007 at 6:28 am #180781namvetMemberPerhaps we should have a St. Louis branch of “We Love Costa Rica”!!! You neglected to mention the fact that the zoo is free and is the 1st. or 2nd. best rated zoo in the US or the the Missouri Botanical Garden is rated among the top three in the world. What about the Muny Opera..the Fox Theater, the baseball Cardinals, the symphony, the art musuem and the list goes on and on….St. Louis isn’t Costa Rica but we have enjoyed living in the St. Louis area for the last 25 years.
The crime we all talk about is just about anywhere you choose to live and any country you choose to live in…you just have to know where not to go. I wouldn’t go to downtown St. Louis in the middle of the night and I wouldn’t go to downtown San Jose in the middle of the night.
We live about 45 miles west of St. Louis (just 10 miles from where the little boy was abducted last week) This is a rural area but “progress” and crime are moving this way but isn’t that the case just about everywhere? It comes with the territory so to speak. The correlation between race and crime is a somewhat misleading statistic as it is more of a result of the differences between the “haves” and the “have nots” and in the case of the US this gap is getting larger and larger.
Our main reason for looking at Costa Rica as a retirement site is for a easier, more simple, less complicated life. I feel that we will have to deal with crime no matter where we are.
January 17, 2007 at 8:30 am #180782vegaskniteMemberI don’t qualify for the St Louis division of WLCR, I spent 5 days a week there for about a year a few years ago while I was overseeing the construction of Ameristar St Charles Casino. But I had to defend St Louis’ integrity because I met some super people there and also just enjoyed the Greater St Louis Area.
I actually had an apt. about 15 miles east of you NamVet in Ofallon MO.
Having been born and raised in NYC and I lived in several areas throughout the US I was exposed to many different people and cultures. Through this exposure I learned; as much as we are different, we are also the same. I also learned ignorance is what drives prejudice and racism two things I truly hate.
We have very similiar reasons for relocating to Costa Rica. I too want to enjoy this period of my life with peace and tranquility. I know Costa Rica isn’t Nirvana but as I remember Scott Oliver writing when we love a woman we love her with all her faults. Thus the same are my feelings about Costa Rica she may not be perfect but I love her.
There is no heaven here on earth and as we are all individuals what may be good for one doesn’t have to work for the other some people will never leave their homeland’s others may leave to live on a beach, a city, country living whatever blows a persons hair back except mine I am bald. I do know what I want and where I want it but that doesn’t give me the right to be critical of all other places on earth or in the US.
I could keep typing and repeating what I wrote here or in other places on this board my opinions haven’t changed and they won’t. They won’t because my opinions are based on first hand knowledge in the things I comment about. I have even spent time in the area where maravilla lives purchasing a casino in the mountains (Black Hawk) outside of Denver CO. I wasn’t all that impressed with the people there.
Actually there are only a few places I truly enjoyed knowing new people the midwest US, (St Louis, Detroit area) Costa Rica the other. I wish you the tranquility we both seek living in Costa Rica.
January 17, 2007 at 3:43 pm #180783maravillaMemberHey, Vegas, get a hold of yourself. The part of the interstate that passes through St. Louis (where we took a wrong turn) is not exactly an advertisement for the Tourist Bureau. It was rundown, burned out, garbage everywhere, broken cars strewn along the streets, broken windows, buildings on the verge of collapse, and a population that looked like something out of Mad Max. Sure, I’m going to slow down and take in the sights while I’m driving a brand new luxury car; yeah, that’s the ticket. I drove as fast through that area as I would’ve if I’d been in Bed-Stuy, Watts, Alphabet City, parts of the Bronx, or Five Points. That doesn’t make me ignorant or a racist. It actually makes me very aware of my circumstances and being able to perceive danger. I’m sure the crime capital of America has some good points, but I couldn’t care less, to be honest, of anything any urban area has to offer. And by the way, I have a lot of Black friends, and if you knew anything at all about me and the contributions I’ve made to our culture, you would know I haven’t a racist cell in my body. So I find your comments presumptive and completely off the wall. As for Columbine, I live quite a ways from the community that spawned these monsters, but it wasn’t actually their fault. If they had not been drugged up on psychiatric medications that now bear warnings of homicide and suicide, there wouldn’t have been the massacre. So you know Blackhawk, eh? Is that YOUR contribution to our mountain communities and society in general? Bringing in gambling to destroy the fabric of our society? Those were nice little towns (albeit on the decline), with beautiful historic Victorian architecture that has now been destroyed in the name of greed and corruption, with monoliths to rival Vegas perched on a mountainside that had to be blasted away to make room for these monstrosities. Thanks a lot.
January 17, 2007 at 7:13 pm #180784vegaskniteMembermaravilla Don’t thank me for Black Hawk I had nothing to do with developing it. See you read but you don’t understand what the words say. I wrote I spent time in Black Hawk looking at a Casino to buy not develope. But That is just more of the ignorance that has come out of you onto this forum. I know nothing about you other than the words you place here and I have read you use the word minorities in negitive ways several times. I also read you reference urban areas and their minorities and the crimes they commit over and over. Just rhetoric from an ignorant racist with no first hand knowledge. Only someone with such a smalll mind would clasify Asian children as chinese adopted children. If you thought without prejudice you might have concluded that these children might be from Korea or Viet Nam or other countries with Asians,
I have driven I 70 I 40 I 44 all many times through St Louis and I have never experienced what you described. Granted I was driving the speed limit not speeding through in fear for my life. But we did share one thing in common I was driving a new luxury vehicle too.
The words I have Black friends have been used for years by racist and doesn’t hold much water. It’s OK you’re not an activist racist who wears sheets who does linchings or will burn a cross on a lawn. You are just someone ignorant who pidgeon holes people based on the color of their skin or their economic disadvantage. Then beyond ignorant you make stupid statements like judging an entire city based on a road trip in your new luxury car. By the way alphabet city has gone through a major change since you saw a movie with a description of it. Today it’s a yuppie neighborhood with condos that will sell faster than you home and for more money too. But again let’s not confuse facts with ignorant opinions. Where is Five Points in NYC do you have a clue or is that a place you saw in Gangs of New York. That has also changed in the past couple of hundred years. The saddest thing is as you respond you go from sounding ignorant to just plain paranoid and stupid. But hey you have made contributions to our culture. What Culture are you referencing I know it’s not the Afro American culture. I hope you can get my point and educate yourself to the errors of your words and maybe even open up your mind in the process.
January 17, 2007 at 8:15 pm #180785maravillaMemberYou crack me up, mec. I know they’re Chinese children because I know the parents who adopted them. And how does that make me a racist? I’m not going to deign to respond to the rest of your vitriol and manic diatribe except to say that I find it troubling that there are people like you who think they know everything. Now where exactly in Costa Rica are you moving? I’ll be on the look-out for all bald men now!
January 17, 2007 at 9:27 pm #180786vegaskniteMemberYou are keeping up with my expectations of you maravilla; as you claim to know the parents that you refered to as “the rich yuppies”.
Pleeeeease get honest and then you avoid validating your other statements about areas you have never been to. And you say “people like me who think they know everything” I never claim to know anything other than what I know with first hand knowledge and I am specific in my words and examples. Unlike you who reference places she either only read about in a novel or saw in a movie.
Have no fear if I were to encounter you in a face to face conversation it would be an extremely short interaction because I don’t waste my time interacting with stupid people I would politely excuse myself shaking my bald head in disbelief being thankful to have gotten away from your racist nonsense as quickly as I could. If by chance I ended up your neighbor our first conversation would also be our last because there are so many decent people in Costa Rica why would I waste my time getting to know a loser such as you. Thankfully the average Costa Rican is well educated so it will be easy to recognize you in any crowd. Don’t take my word for it spend .25 cents and call all your friends. Do you buy your sheets at KK K-mart?
January 17, 2007 at 9:43 pm #180787wmaes47Membervegasknite
You are stepping on thin ice. Be very careful in your descriptives of anyone who posts on this board.
This is a forums board for discussions of assistance, not that of slander.
Bill Maes
January 17, 2007 at 9:50 pm #180788AndrewKeymasterYup! Agreed wmaes47
This is now far too personal and insulting so we will have no more postings of a personal nature, no more personal attacks! Period!
Offenders will have their registration cancelled and with IP number logged so that no re-registration will be possible under another handle.
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comJanuary 17, 2007 at 9:55 pm #180789vegaskniteMemberThanks Bill and I agree with you 100% it just gets under my skin to read posts that aren’t in the spirit of assistance and promote racism or are an inacurate discription of an entire city and it’s residence. I actually should refrain from the personal attack but I take racism personal. I also take giving erronious information to support a position. Yet like I said I agree with you and should stay above the personal.
January 17, 2007 at 10:27 pm #180790MarciaMemberGood for you Scott. I wrote way back that I thought this entite thread should be deleted. You can read the yackety yack I got in response for yourself if you care to. I come here for information to enlighten me in view of my upcoming move to Costa Rica. You do a great job Scott and I’m happy to see you’re on top of this particular discussion.
January 17, 2007 at 10:52 pm #180791MarciaMemberWhen I said “way back” I meant on the 11th.
January 19, 2007 at 1:59 pm #180792JerryMemberOK…OK… so through all of the above, I am wondering how, and WHY, the discussion wormed from Costa Rica to the vices of St. Louis. I am highly amused. Who gives a “doo-doo” about what it is like where ever else you have been. Is this not a site and discussion forum for C-O-S-T-A R-I-C-A??? Pleeeeease!!! Spare us the rest.
Jerry in Las Colonias de La SuizaJanuary 24, 2007 at 5:05 pm #180793AlfredMemberI know this thread has been quiet for a while and I don’t want to start it up again or make it sound like the USA is worse than CR. But I was talking to my brother today about a family that was stabbed to death not far from his home. A family of five was stabbed to death in upstate New York the other day. The house was nextdoor to a restaurant on a busy road. This area is basically a bedroom community and considered very safe. I don’t know if drugs were involved but it is still sad. Long Island New York has reported twelve homes broken into in Suffolk county in recent weeks. If you are up here and read the CR papers and internet publications daily, you can come away with a bad impression sometimes. Not that crime isn’t on the rise in Costa Rica, but stories like that sell newspapers, so they get printed. But what I don’t understand is, it looks like no one is reading the papers or looking at the TV news here to see how bad it is getting. I guess in the comfort of your own home and country you might tend to overlook these things. Crime is everywhere, its just a matter of perception.
January 24, 2007 at 5:17 pm #180794MarciaMemberHi Alfred,
It appears that violence has become part of our lives just like diseases. The only thing we can do is protect ourselves and our families as best we can. It’s become an epidemic and it’s world wide. No country is exempt. You’re right about the happenings selling papers and making for (to some) exciting news coverage on TV. As far as I can see there is no answer. I’m not an overtly religious person but it’s all explained in the Book of Revelations. The world is grossly over populated and the happenings are one of the consequences; so the Good Book says. Thank you for your comments. -
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