Yeah I totally agree with you. People die everyday for a lot of reasons, and we just don't care about it. I mean, we do care about it. At least we sigh at some point, or we chatted with our friends about it just as some news. We seldomly shake our hearts for that. We seldomly have some sort of connection in heart with those families who lost members in the wars, in earthquakes, in floods...etc. I think it is our responsibility to help those who have lost families. We should share our hearts with them. We should do something, instead of just watch TV and talk about it as if it is just yesterday's movie show. .

We can show some sympathy to those poor people. I think Americans really care about others, look at the number of NGOs and Americans working in those poor countries-- but when it comes to shake a little bit of Americans' own interest, some of them just act intolerably. Isn't this a little bit controversial? Well it is also understandable. It is kind of a human nature to protect what you've get from taken away by the others. You may say that hey the Americans they first came here illegally, how come several hundred years ago they keep others from entering it. This idea makes sense at some point, but remember, in this world, "making sense" doesn't make any sense, what really matters is the power you have. That's why the US would be the most powerful country in the world. They fully understand this philosophy.

I doubt what Sam said in the class. To be frank I don't think he really understands the idea of free market. Free market is a highly ideally mechanism that it almost can't be used as a single economy mechanism in reality. The problem is, without government control, the market would push to the other extreme--that market will be manually operated and not running as what economists think it would. Think about the great depression, it is considered as a result of overly free marketing capitalism. Before the depression, the United States and all the western countries put "Wealth of Nations" and its followers at a godlike place. They indeed believed that market would balance everything. It came out that the government control is not only needed, but also as a very crucial node in the country's business machine. Without the little help from the government, the US wouldn't achieve its balance. From the dialectical materialism aspect, government control and the free marketing mechanism are mutually connected. They are bilaterally linked to each other, the displace of either of them would cause trouble for the entire economy. From this standpoint, I say I don't support the US government to apply purely theoretical free market mechanism.

Secondly, now what the US government is doing on immigration, is not only to block everyone outside, but to select ones who have talents, or skills that US companies need. This is a reflection of the economy's demand and supply. The US is just like all the other countries in the world, it cannot let too many people in at a time, for that will definitely cause disaster. Now the unemployment is 9.7%, if the government suddenly let say 3 million immigrants in, than the unemployment would probably increase 1 percent, which is already scary.

Thirdly, the policies of immigration is not only for the economical purposes, but also for national security purpose. Every country has its border to defend. Every country has spies in other countries. Why? For more and more information so that it would have the chance to step out first. This is another reason why the United States cannot just simply open its border. National interests are always the first target to protect. Not to mention terrorism.

The demand of companies in the United States is already a very marketing reflection for immigration, I don't understand why would we practice free market capitalism even more. It is already enough useful for most of us. This system is already running very stably and steadily. There is no real change to we need to make.

To sum up, the free market idea is and will be only and idea. It is unpractical in the practical world. It may cause a lot problems if the government really practiced it. Besides economy reasons, social and national security reasons also cannot be forgotten. Remember that a nation's interest represents its people's highest interest, which must be protected.

In my opinion, learning another language is always a good thing to do. No matter if you are going to use it or not. The process of learning a language helps you understand the culture and customs in that country, which helps you understanding the world on someone else' shoes. This is very beneficial. Actually I am on my way learning my third language Japanese. I found it really helps me understand something I didn't even think about before learning the language. And learning language always makes me feel happy. So start to learn Chinese guys-- no matter it's for a practical reason or not. Chinese market place is becoming more and more important to the world.

I have always been thinking about one question: what if the hate towards terrorism is misled by the US government? Many proofs can prove that point. The Iraq war is a good example. There weren't any direct evidence saying that Iraq had any relationship with terrorism. Actually the religion environment in Iraq is quite open compared to many other mid east countries. Is war the only solution? I doubt that. In my opinion, the war is unnecessary. There are more important things than that. The hatred is not a good thing. No matter you like it or not.

This is the COOLEST class I have ever taken in the whole semester. It was really punching, and as what I observed moved some students in the classroom. I think war is a very complex thing, maybe the most complex human activity. There are always various reasons for a war-- for righteous, for freedom as many Americans say, for more lands, but most importantly, for the greatest interest of the country. A country is only gonna start a war when it believes that this war is going to benefit them. And that contributes to the nature of the war. As what I observed, people always tend to fight for resources because resources means money, and money means power, threatening power. I am not a guy against war. I do believe that there are wars must be fought, there are interests we must get, there are people we must rescue... But I do not support the Iraq war. Why? There are several reasons I hold.
First, this war was not approved by UN, which means this war that the US fought was not agreed by most countries in the world. Don't forget the United States (and some other countries) built the UN mechanism to prevent unwelcome wars. And now the US just went against it and even threatened UN that if it doesn't let go the US will not continue to pay the fee.
Second, this war didn't solve the problems in Iraq. Yes the war did end the dictatorship of Saddam in Iraq, but it didn't end the chaos situation in Iraq. Every week we hear something exploded in Bagdad again and again until we are all numb to these news. I think the situation in Iraq is even worse. Maybe the "liberation" is not really what Iraqi people want. Of course they didn't want to be oppressed by the Saddam government, but without the control, conflicts emerged. Like the conflicts between Shia Muslim and Sunni Muslim.
Thirdly, US troops are now in a dilemma, they cannot leave there in the foreseeable future, but staying means a huge cost. Is it worth it?
Fourthly, I remembered that the US government claimed that it found the Iraqi government had been secretly researching biological weapons. But they didn't find any evidence after the war was over. Now we seem to forget that this war was based a lot of untrue causes. Many of the causes that Bush government claimed weren't approved to be true. I don't know if they found any evidence that says Iraq has connection with terrorism. If not, then this is another excuse which was used to mislead the US people.

So, I don't support the war in Iraq. I don't like liars. I have no problem with conquering others' land and grabbing their resources. But I don't like being cheated.

Last but not least, have you ever thought of why those guys in the middle East hate United States?

I am perfectly having no problems with these games. Before "hentai" video games, there were "hentai" mangas and hentai animes everywhere in Japan. Reading a hentai manga on a public train on the way home or to work became many adults' daily life. They have no problems with that . They didn't become some kind of monster, and it didn't increase sexual harassment cases in Japan at all. It is just like those shooting games. Game is a place to realize something that you couldn't realize in real life. If these games should be banned, so should COD, Battlegrounds so on and so force. I think most player won't kill people because the killed people in the game. They know that is wrong and horrible to let it happen in the real world. So why would you say these porno games is wrong? Especially they are sold to adults only. If any teenagers happen to download them, the government should take steps to monitor the Internet, not those game producers.

Yes that might work to end slavery but also it ends a lot of workers job opportunities. The ultimate cause of slavery is poverty. If we don't do something to change the situation, what we have done is meaningless. Sometimes I think slavery is good- at least it keeps those people (slaves) alive. Without slavery and the extreme fortune distribution system, nobody is going to live a better life in those countries-- because they are still poor. "Fairness" is very important, but before saying anything about fairness the society has to achieve a level of stable efficiency ( productivity). If no productivity, talking about fairness is like manufacturing a car without the invention of petro.

I actually come to agree with this guy-- partially. He at the very beginning said that he doesn't have any problems with legal immigration-- and that's enough requirement for a mediocre U.S. citizen. There is no more you should expect from them. I mean, he doesn't mean to irritate anybody, he just simply spoke his opinion. Agree with it or not, it is a quite "righteous" opinion. In nowadays United States, there are a lot of issues arouse from illegal immigration. For example, the local gangsters. problematical adolescents, higher employment pressure, etc. Illegal immigration is in no way correct. "Sympathy" cannot be an excuse. From this aspect, I agree with that guy.

But the following part he said about the military is quite questioning. I didn't really get it. Did he mean that the U.S. military should stop fighting through out the world and call back those soldiers to defend the border? He misunderstood the usage of military. Military is violence to give power to the government. It is not something to take place of police. It should stay out for protecting the greatest interest of the United States. I think the US government has done nothing wrong so far. They are trying their best to take control of the illegal immigration issue. There are something that is out of their control. Like they cannot ban or send those immigration intermediary in other country (say, China) to jail. It is out of their hands. What they can do is only to strengthen the cooperation with foreign governments and strengthen the border control...　Although it is very costy, it is the only effective way. I believe sending our military instead of police won't really help solve the problem.

The problem of illegal immigration lies on the fact that the United States is the most developed yet the most open minded country in the world. People from everywhere in the world can find their own culture fit in this country. This is the greatness of America. To be objective, many of the illegal immigrants are not criminals. They just simply want to survive and live in a better environment. Most of them are very hardworking people. They are not knuckleheads or thugs. They are just like the Americans. They also have an "American dream"--through hardworking and intelligence, everyone can succeed. There are so many opportunities out there in the United States. Why the Americans cannot find those opportunities, while the illegal immigrants can? Competition is human nature. Everyone has to fight for living. There is no "cookies dropped from sky". You have to work hard to earn it. If you feel threatened by those new immigrants, then you should really think to yourself "have you made your 100% effort to make it?"

This video clip we watched in class was really heartbreaking... I saw how those little boys and girls struggled in their minds. This video makes me started to believe that the racial advantage really exists... before this video I didn't even think about it. What I don't understand is that what makes this happen? Is it a 100% aesthetic issue? or is it something else? This video makes me wonder. Are blond hair and blue eyes really "God's Gift"? How do we get out of all these thoughts ( or say, discrimination) to the beauty of the other races? I don't know the answer.