What gives us the right to stop people from pursuing better lives? Is it because we have better lives (as in more people here live in comfort) and have better technology than another country like Mexico? What drives people to uproot themselves to go to a better place to provide a better life for their family?

To the girl who stated that the illegal immigrants should come here legally... what is the meaning of the word legal? What gives the people here the right to deny other people entry on to this land? The funny part is, the people who are trying to prevent from entering this country have been living here just as long or longer in the history than the white/black/asian people who seem to dictate the policies of this country. When you make an argument that everyone here pays taxes and they should, that is valid. However, having them go through a very lengthy and expensive process that is also selective based on wealth or skill just to set foot in this country is wrong.

They are willing to work harder than most of the people here for the jobs that people here do not want. They also take less pay and help out the farmers in the south. When the price of a pear or grapes triples the next time you go shopping, then you would start to sing a different tune. There shouldn't be any restrictions on people entering this country, other than the fact that they should be required to pay taxes. If the government legalizes temporary immigration laborers from Mexico, the Californian economy will be fixed as they will be paying taxes on the money they "steal" from the jobless Americans.

It is kind of funny how I refer to the illegal immigrants as "they." The proper term would be "we," since all our ancestors came here and demolished the Native Americans and the rest came to enjoy the "barren" land that was cleared of the natives. The land we use and walk on everyday is stolen, and is colored red with the blood of the Native Americans.

When there are people willing to do the work that most here are not willing to do (because the pay is low, but the farmers wouldn't be able to make any profit otherwise) and the people who aren't as well of are willing to come in and pick up the slack so that the rest of us can enjoy the fruit of their labor, why are we trying to turn them away?

We should try to put ourselves in their shoes for once and see what you would do differently, just for a shot at a life... You have nothing in the form of wealth and not trained in anything considered of value. You are willing to work very hard at any opportunity presented so you can feed and educate your family. Chances are, 10 out of 10 times, you get turned away from immigration because you don't "qualify" to enter the country. What would you do?

I totally agree, not only are they not contributing to run the government, they put a burden on the other taxpayers. That is my biggest pet peeve with illegal immigration, which is that they just come in, earn money, possibly take advantage of the government services funded by the tax payer money here and leave again once they earn enough, or stay to continue being a burden to the society. This issue can be immediately fixed if the government would just encourage illegal immigrants to get document and not instill and penalties against them, so that they can, at the least, pay taxes.

The thing with this is that people living here pay taxes that goes to everything that is being used by the illegal immigrants in the country. They get access to the libraries, subsidized travel, and the biggest culprit of them all, access to "free" healthcare. That is, they sometimes leave hospitals bills unpaid and just leave the country, which puts a huge strain on the health care system of this country. Usually, it is the other taxpayers that foot the bill for that. If a law were to be passed that actually made employment legal for illegal immigrants, they would be contributing to this country better through paying taxes.

What gives us the right to stop people from pursuing better lives? Is it because we have better lives (as in more people here live in comfort) and have better technology than another country like Mexico? What drives people to uproot themselves to go to a better place to provide a better life for their family?

To the girl who stated that the illegal immigrants should come here legally... what is the meaning of the word legal? What gives the people here the right to deny other people entry on to this land? The funny part is, the people who are trying to prevent from entering this country have been living here just as long or longer in the history than the white/black/asian people who seem to dictate the policies of this country. When you make an argument that everyone here pays taxes and they should, that is valid. However, having them go through a very lengthy and expensive process that is also selective based on wealth or skill just to set foot in this country is wrong.

They are willing to work harder than most of the people here for the jobs that people here do not want. They also take less pay and help out the farmers in the south. When the price of a pear or grapes triples the next time you go shopping, then you would start to sing a different tune. There shouldn't be any restrictions on people entering this country, other than the fact that they should be required to pay taxes. If the government legalizes temporary immigration laborers from Mexico, the Californian economy will be fixed as they will be paying taxes on the money they "steal" from the jobless Americans.

It is kind of funny how I refer to the illegal immigrants as "they." The proper term would be "we," since all our ancestors came here and demolished the Native Americans and the rest came to enjoy the "barren" land that was cleared of the natives. The land we use and walk on everyday is stolen, and is colored red with the blood of the Native Americans.

When there are people willing to do the work that most here are not willing to do (because the pay is low, but the farmers wouldn't be able to make any profit otherwise) and the people who aren't as well of are willing to come in and pick up the slack so that the rest of us can enjoy the fruit of their labor, why are we trying to turn them away?

We should try to put ourselves in their shoes for once and see what you would do differently, just for a shot at a life... You have nothing in the form of wealth and not trained in anything considered of value. You are willing to work very hard at any opportunity presented so you can feed and educate your family. Chances are, 10 out of 10 times, you get turned away from immigration because you don't "qualify" to enter the country. What would you do?

Continuing my previous rant. When they see these missionaries as coming over to spread their religion, the people have a reason to go crazy and become even more radical. If they have plans to attacks Americans, they should just start with these missionaries and leave the innocent people alone. If you are a reason why terrorism is being born, then you deserve to get attacked first. I am not saying missionaries are bad or what they are doing is stupid, but it is where they are doing it that completely irks me. Why would you further create a mindset where you want to associate Christianity with America, and then invade a country in the name of oil, but send missionaries over so the people there see it as a crusade. That is what it is, and if we want to change, then we need to get out of there as soon as possible.

I would like to comment on the many things that I found very interesting yesterday in class. First of all, I didn't really know what to expect walking into the lecture other than the fact that there was a question up on the board regarding terrorists. I would just like to go ahead and say that our class hosts many immature people, and if you were able to see the names next to their messages, it would completely turn around the maturity level of the class. There are many moments in class where I laugh and then also shake my head at the insensitivity of the people texting their replies to the board, but there are equal moments where I would just punch an idiot for messing up a good class experience.

Back to the topic of the lesson. I was a little wary and kind of knew what was coming as soon as Sam ventured into this topic. It is safe to say that he gets a little predictable with his approach. The photos contrasting the life in Baghdad pre and post war really blew my mind! When we destroy a city that badly and expect the people there to treat us as saviors, we have another thing coming. After looking at those pictures, I realize now that how much the way of life there changed. We are the terrorists and they are the victims of our ruthless tactics at controlling the oil supply in the world. Does it really justify spending trillions of dollars on the war over there, where more people just keep getting killed. It just fosters more hatred and mutual terrorism where we keep killing each other. If the other country had the military power that we have right now, there would not be a single soul left in the world after the aftermath of that destruction. For what we did to them, it would completely justify them using nuclear weapons against. Hey, I mean we did it to Japan for a lot less than that. It is just not right how much money we spend on military and not on our education instead. Our future generations will suffer terribly and all the current presidents that lead us down this path of death, destruction, and lavish military spending will be not be remembered in a kind light. They are just destroying this country's future, making the world hate us and putting us in further debt.

As for religion being a part of the issue. I don't buy the fact that we are trying to force Christianity on them. However, I can totally understand why they see it that way. It is all these idiot missionaries that go over there thinking they are doing everybody a favor trying to spread their religion. They see that in a worse light then they do our soldiers probably as they view these missionaries as the voice of America.

I agree, especially the video about the soldiers destroying a guy's livelihood by totaling his car. What were they looting? Some wood? Did the soldiers need to really do that? After that video, I went online on youtube and looked up many such videos which showed some brutal actions towards the civilians. If you just look into their eyes during these actions, then you would realize why terrorism exists. It is us spending billions of dollars trying to occupy other people's lands and take their resources when we have no right being there. We also use the excuse of terrorism, when we help create it in the first place.

Belief in god has nothing to do with this question. It is just wrong to think about some higher power when this stuff is going on in the world. There is no god. If you applied to a nice job in Shanghai to do logistics for a mining company, but as soon as you went there, you were put to work inside the mines without pay, who would you start praying to? Would you pray to god? Would you believe that god put you there? Would you believe that god really exists then? I know I wouldn't. I would pray for my family back home to notice that I was missing and do something about it. If they can't, then I would probably be screwed for the rest of my life. It is useless to think about what was going to happen with the stuff you were being made to mine. Say the coal you were mining was used by every government in the world to make steel to use as a part of their infrastructure, I can claim that they were buildings created from my flesh. But in the end, it doesn't matter. If I was in this situation, I would just be wishing that someone would realize that this is going on, stop by and slip a gun in my hands, so the next day, I can sneak around and destroy the people responsible for holding me against my wishes. If you put a gun in every slaves hand, there would not be slavery. All these "slave owners" would be dead, and all the products that you buy will go up in price so much that people would start complaining about the slaves getting guns.They would want these guns taken away from people so they can get to "work" again. They remove the guns from the workers so they can get back to work. This will result in the chains put back on the slaves and they would be exploited to keep the prices down. This is all basic human nature. When you go shopping, you look for the best deal. In buying the item for the best deal, you encourage manufacturers to make more items for that price. In order to do that, they have to enslave people. We as humans enable other humans to enslave us. We either need to give every person weapons or take weapons away from every body to even start a solution of ending slavery. And when it happens, you would be spending 90% of your salary on necessities rather than luxury items. Change should come from the leaders of the world, and Mr. Bales is doing a great job attempting to turn the tide in the favor of the slaves. But some corrupt governments would not want this change as they would have to pay a lot more without slave labor.

I knew what was coming when I ate the first piece of chocolate and told myself before the movie started that I would not feel guilty about eating that or eating the second piece later on. I thought about what would be different if I threw away the chocolate into the trash instead of eating it. Then I realized that actually throwing the chocolate away would be worse than not eating it. Throwing the chocolate away would have been equal to saying that all the effort that was made to create that chocolate was useless, by free workers or slaves. It was already purchased and only a small percentage of the chocolate was probably made by an enslaved worker. Why would I think about the food I am eating, when all the electronics, clothes and pretty much everything in our lives had a hand of slaves in it. Why do people go see the pyramids? Can't we just destroy them since they were made by slaves?

I agree with the part about securing our borders against illegal immigration, which does drain our economy in some ways while stimulating it in others. They do some work that not many Americans would do. However, i wholeheartedly disagree with your second statement "we need to close the loophole that any child born here is an American citizen, no matter where their parents are from." So what gives you the right to be a citizen of this country? Let us revoke your citizenship based on the statement that you just made and start from there and see how that effects you. The child that is born on this soil is a citizen of this soil. It does not matter who their parents or how and where they are raised. The child does not choose where they are born and their parents livelihood shouldn't keep them from becoming successful in this country.