Brave New World #1

This World State Society reminds me if a different world such as one I read of in The Giver. It seems as though the government controls what they have as a caste system. Each person who is made has a certain place in society that they will serve. Some of the people who are made have figured out that there is more to the world around them than what is put into their brain by the government. I found a connection between knowing the truth and being happy in something we have discussed before. Plato talks about people who live in a cave and are not shown light, but then some of those people are allowed to venture into the light and experience the world. Once they are put back in the cave, they see what they were missing so they miss it. They can try to explain to the others what it was like, but the explanation is nothing like the experience. When people don’t know they can live a better life they are perfectly content with it, but when they know something better is out there they want it more and more because they know the truth. I think that soma is something that resembles a drug or alcohol. It seems to make the people happier and give them a release from the world around them.

Healthcare

It's hard to believe that in other countries the health care systems seem so easy and carefree as Sicko showed. The whole time we were watching it I was thinking of how badly i want to move to one of those countries in fear of something bad happening to me here in the United States and not being able to afford it. What Sicko didn't inform me on was the waiting lists they have in those countries. In Dead Meat it talks about the wait Canadians must go through to get in to see a doctor because they have a national health care system. Canadians interviewed said it it nice that it's free, but the waiting lists are sometimes life and death situations and the quality of care is not top of the line. According to the article, the U.S. is the second best nation in quality of health care. In Dead Meat i though the analogy of the veterinary clinics was a good point. Having a tremendous amount and specialty clinics drove down the cost and many clinics gave special benefits because each is trying to compete for customers. If only we could translate that into the American health care system. I don't understand everything on health care, I just know we definitely need a change.

"Machiavelli and the Mullahs"

Rusin is trying to get the point across that if the leaders of the nations would read Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince, the world would be a better place. If Bush would have followed his advice, he would understand that "some conflicts are inevitable." He needed to tackle the problems we started having with the Middle Eastern countries instead of ignoring them and hoping they would get better on their own. We need to instill fear in those Islamic nations because having "security in being feared" is more important than being loved. We went back on our word from threatening Iran with our power and saying we were going to do something. Taking action against them will instill the fear we need from them. As was said in the book about only trusting those troops of your own nation to have the motivation, Bush used local Afghan fighters to fight against Al Qaeda. We can only trust ourselves to take care of the things we need to get done. We should have been preparing during peaceful time so that we could have eliminated the danger we are in and problems we are having now.