I think that health care should be extended to all citizens and immigrants as long as they are paying equal taxes in our country. I think that as long as they are paying what we are paying for the services, then why would we take away their right to have a health care plan that they can rely on. Everybody wants to stay healthy and they want their family to be safe, so how could we deny them the rights of health care if they are paying taxes just like the rest of us? However, if they are illegal immigrants and are not paying taxes, I think that they shouldn’t receive health care because we are paying for their care when they are not paying any taxes.

I recently learned of the South Park episode where they poked fun at the Muslim religion by bringing Mohammad into the show. I think that people need to relax because they take things way too far. I know that the writers of the show are inappropriate, but there is no need for Muslims to react in such a way. Why would you threaten to take somebody’s life because they made fun of your religion? As a Jewish teenager, I always get the brunt of the jokes because people love to make fun of Jews. However, I laugh about it or brush it off because people are just messing around. They don’t truly mean what they say and they are just trying to get some laughs from their viewers.

Everybody has heard of the disaster that occurred in Haiti earlier this year. However, I never realized how many people were actually affected by the earthquake that hit the small country. When I heard that there were about 300,000 people who were killed in the earthquake and even more displaced from the damages, I was very alarmed. It is crazy that in the United States, we suffered a loss of about 3,000 people from the September 11, 2001 terroristic attacks. I remember that when this attack happened, everybody in the country was affected. People could not believe what had happened and were shocked that something like that could even occur in our supposedly safe country. People stopped everything they were doing to throw their support behind our country and to help clean up and fix the mess that was created in New York City. It is somewhat confusing as to why an event that was one hundred times more destructive than the United States crisis received much less aid and support from people around the world. There are nearly two and a half million people who have been displaced because of the earthquake, and people can barely survive. I’m somewhat confused as to why more people haven’t lent a hand to help those victims. Things are only getting worse as the Haitian people aren’t receiving enough aid to survive. In their present condition, they have close to nothing to help them live. I couldn’t imagine living on top of rocks, which used to be my house several months prior to the event. I think that many people in the Soc119 class realized the severity of the disaster after the class designated to Haiti. After sitting through that lecture, I don’t think that anybody left the class with the same mindset. People saw the true disaster with real pictures taken by our guest speaker. I couldn’t imagine the September 11th attacks happening and the United States not doing anything to help clean up or fix the mess. However, in Haiti, the disaster is so large that people don’t even know where to begin and it will cost enormous amounts of money to even put a dent in the cleaning process. There is so much ruble that has accumulated from the earthquake and people haven’t even begin to clear out the mess so that they could get on the right path to fixing their struggling nation. I was also alarmed when I saw pictures of their parliamentary building, similar to our white house. People must be devastated to know that their government is even in shambles. I’m not sure what it would be like if our central location for government actions to take place was destroyed.

I agree that it is crazy that we know nothing about most groups of people other than our own throughout the world. Despite this fact, we still continue to hate on other groups of people. You brought up a good point that people are discriminating against many groups of people and have hatred that is so deep for no apparent reason. We all have misconstrued conceptions about each other because we never gave other groups of people a fair chance to be represented when we learn about them and their cultures. Unfortunately, I don’t believe that it will be possible to coexist with other groups of people because people already have negative images of all types of people engrained in their mind.

I think that the Palestinian and Israeli conflict is so deep that it is difficult to begin figuring out what to do. The Israelis claim that the land is theirs, while the Palestinians claim that it is not. Even if a court proves that one group of people owns the land, it would be impossible to remove an entire group of people from where the live and where they have become established. I don’t think that Israel will ever be removed and I think they will occupy the land for many years. I think that the Israelis have an advantage since they already occupy the land and because they have the most powerful army in the world.

Thursday’s class about the Christian invaders in the Middle East really got me thinking about what is truly happening in the war in Iraq and similar areas. I knew previously that the war we are in is mostly due to the fact that America wants more oil and more control of the resources. However, I didn’t realize that what we truly want is control of the resources on their land and then we plan on getting out of the country without offering any assistance to them at all. It’s really easy for Americans to form an opinion on the Middle Eastern people because of news reports and video clips and pictures that are constantly posted all over the news and the internet. However, Sam broke everything down the other day and explained that we don’t see the goo in anybody and that only the bad is portrayed to us when we see things pop up in the news. The Arab people are exactly like most American people in the fact that they want to be happy, have peace, and they want what is best for them and their families. For the most part, that is no different from the American people. Most Americans view the Arab people as radicals who only want to kill people and take lives from many innocent people. However, they are only “fighting back” because we are portrayed to be coming into their land to convert them from their religion, which is very important to them. When Arab people see Americans working together as Christians and being sent overseas into their country to fight “terror,” they portray it as religious crusades because most people in the United States are Christian and read the bible as a religious practice. When they see this, they think that they are martyrs coming to convert them from whichever religion they practice to Christianity. Of course, anybody who is adamant about their religion will fight back against people in hopes of saving what is valuable to them. I can completely understand now why the fighting and rebellion occurs on a regular basis. The Middle Eastern people are scared for their lives and they are unsure of what is going to happen to them and their families. It must be very painful to learn that more and more troops are being sent into their country and they aren’t even sure of the exact reason. It’s very interesting that we as Americans are affected in similar ways because we think that these people are always causing havoc in their country, but really they are standing up for what they believe in. These people are normal and generally friendly people, but the few extremists in every group stand out, making the situation appear different than it really is.

I agree that it is important to stop buying clothes that are produced in sweatshops with cheap labor or even by slaves. However, it’s difficult, especially now with the financial situation in our country. Many people don’t have much money to spend and when the need clothes, they look for the cheapest option. Also, when people buy clothes, they don’t consider where they were made or who made them, but rather what clothes they want to buy and wear. I think you’re idea is good because that is what needs to happen so that the factories can shut down, but I don’t think that it’s realistic because people are always looking for cheaper ways to buy things.

In class when Sam handed out the aluminum foil with the chocolate pieces, I guessed that he was going to ask us to eat the second piece after watching the video. The video was very disturbing, of course. Nobody wants slavery to exist and it’s obviously a huge problem today. I don’t know if the problem with modern day slavery will ever disappear and who is to say it will or how people should even begin to approach the problem. After we ate the first piece of chocolate, I knew that there was going to be a catch with the second piece after finding out that the lecture was going to be about modern day slavery. Watching the video was extremely disturbing and I couldn’t believe what happens in the Ivory Coast in order to provide companies with the cocoa. It’s still surprising to hear about the many areas of the world that still have slavery. When Sam asked us to eat the second piece of chocolate, I hesitated for a while. However, after about ten minutes or so, I did eat the chocolate because I figured that if I threw it out, it would be the same as if I were to eat it. Rather than throwing it out, I just consumed it and got it over with. However, for now on, I will be much more hesitant when buying and eating chocolate products from companies such as nestle and Mars. The candy was already produced and packaged and regardless of whether or not I ate the candy, the slave labor still went into its production at some point throughout the process of making the candy. That doesn’t mean that I agree with what I did or that I support slavery. I just figured that since it was already packaged and that what had happened was already finished, that it wouldn’t matter if I ate it or not. If a person were to ask me if I would demand chocolate if I knew what was going to happen in order to get it at cheap prices, I would definitely say no and not even second guess myself. Also, with the walmart issue, I would not shop at walmart if I knew that the products were from slave labor. Even if it meant spending a little bit more money on items along the way, it’s definitely worth it so that people wont have to suffer and work hard for no pay and in difficult conditions. However, I wonder what would happen to all the slaves who are already forced into slavery if the industry went away. Would they be killed or would they just be set free to go back to their families at their home?

It’s difficult to say what the next step would be in fixing the problem with slavery in the modern world. Obviously there is a large problem with slavery and it still exists today in large numbers. Who is to say what the best option is to fix the problem with slavery? I think what needs to be done is a tough call. Maybe the government could provide some companies with money to counter the low costs of cheap labor and slave labor. To take place of the people who are working for nothing, the government could give these companies money so that they could pay a little bit more for the labor.

I agree with where you are coming from. I think that affirmative action could definitely lower the quality of health care in that situation. I think there are certain situations that need to be evaluated and the person best qualified for the job should receive the position. Something like this could put people’s lives at risk when it comes to surgeries and operations if the doctor is less qualified and less knowledgeable than somebody else who didn’t receive a job because of affirmative action. I do think that affirmative action lowers the quality of workers, but only if the person is really less qualified for a position. If a person has the qualifications and complete the tasks of the job, then that person should receive the job, of course.