gdp's Comments

Race Relations Project : What about health care?

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 03:54:43 +0000

That being said, the fact that the Health Care Reform bill, which really should be called insurance reform, doesn’t allow illegal immigrants to even purchase insurance is crazy! Why would we not allow someone to buy health insurance if they can afford the plan without subsidies? Understandably, I see why some people would be against giving these illegal immigrants subsidies(i.e. money from tax payers to buy the plans), because they don’t pay income tax. Though from a strictly economical point of view, it would still be worth it to give these illegal immigrants the subsidies, since we pay for their care already through increases in private insurance costs/uncompensated care programs.

Race Relations Project : What about health care?

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 03:54:11 +0000

Do you realize that we already pay for their health care? When an illegal immigrant goes to the emergency room, it is illegal for the hospital to turn them away because of their immigration status when the disease is life threatening. Many times, the only reason that disease was life threatening was because they failed to get primary care. So for example, if you leave a cavity go untreated, that person will eventually get a bacterial infection which can spread to your blood stream, in turn, to other parts of your body—so effectively you can have a $100 cavity turn into literally a $100,000 open heart surgery + hospital stay. In the end, if the patient cannot pay for the rendered care, the hospital incurs the loss resulting in the hospital charging folks with insurance more money. States also have programs called uncompensated care programs which dole out literally millions of tax payers money yearly.

Race Relations Project : What about health care?

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 03:39:47 +0000

These illegal immigrants have no choice of whether or not they pay taxes, but I’m sure if they had the opportunity to come to the US legal and pay those taxes, they would. The system is set up so these immigrants can be on waiting lists for many years, as the quota of unskilled, legal immigrants is so small. This is, quite frankly, why so many immigrants come to the US illegally—it’s stupid to wait year upon year when the only risk you run, if you come to this country illegally, is deportation. At any case, they still come here illegally, so they don’t pay income tax (the only tax they pay is on sales tax, which varies state to state and hovers around 7%) and they do take up plenty of our services including using our roads, public transportation, public safety, and pertinent to this discussion, health care, as it is illegal to turn someone away from life-threatening care regardless of immigration status. So for example, if an illegal immigrant goes to a hospital because they are having a heart attack, the hospital must treat the patient, incurring a loss. The hospital then charges those with health insurance more for care as well as billing the government through a program called the ‘uncompensated care program’—tax payers pick up this tab. That being said, it is stupid that we don’t allot these illegal immigrants the same rights as US citizens, in terms of receiving discounts on their health insurance, ability to even get health insurance, etc. if we are already paying for them in a more expensive setting (getting care at a hospital is far more costly than getting care at a doctor’s office). Since the tax payers are footing the bill, if illegal immigrants can afford to purchase health insurance, it’s nonsensical to not give them that right. Plain and simple. Of course if we actually looked at this issue more broadly, we would see that we need this cheap labor to keep products cheap in the US as well as compete on a global scale. For example, we purchase crops from the US and international market. Without these illegal immigrants, the US agriculture system would foil since we would never be able to compete on the global scale. This goes for many industries including restaurant, clothing, and hospitality. Enforcing immigration laws would foil our economy. So what we should do is talk less about deporting these immigrants and more about extending unskilled work visa’s. If we did this, we should then enforce anti-immigration laws on businesses that employ workers who do not have these proper visa’s. That way, we can ensure we are receiving tax revenue from these working. Once we have this tax revenue, we would not be subsidies all of these tax payer programs mentioned above such as roads, public safety, healthcare, etc.

Race Relations Project : "We're Being Educated for Stupidity and Conformity" -- Really?

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 06:53:08 +0000

I don’t know how anyone here is disagreeing with that he is saying—unless you folks are “too stupid” that you can’t see it. Ever since my sophomore year, I’ve been so tired of doing busy work at Penn State; I just know I need to stay here to get a degree. Personally, I’ve wanted to drop out just because I feel like this place is a waste of time. As far as breeding conformity, that really hits the nail on the head. I feel like no one here does anything productive on their spare time beside go on facebook/ hang out with friends. Granted, I hang out with my friends way too much—there isn’t a Thursday/Friday/Saturday that I’m not with them. But I also have plenty of time to read the news, write papers, think about new ideas, learn about a subject I know nothing about…. I only have one friend in this school that does that besides me. I really think all of this comes from conformity. All people want to do is do things that they know/understand and not question anything else. They don’t even bother looking at other issues! Noam touched on this a bit, but when you look at other cultures where they teach their students strict math/sciences, that’s all they are going to know(especially in these countries when students are in class 10 hours a day, 6 days a week). Do you expect these kids to think on their own at all/be creative? I think that these countries that educate children in such a structured way are going to be in trouble—what good are engineers who can’t think out of the bubble? That’s why Google and apple are so successful—they get engineers who think outside the box! One way the US education system is failing (or could do a much better job at it) is increasing creativity. I know there are some proponents that want to increase the amount of time students go to school in the US. I think a better solution would be simply to restructure it to encompass other subjects or at least put more of an emphasis on other subjects. There was a Harvard physiologist that spoke of numerous types of intelligence (maybe 7 of them). They included something along the lines of street smarts, math smarts, English smarts, direction ability smarts, artistic smarts, and people smarts—I don’t remember exactly, but you get the point. The reason this is important is because if the US were to broaden the subjects we emphasis in school, we would produce a much more rounded society—not a bunch of robots which we are starting to create. Either way, Noam I thought did a good job in this speech, I really don’t know how people don’t see how much time we kill going to school. I’m graduating this semester and I really can’t wait to not be going to school. I will of course miss the amount I party, but that is sad to think that’s the best thing I do here.

Race Relations Project : What about the men?

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 06:31:22 +0000

I don’t agree with the part of your post that says women conform more than men—I think it’s equal. I’m sure a lot of feminist are going to have a word with me, but that is of course encouraged. First, the point of the skit in this class was to show how crazy it is that girls do stuff like get boob jobs just to please men/look sexy(obviously). The thing is, guys also go augmentation—calf muscle implants,. Granted, girls boob jobs are far more common, however it’s not easy to grow boobs, and even if you’re taking birth control, they can only grow so much. So if girls want bigger boobs, they go to surgery. If guys want bigger muscles, they just hit the gym. I suppose the lazy ones get the calf transplants. Either way, I’m not arguing that this a smart thing to do cause I think they are both stupid. Other surgeries men and women go through could be nose jobs, face lifts, and lipo. Again, I think more women go through these surgeries, but I don’t think that it is because women conform more than men—it just hasn’t caught on with men. There is of course the make-up issue, which I’m sort of surprised the makeup industry hasn’t started to market makeup to men. I think it would actually be pretty easy. Imagine if Mike the Situation started to put on makeup. I’m sure a fair amount of his beloved followers would follow suit. In any case, I still think a lot of the reasons people think that women conform more than men is simply because many trends haven’t caught on with men yet.

Race Relations Project : What about the "occupied territories"?

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 05:45:45 +0000

Oh dude, the US could care less about Palestine. There should be no question in anyone’s mind of who’s land this belongs to, but Palestine doesn’t have Judeo-Christian values like the US was supposedly founded on. Plus, as soon as Israel starts bombing the shit out of Iran, which I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens, the ties with the US are only going to get stronger. Anyone with common sense would see the pea-shooter of weapons Palestine shoots at Israel compared to Israel’s GPS guided missiles are unfair. But of course we could care less or better yet, we care less to think about those sorts of issues.

Race Relations Project : I really want to know also...

Tue, 6 Apr 2010 04:24:16 +0000

One thing I wish he would talk about more are solutions to fix many of these issues. It seems like he highlights everything, but there is no hope. As I said previously, I know many of these issues. I’m not sure if everyone else knows the things he talks about, but if everyone else is in the same boat as me, I think it would be beneficial to talk about what we should do next. I do understand most of this class is to encourage dialogue too, which may take away from policy suggestions—or maybe he doesn’t care about policy suggestions. Either way, I have learned some things, so it’s not like this class was a waste of time by any means.

Race Relations Project : I really want to know also...

Tue, 6 Apr 2010 04:23:24 +0000

I’m surprised anyone had enough balls to ask this question. I think I have learned a good amount from Sam. Granted, I feel like 90% of it is nothing new to me since I feel as though I’m pretty far among the path of enlightenment, however I certainly have learned and now think about specific issues differently. Probably the biggest thing that I’ve learned/look at things differently is the American Indian issue. I’ve always thought that naming a sports team after a tribe was no big deal… then I sort of put it in perspective—it being a large genocide. I thought that if, say Germany were to put out a sports team downplaying the holocaust, we would think they were nuts. If they had a team like the jamming Jews or something, the rest of the world would think they were crazy… meanwhile, what we did to the American Indians was more extensive than what Germany did to the Jews.

Race Relations Project : The White Minorities

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 01:29:43 +0000

It is also sort of funny how some white people are actually scared that ‘those minorities’ are going to take over. I honestly don’t know what they are worried about. If they are rich, well educated, and are set to inherit money or land, white people really shouldn’t be worried. Sort of like the king of the hill analogy—when you’re on top, it will be hard to get knocked off your power position. Granted, some of the less fortunate minorities will get to the top, but generally, if you are not well off, neither will your kids. But of course, for some reason, these people truly feel threatened by the minorities becoming the majority. I wonder where they got this thought from.

Race Relations Project : The White Minorities

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 01:29:34 +0000

There is going to be absolutely no change. I really don’t think that race has much to do with it, but people keep going back and making it a race thing. I really don’t think minorities are at much of a disadvantage—it all goes back to SES. If you are poor, it doesn’t matter what race you are, you’re going to not be well off. If you are in a family with little education, you are not going to be well off. If you come from a family from a bad area, you aren’t going to have as much connections as others. Of course these are just generalizations—people in these groups will occasionally get out of these grooves. It just so happens that white people are more often than other races, not in these categories.

Race Relations Project : Those Dolls Say Alot About Who We Are

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 00:56:31 +0000

Like many people have said, this video is really sad because the children of color had a very time dealing with the fact that they ‘bad’ one was the same as their color. One of the craziest things is that they feel this way from such a young age that their color is bad. They already have in their mind that they need to generalize that their race is something that they should be ashamed about. It’s crazy to think that these thoughts have not changed since the civil rights movement. You would think that there would be a massive change in public perception—especially in the black community, so it’s shocking that this didn’t happen. I wonder why this is. I also wonder what some neighborhoods where this perception has changed, what exactly they have been doing. If it is something other communities can replicate, that would be worth considering. I also wonder the regional differences of this test. These children don’t think they are beautiful, because the only beautiful color is white, not black. Because of this, self esteem issues will be a problem in the future because they don’t accept themselves. The way black women dress, straighten their hair, and bleaching their skin shows that they don’t appreciate how they are, so these children are going to feel the same way when they get older. There needs to be a more of a black is beautiful mindset. It’s been implanted into their minds by their family and will likely be passed down to their offspring, so it is a ongoing cycle. Without changing this cycle, we are going to get nowhere in terms of improvement. Instead of black models looking white, there should be a movement to not assimilate into the white culture. They should not straighten their hair, bleach their skin, or dress differently. They should dress how they feel like they want to dress. Changing the way the parents think about things would be another good way to change this cycle, but that is going to be very hard, cause these children already think they are ‘bad’ from only a few years old. It’s not like you can get them to change in the 1st grade since it would already be too late. These children need to learn that black is beautiful, just like every other color. There is also another problem with this besides it being sad. These children are going to think that black is bad, so they will be bad since that is the way they are suppose to be. If they don’t change the way they look and act to be white, I would speculate that they would be more likely to be a badass, which may become a problem.

Race Relations Project : Is this just a few bad apples?

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:46:52 +0000

I do think that a number of Republicans are in those protests, but I’m not sure why. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that Republicans hate everything the Democrats are doing right now, but still, they aren’t libertarians, are they? I just think a lot of these people joining this Tea party movement are misguided and don’t really understand what that movement is really about. I also have a feeling that a lot of people don’t understand what is in this bill. I posted on someone’s comment previously talking about this issue—a republican, Mitt Romney had a very similar plan, yet there wasn’t as many protests. Either way, I think it’s cool that people are protesting—just not to the extent that they are protesting.

Race Relations Project : Is this just a few bad apples?

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:46:40 +0000

It sounds like you may know more about these TEA parties than I do, but I didn’t even think they were Republicans. TEA stands for Taxed Enough Already and from what I understood, they were for limited government, which is why that movement has called out a number of Republicans already. I believe a lot of those TEA members are libertarians, which aren’t the same as republicans. For example, these libertarians feel that government should stay out of our lives completely…. So abortion and drugs would be legal and the military wouldn’t be at war right now. And of course the Republicans don’t believe in that. (I knew poli sci 1 would come in handy).

Race Relations Project : Is this just a few bad apples?

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 18:41:46 +0000

Even if your dad’s friend made 15 Billion dollars a year, he isn’t going to get taxes 60% of his income. I have no way to telling the size of his business, but if his business is small, 25 or fewer workers, he is going to receive tax credits to help provide coverage for his workers and certainly no tax increases. If his business is fewer than 50 employees, he is exempt from any new taxes on this health care bill. If he has a large business, more than 50 employees, he will have to provide coverage. If he doesn’t provide coverage, then yes, he will get an increase on taxes….. in 2014. (http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/2010-... ) Just on a side note on that above comment, a lot of larger companies embrace this health reform because currently, they are bearing the brunt of covering people. If a husband works at a small business that doesn’t cover their employees and his wife works at a large business which does cover people, that large business extends her benefits to her husband. That large business has to pay more to cover people who don’t even work at the business. I also don’t agree that this bill is going to hurt many people. It’s quite similar to the Republican Mitt Romney’s plan as governor of Massachusetts(he was also a GOP candidate for president in 2008) . I know some of these people on the left thought that his bill went farther. Either way, this bill, according to the congressional Budget office, is going to reduce the deficit by $130 Billion over the next 10 years and over $1 trillion over the following 10 years. There are estimates all over the map on this bill—some higher and some lower—but that’s just how number crunching works. In saying that, I’m not sure why people are so dramatically against this bill who are part of the TEA parties. There is no government run health insurance plan; it is run strictly by the private insurance companies. The government did say that insurance companies have to cover people with pre-existing conditions, which is why there is now a mandate on coverage though(cause if there wasn’t a mandate, people wouldn’t purchase coverage until they got sick, nullifying the point of insurance, which pools risk. I honestly think that these people are hoodwinked. I would imagine few of them know anything about this bill. I’m assuming they are getting their information from far right media outlets, since they are all on the same page and they are all scared. I doubt these people are normally this nasty—to yell Nigger! Or Faggot! At people. Some of them were spitting at the democratic politicians. For what it’s worth, these people were tricked into hating something so know nothing about.

Race Relations Project : Fired for a Scarf

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 03:55:05 +0000

Big deal she was fired for wearing her scarf. Yes it wasn’t right, but that is nothing compared to their normal business practices. Just a few years ago Abercrombie and Fitch lost a class action lawsuit because they used sweatshops. I’m pretty sure slavery is a little worse than this small bit of religious hatred. I’ve said this before in a previous post, but it boggles my mind that people are so outraged by scarf ordeal. What did you expect from a company who uses slavery? To actually care about their workers? There have been a number of people who vowed never to shop there again. Good for them, but I’m curious where their head was over the last 10 years? Long story short: Scarf thing should not have garnered this much outrage when compared to their other business practices.

Race Relations Project : Fired for a Scarf

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 03:41:01 +0000

I don’t mean to pick on you Brittany because your anti-Hollister/ Abercrombie and Fitch sentiment are matched by every single blog post that I’ve read so far, but did they do something that bad? In the grand scheme of things, this whole scarf ordeal isn’t that big of a deal. It seems like every single clothing company is using sweat shops these days, however not one single person on this blog as mentioned that. I would think that enslaving people (including children) is far worse than this small bit of religious prosecution. Granted, I would rather this woman still have her job, but as far as human rights violations goes, this isn’t that bad. And for the amount of people getting up and arms about this, but not mentioning any of the other practices of this company is ridiculous. Either people are blind of these companies’ business practices or just over-reacting for the sake of responding to a blog. And the thing is, this issue isn’t even going to be a blip on the radar screen to most people. Hollister and Abercrombie and Fitch aren’t going to lose any business over this. Far too few people care about how they treat this Muslim woman, and these clothing stores main demographic, younger kids, are going to be even more oblivious to this than the rest of the population. For those who are concerned about their practices, I think they will see that this racism is far better than their normal practices. That’s why most people who actually care about human rights violations wouldn’t be seen in these clothes unless they were out of a dumpster or second hand store. That way they know they aren’t adding to the demand of these products. And again, I don’t mean to pick on your post since there has been response after response with the same sentiment as yours, but you said that the reason you stopped shopping there was because of the expensive prices for low quality apparel. That has nothing to do with their cruel practices. I do like your point on how they get the skinniest, best looking girls and guys to work at these places. I know in Manhattan, they have these jacked guys standing outside without their shirt on. And girls are the same way. You were talking about diversity in the end of your post, however I really don’t think they need to show diversity. They just get people to think you need to dress the way these workers dress to look good. Anyway, what they did to this Muslim woman wasn’t fair, however it was barely a big deal when you look at the big picture. They are likely going to lose a small amount of money in a lawsuit, but the money they bring is will be far greater. People are going to shop there regardless—just look at the last few years they have been in business. If people actually cared how they treat humans, they would have been out of business a long time ago.

Race Relations Project : Fired for a Scarf

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 03:00:30 +0000

I’m glad you commented on both of these companies past discriminatory records, because I hadn’t known of those previous instances. I did know of their sweatshop practices though. Either way, the more knowledge we share, the better! A lot of your post echo’s the distress about this company and their racist attitudes similar to many other people on this blog. That being said, though you may not, many people here are going to continue to shop at these stores. The thing is, are there any other places can you shop that don’t have these controversies? A lot of my friends get their clothes out of dumpsters since they believe it doesn’t add to the demand of these practices and I only get my clothes from second hand shops, but for people who want the new, first hand clothes, where can you shop?

Race Relations Project : Native Americans: Question Four

Tue, 2 Mar 2010 04:11:24 +0000

I think that raising awareness is one of the best things we can do. I know you wanted to know on an individual level, and I think that whenever people make a derogatory comment on Native Americans, we can correct them. I also think that getting children to think about them in a different light would make a difference. If we have any children, we should teach them about how we basically killed an entire civilization—we can at least act decent to the ones who are here now. At least help them out so they don’t have such high suicide rates and alcoholism. And I think small changes like starting off with children would certainly help.

Race Relations Project : LGBT Class - Question One

Mon, 1 Mar 2010 06:10:26 +0000

I believe that homosexuals should be able to adopt children, however I hope they would understand that they are going to put their children in an awkward situation throughout their schooling. There are many kids who would make fun of them throughout their childhood. That being said, if these children were not adopted, in many cases, their lives would not be the best situation. Living in an orphanage is no cup of tea and since there are so few parents willing to adopt, putting these children in any home would be better. For that reason, I believe that homosexuals should have the opportunity to adopt children

Race Relations Project : What's With the Theme Parties?

Mon, 1 Mar 2010 05:23:33 +0000

Maybe I’ve only been to what I see as non-racist parties, but when I think of theme parties, I think of Golf pro’s and tennis hoes, CEO’s and corporate hoes, anything by clothes, Jersey shore, highlighter parties, beach parties, underwear parties, Toga parties, and ugly sweater parties. They would be sexist if anything, but not racist(Jersey shore maybe racist towards Italians?). The only party where I would think that it was racist would be a pimps and hoe’s party, but I really don’t think that the creators of that type of party were trying to be racist. There are all sorts of parties out there, mostly revolving around girls wearing as little as possible. Maybe I’m having a selective perception on this one, but I don’t think theme parties are racist at all.