When Sam first talked about how he went and visited lifers in prison with his wife I thought, “Who cares?” These people had done something so bad that society has decided they are useless and not worth humanities efforts to try and make them a better person. I was strongly in favor of the death penalty and I am stunned to see that what I thought was wrong. When people think about lifers they think about someone who is not that educated and more of a rough-edged violent person than someone who seems peaceful and smart and seems like they know and understand everything that is going on around them and are at peace with it.
Thinking about lifers now, it makes me wonder what they do when they are in their cells. They have probably like twenty hours a day to sit in their cells and just think about things. The things they think about have to be mind-blowing when you are sitting in your cell for twenty hours a day for seven days a week for probably thirty years or more, depending on when you got sent to jail. These people know that they are never going to get out of jail and yet they seem to gain a sense of calm or closure from knowing that they won’t be leaving jail anymore. I wonder if it is easier for these guys to relax and settle down when they realize they don’t have to conform to societies pressures anymore and they can be with people who are closer to their own mindset.
When I looked at and read this letter, I was amazed by how educated it sounded. For a man who never even graduated high school to write something like this is very impressive. When I think about people in prison I think that they are more illiterate than that they can write like this, so I am quite impressed. The other thing that amazed me about this letter was how compassionate this lifer and other people in prison are. In the real world I see plenty of people who are not compassionate at all and yet these people who aren’t trying to impress anyone or to conform to any public pressure are showing compassion for this man who had his son die in a car crash. Furthermore this lifer said that he saw a guy who hated this man letting him cry on his shoulder because he can’t get in touch with anyone else on his phone. Reading this letter makes me wonder if perhaps there isn’t something we can all learn about from these lifers and if I have been mistaken in my belief that these lifers are not important enough for society to care about them anymore.

I believe that health care should be an equal right to everyone. What gives people in the U.S. the right to decide that some group of individuals doesn’t deserve the right of health care? We could be sentencing some of these immigrants to death if they can’t afford health care on their own and we don’t offer it to them. I know that it would create a bigger burden on hospitals and the government if they have to support illegal immigrants but if they tried hard enough I’m sure illegal immigrants would find a way around the system anyway so we might as well just give everyone health care from the beginning.

I for one favor hard work over just having money but in this country I’m not sure if just working hard is enough. You see these immigrants all working hard and trying to give themselves a better life but they end up living in these crappy houses and barely being able to support their family. Then you look at the other side of things and you see all these rich people who are lazy and only rich because of their family. You see them and you wonder why can’t they be the ones who have to struggle, because they don’t deserve to have the money, they just won the genetic lottery while the immigrants didn’t.

When I first saw this video, I was completely shocked. For someone to care so much about something that they will kill themselves for it is a level of dedication that is incredible. This lady cared so much about her beliefs that she sacrificed her own life for it. Even though she believed in something that is terrible and is terrorism, she still believed so much in it that she would sacrifice herself. That takes a lot of commitment and I’m slightly impressed by that. However, while watching this video I felt a mixture of being disgusted and being impressed by her commitment.
Even though I was impressed with the woman’s commitment and her sacrifice, it doesn’t mean that I believe in terrorism or that what she was doing was the right thing. I believe that there are better things she can be doing to show that she doesn’t like the government or whatever. In the United States, when someone doesn’t agree with something they peacefully protest it; they don’t strap bombs to their bodies and blow themselves up. I don’t understand why other countries, mostly in the Middle East, have resorted to violence and terrorism instead of peace protests when they find something that they don’t like.
In regards to the article, I have never thought about terrorism from the other side. I don’t believe in terrorism but I can’t say that the things they do are necessarily evil. They are just trying to protect themselves and their country much as we are. The only difference is that they are harming innocent lives and killing themselves in the process of protecting their country. While they are justifying themselves by saying we are the attackers and terrorists and they are the defenders and innocents I don’t necessarily believe that. How can they say they are not terrorists when they are killing innocent civilians and themselves in the process?
Even though we are paying 2,000 dollars for the loss of every family member I don’t believe that it is enough. 2,000 dollars isn’t even close to being enough to cover the loss of a family member. I know that the United States doesn’t have to give any money technically but if we are going to give anything we should give enough to make it worth it so that the surviving family members don’t become terrorists themselves and kill innocent people for no reason. Take for example, Haji Sharabuddin, the 80 year old person who lost two sons, two daughters, and a granddaughter in the attacks. He then said that he would destroy everything and launch his own suicide attack on the United States. This is probably the worst thing that could have happened. For this person to result to thinking about killing himself and many innocent people because he is angry is terrible.

I believe that what people want is to co-exist, and that is everyone’s overall goal. However, I don’t believe that the people will ever achieve the goal of co-existence without violence. I believe that people are just too afraid of things they don’t fully comprehend and they won’t be able to live with that fear inside themselves. If the people don’t learn how to understand other people and have that fear go away than I can’t see people co-existing. I don’t necessarily believe it’s about the oil that the United States is getting from the middle east as I believe it’s about us not understanding other cultures.

Yes I do believe that guys have to conform to society to the degree that woman do. While most people look at woman and just assume they are conforming because they are trying to act like the woman in magazines and television men have the same problem. Men try just as hard as woman to fit in. They try and wear the same clothes as the people they see on television and they go to the gym and try to get the same body and shape as the people that are in magazines. So while many people don’t seem to believe that guys conform to society as much as woman, I believe that they do.

When I first signed up for this class, I just saw a class that got pretty good reviews on ratemyprofessor.com and was a gen ed that I needed to graduate. On the first day I went into class and listened to the things Sam said and I thought to myself that this guy was crazy and I should drop this class or I was probably going to fail it. I was talking later with my friends and we decided that we weren’t going to drop it because we thought that some of the things he said could be useful and there wasn’t a better class for us to pick up instead.
It is now almost the end of the year and I can honestly say that this class hasn’t really done all that much for me. While all of my friends seem to find more and more insight out of Sam and this class I find myself struggling to pay attention and comprehend what he is saying, especially as the weather is getting better and better. All of my friends walk out of the class talking about the things he said and how it makes them feel and how it has changed their lives and I just don’t seem to be affected by it like they are.
I just believe that most of the things Sam has said seem to be common sense or things that I don’t really seem interested in. When that happens I find myself zoning out and missing the rest of the lecture, which might include stuff that isn’t common sense I just can’t seem to pay attention enough to see what is and isn’t common sense. It’s not that I think Sam is a boring guy it’s just that he gets off subject really easily and starts to ramble and he goes completely off subject a lot and that makes it hard for me to pay attention to him.
It’s not that I believe that the stuff we discuss in this class isn’t important it’s just that I feel like it’s things we should already have thought about and already reached an opinion on before entering class. Like when he talked about slavery and eating the chocolate, I already knew that slavery was involved in many things, not necessarily just making chocolate. Even though I saw the video and thought it was slightly disturbing I still ate the second piece, while most of my friends looked at me like I was crazy for eating the second piece. So this class is teaching me some things, but it didn’t change my opinion and I will still eat chocolate and buy things from Wal-Mart, even though I now know that they are made by slaves.

When I saw the video I immediately thought that I wasn’t going to eat the second piece of chocolate or anything again but then I thought about it and realized that me not eating chocolate again wasn’t that realistic. I could tell myself in class that I wasn’t going to eat the chocolate but then I know that I would have went home and just eaten some chocolate without even realizing what I was doing, so I just decided that I should eat the second piece because Sam said if you weren’t able to promise that you would never eat chocolate again you should eat the second piece.

I believe that this guy is just stating an opinion and that everybody in America has the right to say and believe in whatever they want to, which is partially the reason this country is so great. While I don’t necessarily believe in everything he is saying I can see how it makes sense. If we brought all the troops home from other countries and set them up at the borders it would indeed help curb illegal immigration and stop the spread of drugs coming in from other places. So while I don’t necessarily agree with everything this man is saying I don’t believe he is a bigot or anything, I just believe he is sharing his opinion like everyone is allowed to do and I don’t think he should be criticized for that.

When I first read this article, I was thinking about many things. First, would the non-Hispanic Caucasians still consider themselves to be the majority even though they will no longer be in the majority? When this officially happens there is a chance that it could be really bad for the people in the majority now because the people who will soon be in the majority could try and force their way into the majority and power through violence or other means that could result in violence. Than I thought that this was all common sense, because it was obvious that eventually the whites would no longer be in the majority.
I than wondered whether the White would still be in the majority just because of how everything is viewed. Even though on paper it may say that there are fewer whites than everybody else I don’t believe that we will notice a change at all. The people in control would still be white and the people getting screwed out of everything would still be the minorities. I can’t think of a way for this to change, even if the white people are no longer in the majority, because it is too deeply rooted inside of everybody that the white people have the power right now. Maybe in a couple of generations when the white people haven’t been in the majority for years you may start to see a change in who holds the power reins and who has all the control but I can’t see it happening in any of our lifetime’s or even happening in our kid’s lifetimes.
Another thing I thought about was that even though the white people would be in the minorities it doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be the majority in terms of race groups. White people tend to categorize every racial group that isn’t white into the minority group. Just because white people do that doesn’t mean every group does that so the African American racial group may still see themselves as being in the minority cause there would still be less African Americans in the United States than White people and the same thing with Mexican Americans. Just because as a whole, the minority group of people will soon be bigger than all the white people in the United States doesn’t mean the minority groups themselves think of it that way, since they all see themselves as being completely different from each other.
While reading this article I was thinking about many things but I feel like this article is just simply going to disappear and not really be acknowledged by anybody after this because the white people in power are going to try and pretend that they are still in the majority group so they can stay in power as long as possible.