Yes, everyone deserves an equal right to health care, your right to being treated when ill should never be based on wealth or which cover you possess. Every life is of equal value, thus every person is entitled to be treated. The USA is the only developed democracy in the world without free public health care, is this not a clear hint that a private system is flawed. A society that can turn someone away from a hospital with their life at risk, based purely on their inability to gain a insurance policy, whether its due to being an immigrant or from being financially unstable, is one that should be ashamed, and doing anything possible to instigate change.

An immigrant is as much a citizen as someone born within the country, and thus deserves the same right to Health care. It is immoral and inhumane to use someones status within a community as justification to exclude them from receiving care. It is everyone right as a human to be treated when needs be. I struggle to see how some of these posts can argue that immigrants are less deserving than American citizens, simply because they were not born in the country. I could understand illegal immigrants maybe not having as exclusive access to health care when it is for minor issues such as the common cold, however, when it is anything serious no questions need to be asked. How can anyone argue that a life is not as important based on social status. It is the governments obligation to ensure that anyone within their land has that opportunity to be treated regardless of any determining factors.

I know this is a very divisive subject that splits opinion, but I feel it is a moral duty to offer no selectivity when a life is at risk. One person argued he would be livid if an illegal immigrant got an operation before his son, I can see the argument here, but it comes down to the fact that the illegal immigrants life decision previous to this event should have no bearing on his place in the queue for a life changing operation. Everyone should be dealt with as soon as possible, no system is perfect, but one that selects who 'deserves' treatment based on wealth and status, is as far from perfect as its possible to get.

Furthermore, when people argue that by being illegal, they chose to lose access to health care, they must clearly ignore the fact that many illegal immigrant children are not here out of their own personal choice. Equality is not always possible or attainable but when it comes to health care, equality can be sought at all costs, nothing is more important as a basis human right than the right to being treated when life i at risk.

I think it is ridiculous for this Muslim group to respond in such a manner to this episode of South Park. It is a controversial comedy that thrives on poking fun at everyone and anything, I don't feel that they should be censored purely because of this response, once you censor episodes like this it will never stop. A simple comedy should never warrant death threats, it is a show made for the public entertainment, no one is getting physically hurt. It seems that just because extremist Muslim's react in this manner, everyone must be so careful to avoid causing offense, whereas everyone else is fair game, simply because they can accept/deal with the joking.

I think this is a really fascinating and touching letter, stories like this demonstrate that everyone is capable of change, and gives further proof the inhumanity of the death penalty. This man has clearly educated himself and has ultimately become a changed man, although he must still serve his punishment in prison, the compassion he now feels is an amazing turnaround, and demonstrates the success of the prison system. Everyone deserves the right to redemption, men like this can still offer something to society, even from inside their cells, and the death penalty prevents this.

I'm a guy, but this is an extremely good point, everyone is beautiful in their own way, and despite what society encourages women to believe, most men do actually think in this manner. Speaking for myself I could not have a relationship with a girl who I had nothing in common with, regardless their exterior features. Girls seem to think that guys are only ever interested on their physical features, but in fact many of us use this as a secondary criteria. The more confident and less insecure the girl is, the more attractive she becomes.

I rarely, if ever feel the urge to condemn suicide bombers as crazy people, it is those brainwashing and ordering them to do so for their benefit that enrage me. However, in this case i cannot sympathize with the lady who has the intention of murder, but it is possible to partially understand the pain she must be feeling, and to understand that she believes that this is the only way to avenge her husbands death. It is impossible for an of us to understand what is going through a suicide bombers mind, whilst we can condemn their action as 'crazy' and inhumane, in many situations such as this one they have experienced that we can only imagine.

I am a male, and I believe there is still a pressure to conform to societies standards, however not to the same degree as women. One example is the amount of men who see it as pivotal to lift weights everyday in order to fit in with the general idea that muscles are attractive, and being skinny is exactly the opposite. I find it baffling that men who don't even compete in sporting activity still find it necessary to spend 2 hours a day lifting weights purely to conform to a sought after image of attractiveness. This is a clear example of men under pressure to reach the standards set by society.

Secondly, in male friendship groups there is a huge amount of pressure to be with a girl that is accepted by his friends, in many instances it is only when a males friends confirm that the girl he is seeking is attractive that he attempt to make that girl his girlfriend. If friends make jokes about the situation I know men will go against their feelings. There is an incredible amount of pressure amongst male friendship groups to find a girl who satisfies the standards of the group.

However, despite this I also feel girls tend to place higher importance on following societies norms. Perhaps this is because women are given more to worry about by society. For example a man simply needs to be in good shape and stick on jens and a t-shirt. For girls, they are constantly thinking about make up, clothing, accessories, hair style/color. Furthermore girls have more pressure among society to follow sexual rules, their is more of a distinct line that societies suggests girls should follow, whereas for guys they can pretty much go about as they pleased without judgment, when it comes to sexual activity.

Much is however the same, men must conform to a macho image of muscles and limited emotion, and girls have to conform to the skinny, fault-free looks set by societies magazines/films ect. The main result of these levels set by society is a feeling of insecurity, and the reason I feel it is worse for women is simply because a higher standard is set by society. Men are sometimes portrayed as care free, and clumsy, obnoxious and arrogant. Whereas, in respect to women, more often than not females in the media are almost always made to llook perfect. It is acceptable for a man to fall short on looks, but make up for it by humor for instance, whereas for women there is a much higher importance on perfect looks. Furthermore, it is also true that women do pay significantly more attention to the media image expected of them. Millions more women buy magazines related to looks, and whereas male television programmes are sterotypically about cars or comedies, majority girl programmes are usually filled by incredibly attractive girls, such as 'the hills' 'the o.c.' 'the kardashians' and so on.

Shutting down welfare completely is unthinkable, and impossible. As we know a large proportion of the people on welfare are children so by shutting down the system you would effectively be allowing many millions of children to starve to death. Welfare serves a very important purpose, and whilst changes are undoubtedly necessary, there will never be a system that suits everyone, that is the nature of welfare. However perfect the system someone will always miss out, or feel they are entitled to more, or feel they need not pay taxes to help 'x' group of people. The overall purpose of welfare is to help people to get out of it, and whilst this may not be currently happening at the required rate, canceling the system altogether would simply set the country back several decades of progress, and leave the country in a state of chaos.

I'm not really sure how to comment upon this, apart from saying that it should not be allowed to be spread on a world scale. Firstly, it goes without saying that this is sickingly, inhumane, and morally wrong. Secondly, however, it is clearly a part of the Japanese culture, as is shown by its popularity, and by a seemingly muted response from Japanese women. I feel it fair to assume that the men who created, and who play these games are still capable of loving and caring for their family, no less than anybody else. As mentioned in previous comments, the games on offer in American society allow you to kill innocent civilians, be a member of a drug gang, pick up prostitutes, so on and so forth. This is no more or less inhumane than the Japanese rape games, perhaps each of these games are simply a reflection of the worst sides of the two contrasting societies.

This is an interesting post, you can see the man is successful, and has a fairly level head. He makes his points well, and gives good reasons to back them up. However, in my opinion he has a very narrow, and biased mind set. He ignores the complexities of illegal immigration, and to suggest that the simple solution is to bring all US troops home and build bases is naive, and ill-informed. This man is clearly an isolationist, and is effectively suggesting to cut all the USA's world ties. By doing this the US economy would be hit very hard, thus not making it the most powerful country in the world. Furthermore, to simply pull all US troops from around the world would leave many countries in a state of emergency, giving power to terrorist and guerrilla networks worldwide. In the present geopolitical climate it is impossible to hold any real power without strong alliances abroad, Bill ignores the realities of foreign policy, to fit in with his own naive views of American supremacy.

The views Bill is expressing are not uncommon of American's who have intense patriotism for the flag, and their 'rightful' citizens. I believe people such as this are part of the reason for America's poor reputation abroad, they see all of the countries as being externally created, it must be because be are trying to help this country, or that is because of all the immigrants, it seems to these patriots that the solution is to look out for America first, and America only. Unfortunately, this is a very misguided opinion, we live in a global political economy, and without trade and political relations abroad, the USA would not be anywhere near as prosperous as it is today.

I don't believe this man to be a racist based on what I have seen, I simply think he needs to broaden his understanding of the way the world works. If he is to make such extreme viewpoints on issues such as illegal immigration then he should study the immense benefit of illegal immigrants to the US economy. Perhaps if he were to consider the other side of the spectrum, Bill and many other millions of Americans may come to understand the complexities of the issues they see as black and white, and thus remove the venom behind their opinions.

As i mentioned at the beginning Bill does make some points that hold a certain amount of weight, however he lacks either the education, or inclination to study the situation further, and assess other sides of the debate. I think the real challenge for the people in authority in this country is to work on controlling patriotism, having visited, and lived in many countries on all continents in my time, I am yet to find any people who are even close to being as nationalistically patriotic as Americans. It is the genuine belief of many Americans that they are without a doubt the best country in the world. In my opinion it is this overriding feeling that is molding the extreme opinions of otherwise level-headed Americans such as Bill.

The census will always offend, as sam said millions of pounds has been spent on working out which options to provide. Nothing can be done to include every possible race, and nothing can be done to remove every box that will cause someone offense. At the same time I can understand why the term Negro would be seen as offensive by some, yet I think the reasons for its inclusion are more important, if it is the case that older black Americans see themselves under that term only, then it needs to be included to ensure accuracy.