I think what people like most about south park is that they are not afraid to cross the boundaries that a lot of society likes to try to constrain us to. I don’t think that its that big of a deal because they make fun of EVERYONE and EVERYTHING, but I can see from their point of view that they would be mad. Think about it-they don’t watch south park, im sure they just saw a clip from the internet and got upset about it. They probably don’t understand what south park is all about-it was like the class where we looked at thing from another perspective. Its all about the eye of the beholder.

I think that immigrants need to be legal for some reasons, but other reasons make that harder and unrealistic. Hard work is almost always going to be involved in anything that people do, especially when you are working from the bottom and trying to move up. I do agree with some of these posts that its not necessarily fair for people who have worked hard to get somewhere to pay for people who maybe have slacked off because they know they can live off others. But this is not always the case, sometimes people work very hard, and the world just doesn’t shift in their favor. I think that people that work hard are deserving, its just the slackers I have a problem with.

Here is my personal problem with the Obama administration and this new health care reform policy that has happened. I am not completely educated about the policy-partially because they wont let people know what is in it- but his next move is what we talked about today, make everyone here citizens. Has anyone really thought about what this means? Not only will it create a rush for our boarders, but it means we (tax payers) will be paying for these immigrants to have health care, which means even more money is being taken from us and them!
Most people that come here seem to be coming here to get away from something in their own country, or they would just stay in their homeland where their family is. Perhaps something awful is happening, or maybe they just believe that they can have a better life and will have more opportunities if they move to America. Either way most people coming here are not in great financial situations, and will not be able to pay substantial enough taxes to cover to cost for the US to provide them all with health care. This is the problem with this sequence of events.
However, I could never look at a human being and tell them that they can’t be taken care of because they don’t have health insurance, and that they must stay sick. SO here is the problem, and it ties back into the issues we discussed in class today. Is there a solution? Maybe there is just simply no way to fix all of these problems because when you fix one it seems to make another problem worse.
In the end everyone deserves to be healthy and happy and to be able to be taken care of by a doctor if need be, but I don’t think the way that people are going about it is helpful at all. I don’t have a solution, and the is the humility that Sam was talking about today in class. I know that I don’t have the solution, but at the same time I know that what is happening now is not the answer.
In the end it all comes down to the fact that we are all humans, and I can’t imagine denying people healthcare or medical help when they need it just because of money, and at the same time its all about money.
Being that I am coming out of college and realizing I have to pay healthcare that I won’t even see immediately it does make me feel some kind of way about that fact that I am going to have to pay even more to cover them. It is a hard struggle.

This really makes you second guess things doesn’t it? I mean, here are people that have done something so horrible they are thought of as the evil-doers of society, and then someone writes something like this-so real and so intelligent. You can see that they have probably changed and grown as a persona and you wonder if they truly should be behind bars. And then you remember what they did and you can’t possibly believe that you are saying that. It’s a hard place. I never thought of compassion as something that would be so present in a prison, but the way he puts it, it makes perfect sense.

I think that something like this is completely horrible and devastating-but that you are right, people seem to move on. This has something to do with the “us and them” phenomenon that has happened between countries. We are not all humans- not simply people. But we are people with an identity that seems to root in where we are from. And when something happens to them-we feel badly because we know those were humans, but people seem to also think: that god it wasn’t us. This is terrible and one of the many points that I wish people could understand. We are not US and THEM, those lines are invisible-we are all humanity and you are right, we should all be effected by anything that happens.

My Mom has always been really big on trying to understand. She has read a lot of books about the Muslim faith and has always tried to get me to see things from another perspective. As much as she has done to try and get me to understand, this one lecture made everything make more sense. As I sat there it made perfect sense to me why these people think what they are doing was right. From my family I only ever got the “well see if from their perspective, they think they are right”… but I never knew WHY they thought they were right. This really put it into perspective. Of course I would fight and stand up for myself and my family if I thought people were coming to my country to take away our resources and kill us because of our religion, itsn’t that kind of what some people in America think they are doing in some respect? We think they hate us because we are “Americanized” and we are Christians, just like they think we are fighting them because we want to take their oil and because they are Muslim.
I hope that people truly understood the point of this lecture. I think some people that seem angry might have not truly understood what you were trying to do as a teacher. You were educating us on understanding ethnocentrism and how it works for other people as well. Just how we revolve around our culture, they revolve around theirs. I think people saying this is stupid and wrong aren’t getting the point. Sam is not picking on Christians either, the evidence is there! I am a Christian, but even I can admit that there are some people out there who really do believe this is a Christian war in they own mind, and some of them are or were running this country- can you understand why that would be scary to the Muslim people we are fighting against?!
Another good point htat was made was those about the youtube videos. How we tend to send out on e-mail list serves all the good videos of the soldiers that are so amazing over there (which they are) and all of the good things that are happening. However, at the same time they are sending around all the bad things—all the people that don’t have the right mind set. One of the most important things that Sam said to help us understand is when we talking about how WE know that those are just a couple of assholes but that most everyone in the army is actually amazing….BUT THEY DON’T. people just need to open up to understand.

I personally didn’t eat either piece, but I think that I would not have eaten the second, but at the same time Sam did make the point, that what is the point of not eating the second piece-unless you will never eat chocolate that is not fair trade again? I think that maybe that video made some people believe how important it is to look at what you are really buying and perhaps that it is worth the extra dollar to get the chocolate that is not made by slaves. I think people couldn’t eat it because the video was so fresh in their minds, but I bet they have had chocolate since then…

I think that it is very easy to believe that God is a good God and that he has done everything for a reason when you live the life of someone in America. But looking at the lives of people all over the world living in slavery I can’t imagine why they would every deserve that life. I am not the most religious person, but I do believe in God. I also believe that man can do things that go against God, and that is slavery. I don’t think that God interferes too much with our lives, and that the slave owners are bad people, and the slaves are very unlucky.

I don’t think that this is a very practical solution. Clothes get worn out, they get stained and dirty and people are going to want to buy new ones. I don’t think that simply not buying new clothes is going to get people very far, yes it is funny to think about and maybe if all of the world could collectively agree to it we would get somewhere, but that is never going to happen. People in the world today have an attachment to material wealth and no matter what we do to try and stop this, it has already gone to far. First steps are not as simple as this if we truly want to make a difference. Yes, they are good steps to get the word out if you tell everyone you know, and they will make you feel better. They will also ensure there is no hypocrisy in your arguments about slavery which is also important. But, there are enough people in the world willing to keep buying the clothes that a few people not buying them will not really make a difference. I am not sure what the correct steps are to stop something like slavery. I think petitions and trying to get Penn State to sign off that they will not have good made by sweatshop workers are definitely steps in the right direction. I think we need large groups of people and people with influence to stand up and fight against the slavery. People of the modern and developed world need to know and become educated about modern slavery-before this class I had no idea the extent the slave labor was still used. I think that the companies that use illegal labor and sweatshops need to become public knowledge, maybe this will create an uprising enough that people will stop buying THEIR clothes. If the word is out that people are using slave labor and we can prove it, I do think that a lot of Americans would boycott their clothing and goods, they have boycotted for less.
This whole idea is not useless, he does have a point, we all need to take small steps in order to make any meaningful steps. Someday there might be a group that can get through to people enough that they stop all slavery. But because the labor is cheap and everything in the world today is about getting the most money you can, while spending the least—nothing is looking promising for these poor people. It is an awful thing that money drives people into slavery. Maybe the news should cover things like slavery instead of the stupid stories they usually run. By getting public attention, a lot of slavery could be shut down.

I think what was most interesting about our class on affirmative action was that after class I talked to Sam, and he told me about how affirmative action is not based on "quotas" like we are lead to think. Maybe a little, but barely enough that is makes some sort of difference. This was news to me because I always thought that it was based on an idea of needing a certain amount of every kind of person to make your school just diverse enough. After class i have come to think that although the idea of trying to level the playing field may seem smart-the execution of affirmative action is terrible. They need to work on how they do that, I think that currently they are not accomplishing what they are trying to accomplish-they real point of affirmative action is getting lost.