en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/2437864 Comments by T_Franks http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/11/the-cost-of-empire-soc-001-blog/#IDComment143287924 The answer is that we are trying to keep our place as the top dog on the pile. We don’t want to risk the chance that China, or India, or even Japan (before their disaster) could come and knock us off as the leading world power. As an American citizen, I understand that fear. I don’t want to be No. 2 to anyone, especially when I’ve grown up reading, learning and seeing the advantages of being the most powerful nation in the world. My only hope is that our leaders understand the responsibility that is given to them and that they don’t misuse this power. It seems that in the last decade that happened. We mistakenly used our strength for our own gain in a detrimental way to the world. This cannot happen if we want to stay and benevolent dictators of the world. Sat, 16 Apr 2011 03:11:07 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/11/the-cost-of-empire-soc-001-blog/#IDComment143287924 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/11/the-cost-of-empire-soc-001-blog/#IDComment143287872 It seems that we have fashioned ourselves after the great empires of the past as well. The English, Dutch, Galactic, and French Empires of our history all have established military forces outside their borders to protect their economic interests around the globe. For the United States, the last world war provided the perfect excuse to put bases all over Europe, including Germany (who we were occupying in a way) and in other places of the world. At the time this was seen as necessary, and indeed was necessary, to provide the United States with strategic strongholds against the Russians. The question is not was this system of bases important in the past, but is it important today? Who are we protecting ourselves against now? These bases around the world didn’t stop terrorists from attacking us 10 years ago. Who are we defending against? What other world power is there? Sat, 16 Apr 2011 03:10:52 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/11/the-cost-of-empire-soc-001-blog/#IDComment143287872 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/11/the-cost-of-empire-soc-001-blog/#IDComment143287841 I have a good friend who is training to be a fighter pilot at the Air Force Academy. He always talks about how he wants to be stationed over in Germany once he is deployed. I never really thought that was odd. In fact I never really thought that having a base in any foreign country was odd until I watched this video. When looked at in this light, it is impossible not to see the United States as an Empire. Sat, 16 Apr 2011 03:10:39 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/11/the-cost-of-empire-soc-001-blog/#IDComment143287841 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/07/war-vets-and-ptsd/#IDComment141159719 The other question we have to ask is how do we avoid war? Clearly it is not a good thing for the individual human. But for our geopolitical climate it serves several useful purposes. It provides a population check in competing areas. It helps decide who gets natural resources and who will be in charge. Sat, 9 Apr 2011 03:49:03 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/07/war-vets-and-ptsd/#IDComment141159719 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/07/war-vets-and-ptsd/#IDComment141159392 The one thing in the video that I found especially interesting and didn’t know already was the psychology of ‘tricking’ soldiers into killing. We have glorified war, given soaring rhetoric to follow and given them a gun. But we never actually tell them what they are about to do. They are about to kill, maim, and destroy. If they have not accepted this and have not fully come to understand what they are about to do, they cannot cope with it as well. I had never thought about it that way. I have always known that personally, I wouldn’t be suited to war because I know that I couldn’t take a life without serious moral conflict and emotional damage. No amount of desensitizing from video games can make me forget the sanctity of life. Sat, 9 Apr 2011 03:46:57 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/07/war-vets-and-ptsd/#IDComment141159392 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/07/war-vets-and-ptsd/#IDComment141158982 After watching the video in class I really am apauled, but not surprised by the actions of the military. PTSD is an extremely serious problem that so many veterans face. The problem isn’t that we don’t know the extent of the problem or that we don’t know how to help treat the problem but we just don’t help our soldiers. The government may be making strides to fix this but the overwhelming attitude of the military hasn’t changed. The greatest empathy I could have is with the troops. All men in our society are held to superman standards. We are supposed to be smart, strong, tough, and hide our emotions. While all of these things are desirable traits, they are impossible to be all at once, all the time. When the horrors of war come crashing down upon men who aren’t prepared for it, things can get messy emotionally. This is considered weakness. Some people just don’t have the constitution for war. Some aren’t ready either. They have signed up for something that they don’t fully understand or accept. Sat, 9 Apr 2011 03:44:44 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/07/war-vets-and-ptsd/#IDComment141158982 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/30/so-what-your-take-on-those-inequality-classes/#IDComment139246368 All of this only reinforces what we have been talking about in class. There will always be a ruling class. The only thing we can do is try to do the best with the time we are given. And in this case that means that we need to try and influence or persuade the ruling class to heed us. Sat, 2 Apr 2011 01:04:17 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/30/so-what-your-take-on-those-inequality-classes/#IDComment139246368 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/30/so-what-your-take-on-those-inequality-classes/#IDComment139246227 To be honest, however, that last thought is not entirely true. There is no doubt that rugged independence, industriousness, and a certain quality to never accept ‘no’ as an answer, but we have all been duped by the ruling class. If we were to look at the entire, broad scope of American history there has been an elite group of people that have run this country. It was only a small percentage of businessmen and politicians that were in favor of a revolution in the first place. The rest either were indifferent, ignorant, or Toreys (supporters of the crown). During the Civil War an elite section of the South pushed and prodded until the rest of the South (many of whom didn’t even own slaves) revolted with them and started a new country. In the industrial revolution, we begin to see some of what we have today in a ruling class of business men. Sat, 2 Apr 2011 01:03:57 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/30/so-what-your-take-on-those-inequality-classes/#IDComment139246227 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/30/so-what-your-take-on-those-inequality-classes/#IDComment139246178 We talked in class a lot about the way things are versus the way things should be. What amazed me most was the graph about the perceived distribution of wealth versus the actual distribution of wealth. In a country where the top 1 percent owns 90 percent of the wealth it is astounding how unaware we are. This and other things that we have talked about show me how soft we have gotten as a country. If something like this had happened in 1840, the country would have been up in arms, literally. We have been a country that has fierily defended our rights. Yet over the past 150 years, we have slowly degraded into an apathetic country that is more interested in Cake Boss and Jersey Shore than the Halls of Congress, or what shitty laws are being made. Sat, 2 Apr 2011 01:03:37 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/30/so-what-your-take-on-those-inequality-classes/#IDComment139246178 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/23/managing-crowds/#IDComment137622751 The bottom line is that emergencies and disasters are bad. The best we can do is to do the best we can. Sat, 26 Mar 2011 03:00:38 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/23/managing-crowds/#IDComment137622751 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/23/managing-crowds/#IDComment137622444 The biggest problem with large groups of people is that they don't necessarily act on fear, but they try to act in the best interest of themselves and their loved ones. Cowardice is a bigger problem than fear in large groups. Also I find the knee jerk reaction policies are interesting. One thing happens and then we try to completely prevent that situation by trying to remove all of those factors that led to that situation. The problem is that you can never fully predict the future and you cannot eliminate all the factors and variables that lead to disaster situations. The bottom line is that we cannot prevent disasters and they will continue to happen because the world is chaotic and unpredictable. The only thing we can do is to do the best we can with the time we are given. The biggest problem is that these programs and evacuation plans are being planned by large beauracracies. It is inevitable to find inefficiens and waste in these government programs. You cannot avoid it. My solution would be to have evacuation plans done at the local level. Plans have to be understood by the community and be planned out by people who understand the lay of the land. From there you have to combine those plans from local level to local level. Those plans would be much more comprehensive and would be complete. For me, I feel that you cannot blame the government for a lot of the inefficenes in government. Katrina was such a disaster that no one could have been prepared for that. The lack of response was really bad but with situations like that a wrong move may be worse than doing nothing. Sat, 26 Mar 2011 02:58:15 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/23/managing-crowds/#IDComment137622444 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/09/the-r-word-and-the-oblivious-others/#IDComment134357771 The other problem that this group faces is that retard is actually a word. It is a word that has common use and is a medical term. Hate words, like racial slurs, have no place in common speech or in any professional sense. There is a common use for the word retard. It does not share that common social sense of hate that those other words do. And how do you get a culture to simply stop saying a word. Try and eliminate the word ‘douche’, which has become a common word in America in the past couple years. Or how do you get a culture to stop using the word ‘gay’ to mean stupid or use it in a negative way? It is a very hard thing to do and it takes a very long time to enact the kind of change that this video implies it needs. The good thing though, for this group of people, is that it is being talked about. That is the first step. Sat, 12 Mar 2011 04:10:48 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/09/the-r-word-and-the-oblivious-others/#IDComment134357771 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/09/the-r-word-and-the-oblivious-others/#IDComment134357356 I know that I personally am guilty of using the ‘r-word’ a lot in my every day speech. I know that it slips out almost at will it seems when I talk about something that frustrates or angers me. I don’t mean anything hostile or malicious by it but it is what it is. I understand where this video is coming from, I really do. My cousin has a child who has Down’s Syndrome and I love her. I would never do anything to mock her or cause her or my cousin’s family any more pain than they have gone through. The problem is that the mentally handicapped are such a small portion of the country that their voice isn’t large enough to enact the kind of change that the man in this video is calling for. Others have to help them make the change that they are hoping for. Sociologically, it makes sense that the group at large would ignore a voice too small to cause a problem. But when a larger group makes noise about an issue like this, (say African Americans and the ‘N word’) things will get done. Sat, 12 Mar 2011 04:07:51 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/09/the-r-word-and-the-oblivious-others/#IDComment134357356 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/21/rethinking-education/#IDComment130739440 One of the most fundamental problems in American schooling are numbers. I’m not talking about mathematics, I’m talking about the number of children, and students in this country. The ideal for education is for students to be taught on an individual level by a knowledgeable educator. But we can’t achieve that. So what is the solution? I feel that we need to hire more teachers and give them the latitude to teach to their class and not teach to a test. At a young age we need to foster individuality, creativity, and ingenuity. Once children are old enough, we can then begin to teach them in a more procedural way. But to do so at such a young age is a travesty. Sat, 26 Feb 2011 01:35:45 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/21/rethinking-education/#IDComment130739440 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/21/rethinking-education/#IDComment130739402 I have a friend who studies foreign relations in the military. He tells me constantly that the thing that separates American students from the rest of the world is that we don’t accept one answer. As Americans, it is our heritage to look outside the box and be industrious. We don’t accept the ‘one answer’ and we look for creative and alternative solutions to problems. I worry that we are losing that in education today. Thankfully I don’t feel that was suppressed in me because I went to a small, rural school where teachers could spend a little more time with me nurturing my individuality. I thank them endlessly for that. One the same hand, I know that not everyone was blessed as I was. Many kids were treated as a number and a statistic in school. America needs to drastically redo it’s schooling system. Sat, 26 Feb 2011 01:35:32 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/21/rethinking-education/#IDComment130739402 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/21/rethinking-education/#IDComment130739311 I feel that I have a very good insight into the education system. Not only have I been in school roughly 95% of my life but also my mother has been a teacher for 20 years. She agrees with this video. Our learning system is very inadequate for our country and what we want out of children. She is constantly complaining that she has to ‘teach to the test’. She feels that our current system of teaching is inadequate for children. Instead of being able to foster a joy for learning and tending to the needs of her class, she must teach in a factory way like one that was described in the video. Sat, 26 Feb 2011 01:34:51 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/21/rethinking-education/#IDComment130739311 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/06/empathy-might-be-our-natural-drive/#IDComment127458483 And because I am a man my thinking on the matter is obviously shaded by the fact that I have personal insight into this matter. I have much less to say about the relationships or the social pressures on women. Though I do understand the contradictory nature of socitey that women have to live in. Women are now expected to be the housekeepers of the 19th and 20th century as well as bread-winners like men. Their ultimate goal is no longer to find a man to marry and to have children. They now have to think about careers and life outside the house. On top of all of this they are counted on to be the epicenter of the family empathy. In order to create a world where we are all empathetic we must break down the stereotypes of gender and masculinity. We are taught to suppress our empathy and our consideration for others. When we do this our more animalistic tendencies tend to expressed. We must remind our children to help an nurture, not abuse and bully. Sat, 12 Feb 2011 02:35:37 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/06/empathy-might-be-our-natural-drive/#IDComment127458483 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/06/empathy-might-be-our-natural-drive/#IDComment127458421 I think this fits in very nicely with the chapter in our book about the differences between men and women. That chapter in the book does a nice job of pointing out how men are singled out from a very early age to be strong, independent and individualistic humans. Their empathetic tendencies are seen as either weakness or early signs of homosexuality and are strongly discouraged. Being a man I can understand that kind of thinking and this indoctrination into 'manhood'. I think this along with the position of men have historically had over women throughout the history of mankind, and the kind of men that are attracted to leadership, is where we get our picture of human nature. We see it as a caricatured stereotype of what 'masculinity" is. We overlook the countless men and women who are by nature empathetic and opposite of those who we typify because it is easier to generalize the vast majority. As a society we often view empathy in our lives as weakness or as something womanly and feminine. Sat, 12 Feb 2011 02:35:17 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/06/empathy-might-be-our-natural-drive/#IDComment127458421 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/23/how-free-are-these-90-students/#IDComment124453502 The other factor that we must not ignore in this particular situation is that the poor have historically always had higher birth rates than the upper class. They do not have the access to, nor the education to use contraceptive measures. The fact of the matter is that even with the education that they are recieving is inadequate to help prevent them from having teenage pregnancies. Abstinance is a great ideal, but one that many people cannot attain because of the immense biological urge their body has for sex. I think from the article and the CNN video, it is obvious that different measures need to be taken to assure better education on sex with lower income teens. Even with this education there will ineveitably still be teenage pregnancies. Some people will be too stupid or too weak willed to not have sex in an irresponsible manner. As stated in class though, the goal is not to eliminate the problem but to reduce the problem. Sat, 29 Jan 2011 02:00:55 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/23/how-free-are-these-90-students/#IDComment124453502 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/23/how-free-are-these-90-students/#IDComment124453467 I think the first thing that we need to acknowledge when we talk about sex is that everyone either has sex, wants to have sex, or has had sex at least once by the time they are 16. The problem is that our country still operates out of a Victorian, Judeo/Christian mind-set, where it is an abomination to have sex before marriage. Despite my personal feelings on the matter (i'm what I would consider Christian) this is an unrealistic way to view the world that we live in today. Most American's are not Christians anymore and the typical white, middle-to-upper class mentality does not fit the mold that is American society anymore. To be honest, it hasn't for a long, long time. Even though our leaders and most of the older, white population (which are basically one and the same) want to beleive in an ideal society, this is not possible and is creating more of an evil than realistically addressing the problem with more comprehensive sexual education in high schools. Sat, 29 Jan 2011 02:00:35 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/23/how-free-are-these-90-students/#IDComment124453467