This topic is pretty interesting to me. It seems like it could apply to a sociology course, and ethics course, and even more to a philosophy course. I think that it is fair to say that none of us are inherently good or bad. We are genetically predisposed to possibly being more or less physically strong, or more or less energetic or more or less violent. A greater cause to how we form into who we are is the environment in which we grow up in. If your parents are successful business people there is a good chance you will go to college and be a successful professional. If you parents are poor immigrants there is a good chance you will appreciate hard work. If your parents are angry and have a tough time scraping by there is a good chance you will grow up to be angry as well. I am not trying to say that our lives are fated but we control less than we usually attribute. An easy example is to see compare a child being born in the United States versus a child being born in Haiti. Most people can agree that there is a clearly a discrepancy; to a lesser degree this matters in terms of what kind of family you grew up in how much money you had and what the people were like that lived in your community. It is easy for us to judge and to say that we earned all we had and that people that may not be as successful didn’t want it as much but most of us know this isn’t true. Most lifers probably are people who deserve to be in prison for the rest of their lives because of horrible things that they have done. Having said that, this does not mean that all of them did things that we ourselves or people we consider wouldn’t have done had we been put in similar circumstances. If you tell me that someone murdered another person I would logically think that this person is not someone fit for society; however, if I had been born into an environment similar to theirs and had caught the same breaks it is very feasible that I would commit the same actions. All actions committed by humans are either instinctual or learned. So really when we punish people it is based on either their instincts or learned action. The reason these people must be put away for a long time, the rest of their lives, is not because they are uniquely evil but because they are not fit for a society trying to strive. Essentially they are people who do not fit into the system or were pushed out. To comment on life in jail I think that I would probably go insane or need to develop a rote hobby. For a while I would probably reflect on life and past memories, but that can only take up so much time.

Beat LA

Last classes lecture had more of an impression than most. You can tell by the fact that most people were listening and that Sam took pride in delivering messages he found to be important. It was a very interesting lecture because it is a relatively recent topic but has had almost a decade’s worth of time to circulate. Almost all of the facts are available about this war on terrorism or whatever you want to call it and almost everyone has formed somewhat of an opinion about it. It is pretty logical to say that there were some men from the Middle East region that were threatening to the safety and welfare of the United States and the world. It is also logical to say that most of our commitment to Iraq had to do with oil. The average person knows this and is somewhat upside that they were misled about the original reasons for war but more upset that the United States may be sending their young men and women oversees and that we’ve invested a lot of money. Most people aren’t enraged that the United States of America is trying to control the price of oil and make sure our way of life is sustainable at a low cost we can afford. Most people want to be or at least think they are good ethical people. They think everyone deserves equal opportunity for health and happiness if they work for it. However once people become worried that they’re way of life could be threatened they start to care less and less about others. I do not necessarily think that this is wrong as much as it is survival instincts. The point is that pretty much all of us are self righteous hypocrites and on the scale of understanding we are pseudo communitarian. Most people inherently want to be happy and want others to be happy. When times get tough however ethics are lost and we suddenly begin to take care of number one first. Human beings are great in the sense that they are willing to die for great causes they believe in; the problem is that they only believe in great causes when they are for them. I do not think that Arab Muslims or American Christians are much different in terms of how they’d act in the same situation. However people are put in different situations. What Sam’s lecture did is remind us that we are on the side that has better resources and better military. America is not full of different people who deserve better things than anyone else but we are in a system that allows for greater success. Also in terms of the Christians the feel a need to defend themselves I understand where you are coming from the point of Sam’s lecture was to make you feel uncomfortable and kind of relate how Arab Muslims do not like to be compared to Osama bin Laden or how Phillies fans don’t like to be compared to guy who pukes on little girls at baseball games. Also if you get annoyed when Sam made an example of the reverse situation you should get equally annoyed when Islam is portrayed in a bad light which you most likely don’t because people pretty much only care about themselves.

I mean honestly I feel like it should it be assumed you are being honest and that the phrase is really redundant. This is one of those topics where it is cool that it was brought up to have opposing viewpoints just as its more interesting when someone in your discussion group is racist or ignorant. These kinds of discussions are fun because you can argue as opposed to always agreeing and repeating what someone else says. It is good that this question was brought up to help us reflect on what we’ve learned this semester. I don’t think that this class changed my life and caused me to want to travel the world and stop consuming certain products but it did help enlighten me on how problems are caused, how to avoid them and remind me that the problem is a lot different when it is yours or someone else’s. On the way of causing a little guilt the class reminded me that there are people around the world that could be and should be treated better if we only wanted to see what was actually happening. It’s kind of depressing that people who I consider generally good like most of the class and me feel bad about something but don’t really do anything about it. I want to do something when there is a problem but usually get overwhelmed since the problem is too big. This class reminds you that you only need to take one step at a time. None of the social or racial problems are going to be fixed overnight but we can push it in the positive direction so that one day it will be. I did feel like I knew the major gist of what was taught in this class but emphasized points like what has happened to Native American Indian culture/welfare, that within groups there is no unanimous opinion on how they like to be called/treated (essentially everyone’s an individual), and global/local slavery opened my eyes a little bit. I feel like overall Sam’s large Soc 119 class was not perfectly customized for me but it probably was good for a large percentage of people who may have been more closed minded but I can’t say for sure. The kid in the video seemed like he had some balls saying this. More likely he is suffering from low self esteem and intelligence. When he saw himself on the blog if he even did it he probably got really excited and wanted all his friends to know. Sam doesn’t deserve this disrespect, he’s my bro. On to my next point, this kid is definitely a frat bro or bra depending on your accent. You can see with his swollen red race and the fact that he is wearing Kemp supersonics jersey that he loves yelling day long season and playing horseshoes with his shirt off. He probably calls himself by another name and most likely it is David Moss. Who brings spaghetti to class?

I mean honestly I feel like it should it be assumed you are being honest and that the phrase is really redundant. This is one of those topics where it is cool that it was brought up to have opposing viewpoints just as its more interesting when someone in your discussion group is racist or ignorant. These kinds of discussions are fun because you can argue as opposed to always agreeing and repeating what someone else says. It is good that this question was brought up to help us reflect on what we’ve learned this semester. I don’t think that this class changed my life and caused me to want to travel the world and stop consuming certain products but it did help enlighten me on how problems are caused, how to avoid them and remind me that the problem is a lot different when it is yours or someone else’s. On the way of causing a little guilt the class reminded me that there are people around the world that could be and should be treated better if we only wanted to see what was actually happening. It’s kind of depressing that people who I consider generally good like most of the class and me feel bad about something but don’t really do anything about it. I want to do something when there is a problem but usually get overwhelmed since the problem is too big. This class reminds you that you only need to take one step at a time. None of the social or racial problems are going to be fixed overnight but we can push it in the positive direction so that one day it will be. I did feel like I knew the major gist of what was taught in this class but emphasized points like what has happened to Native American Indian culture/welfare, that within groups there is no unanimous opinion on how they like to be called/treated (essentially everyone’s an individual), and global/local slavery opened my eyes a little bit. I feel like overall Sam’s large Soc 119 class was not perfectly customized for me but it probably was good for a large percentage of people who may have been more closed minded but I can’t say for sure. The kid in the video seemed like he had some balls saying this. More likely he is suffering from low self esteem and intelligence. When he saw himself on the blog if he even did it he probably got really excited and wanted all his friends to know. Sam doesn’t deserve this disrespect, he’s my bro. On to my next point, this kid is definitely a frat bro or bra depending on your accent. You can see with his swollen red race and the fact that he is wearing Kemp supersonics jersey that he loves yelling day long season and playing horseshoes with his shirt off. He probably calls himself by another name and most likely it is David Moss.

I found this video to actually be a reason to watch the videos posted and to blog on. Most videos or topics have somewhat interesting topics but overall things that we’ve heard over and over again and are simply being reinforced. This video however was truly meaningful for me to watch because it showed something more different than usual and wasn’t a simple opinion or observation but a somewhat psychological or scientific study providing good evidence and facts for a pretty serious matter. As human beings it is pretty interesting to me how we either want to be exactly the same as the social norm in some cases but in other cases we want to stand out be different. For instance in fashion it seems that a lot of girls are similar in their winter attire with very similar boots, similar pants, and similar coats. People feel the need to converge in that instance. But at a prom or dance girls always want to stand out and have the best, trend setting dress. I think if it were a more natural world free of illogical biases and prejudices people who were naturally different than others would embrace this as a positive gift and almost show off their more unique special inheritance. But our world does not make sense. People who are naturally different to what the majority is or the expected feel the need to assimilate to this as much as possible. I would not call these people traitors to their heritage but more that it is engrained in them from an early age what they should and shouldn’t be. And if they are one thing or another they should think better or worse about themselves. We may call adults with years of experience and opportunities to see different views of the world racist or not accepting of others but a 4 or 5 year old kid is simply an observer of their environment. It is incredibly sad at such a young age that the kids in the video thought that one color was better than the other and that the color which was bad or less desired was theirs. It is so terrible that five year olds are ashamed or can’t show pride to who they naturally are. I would expect black kids to choose their own colored doll less than a white kid would but I didn’t expect the majority of black kids to favor the white doll over the black doll. People are inherently self centered so you’d expect people to like what they are. However what does on in the observable world around them in the few years of life they’ve lived has caused them to come to the conclusion that they would rather be white. According to what they see this is probably a reasonable conclusion, but the point is they should not be receiving that message and as a society we should not be sending that message. We have made some progress over time but there are many more steps that need to be made to solve problems like these that you can’t really measure with a statistic. This is one of those problems that in the grand scheme of things don’t seem like a problem but it is a problem since it stems to the ideology that our world wrongly portrays.

I don’t really know what the argument or topic of this discussion is trying to focus on but I that it is pretty evident that the people we are discussing are extremely dumb, ignorant and overall not good people. It is somewhat sad that such dumb terrible people take up so much of our time and the fact that I am even taking time to blog about them. There is no argument that can be made to defend these people or even to defend why they deserve the amazing rights and privileges that Americans receive. To say that it is respectable that they are using their right to protest and freedom of speech is pretty stupid as well. Saying that you respect that these people are using their right to protest is like saying you respect people with money using their right to spend it on dumb things that don’t help anyone. In fact it is more respectable when people waste money on bad things because at least they are contributing somewhat to the economy and giving the money to someone else. It is respectable do what is respectable as simple as that sounds. Sometimes not doing something is more respectable than doing something wrong. It would be very respectable if these people were using their rights in a fashion that didn’t hurt the well being of others and made progress in society. These people are using their ugly voices to make some fuss and if they are somewhat successful our society will only go backwards.
On the topic of politics I have raised a question and I am not sure exactly how I feel about it. Should all people have an equal voice when it comes to decision making for our future? For instance, when we need to build a bridge we develop a team of engineers to take on the project. We trust these engineers because they have gone to school specifically to be trained in this field. Or when we need to have an operation we go to a medical doctor. These doctors have also gone to years of schooling. If we needed advice on financial or economic side of things we would ask an economist and so on. We would not take a vote from the average person to decide whether the bridge should be made of a certain material or a certain shape. We only trust the engineers. We wouldn’t trust untrained people to operate on us, and uneducated people to make our financial decisions. Why then when it comes to our society’s welfare do we stray from experts and let any given Shmoe have an equal voice. This to me is like sitting in the dentist’s chair and letting my friends vote on which instrument should be used to remove a cavity. Not everyone knows what to do for a given subject area. It scares me that in politics we don’t have professionals we can rely on but simply other Americans who at pressing times prove to be quite scary.

I also did notice that when during the text message responses there were different responses during comments that were offending black people versus comments that were offending white people. There was much more uproar when there were anti black comments posted by white people then when there were anti white comments posted by black people. It is interesting to note here that these types of questions posted on the screen leave out people who do not consider themselves to be either black or white such as American Indians, Hispanics, Asians, mixed race and others. Black and white conflict does seem to be the most prevalent race issue in the United States of America but just an important note to remember that there are still other issues and it is not as simple as black and white. Focusing more on the question, I think that the reason there is more uproar when negative comment is made toward Black people is partially due to history, white guilt, and the fact that Black people are in the minority whereas white people are the majority and seen as the predators. Historically there have been ignorant hateful white people who have oppressed black people and used similar phrases and reasoning as the people who made the rude comments. Because the comments resemble this time period it is seen as very mean and hurtful. The reversal however has never really come into play historically. Yes there are some black people who have been racist towards white people in an evil fashion, but on a whole the hateful black people have never had power over people that they hate. In terms of white guilt, white people usually follow the guidelines that political correctness tells them too, sometimes unconsciously. White people follow the rule that if they don’t want to be racist they should be extra careful to notice when wrong is done to people in the minority. White people have also become accustomed to accepting sometimes unjust comments made by black people since there reply to it may be racist. The concept of this question where there is a double standard depending on color of skin shouldn’t exist but in reality it does and is the cause for the disproportionate uproar when negative white or black comments were made. Logically this double standard makes no sense and we can say that we will not act on it but I know that I sometimes do act on it. For instance it makes sense to lock the door of your car after you park it. However sometimes when I am going to lock it and see a minority I have some weird sense of guilt. It feels that I am only locking my door because a certain person walked by not because I always lock my door. In some ways you could call the double standard trying to be more conscious of your decisions but in reality most of it is due to some misplaced sense of guilt for most of what none of us now have been a cause.

I think that this story on a southern high school reminds us that while we as a country may make incredible progress in many issues, these issues are not solved everywhere. Just as when we as a country decided all races should be treated equally, all races were not treated equally everywhere. Just as when we declared both sexes to be of equal ability there is still much sexism that occurs. The progressive part of our country has come to the conclusion that same sex relationships are okay, and that people should be able to be with whoever they choose, but this ideology is not accepted everywhere. Many people are either stuck in their old ways, blinded by religious beliefs, or simply full of hate. It is somewhat reflected by region which areas are more accepting, or at least politically based on marriage laws. For example we can tell that on average California is more on page with progressive ideology than Mississippi when the subject is concerning treatment of LGBT issues. The Mississippi school district most likely makes its decisions based on the pressure of its residents. On the one hand we note the ignorance of the school district to cancel a prom because of a lesbian couple that would be attending. The Mississippi school district also decided it was wrong to wear clothes outside of what they thought genders should wear. (Boys should wear suites or tuxedos and girls should wear dresses). These statements show much ignorance and lack of respect or acceptance towards the issues of LGBT. The world that many of these people live in do not have much light shined on it and is very backwards indeed. On another side of the issue it is interesting to me how there has been progress made in our society. Before a small Mississippi town may have solved problems of people being different than they wanted to be in a violent matter whether it be threats or actual violence. The fact that the matter is becoming a verbal/political conversation shows a lot to me. Fifteen or thirty years back it was probably accepted in many places that you would never bring a same sex date to a dance, now it is becoming a publicized debate, in another 15 years I think the problem will continue to get better and we will be worrying about other issues. Obviously when there are horrible things going on it is hard to be contempt, but I do think you can appreciate the fact that we are taking steps forward and making progress. Theoretically if we lived in a perfect world we will continue to progress and the problems we deal with will be about peoples characters or ethics and not their race or orientation.

In terms of people not being as affected by the issues of genocide and unfair inequalities as it seems they should be, I think it has a lot to do with people simply becoming numb to tragic issues. Every day in the news there is something new and worse going on and it seems that we simply jump from issue to issue feeling bad but not actually taking the full time to digest it and reflect upon what should be and what can be done. Another reason people seem to becoming more apathetic to many issues is that it is hard to relate to someone you don’t know or have never seen and don’t know where they are from. When something happens in another part of the country, another part of the world, or in past history people can’t as easily relate. However I think that when you know or meet someone who is dealing with a particular struggle you are more likely to want to do something about it. A lot of the times I think that people need a face to relate a problem or see a distinct good and bad guy. With issues such as what happened to the Native American tribes when Europeans colonized America people are less likely to focus on possible wrongdoings because this is now the United States of America which many consider to be a great country in terms of opportunity and rights given to citizens. It is easy to ignore an ugly beginning when ultimately the outcome is an overall good thing. Also with the issue of taking land or stealing land I wonder when in history brute force went from the more successful group of people taking what they could get versus violent people selfishly taking what doesn’t belong to them. Now of course if we see peoples conquering other peoples and taking their land we find it to be unjust (as the British settlers did to the indigenous Americans). However way back in history such as the times of the Romans, the Roman Empire wasn’t considered an evil unjust society but the most successful and innovative. I think it is more complex then we make it seem when third world countries act like others acted in previous parts of history. We simply make them out to be pure evil when they are not actually evil but stuck in a system where that is allowed. It is human nature to take what you can get. Nothing about sociology is strictly defined and it’s always changing. When it comes to many problems and questions that are raised there is no right or wrong answer but mostly gray. Whatever society decides is ultimately how we evaluate but I think it’s important to remember that not everyone is on the same exact page and maybe the best solution is to get as many people on the same page as possible.