With the election only a short 10 days away, it still amazes me how little people know. Not just about the candidates, but about government in general. This is one case where I don't entirely blame people. Sure it is up to every person to take a sincere interest in the way government works, but if you don't want to there's nothing anyone can do to make you. But, they can make you learn about it in school. I think the last time we learned about government was in 8th grade. I was 13. I couldn't vote for another 5 years. Why on earth was that the last time they tried to teach me about government.
You know what I was doing when I was 13? Playing Magic: The Gathering. It's absurd to think that I would pay enough attention to retain all that information years later when it was my time to vote. Why do I even need to know that in 8th grade? Not that I am opposed to teaching government at an early age. I think the early you start doing it the better. But it's not really as simple as addition. It should be taught early and then built upon for years in high school and then really focused on wen you are 17 or 18. Senior year of high school should be spent talking about lobbyists and special interests and where money is spent and how to figure out which candidate is right for you. You can't expect to learn everything you need to know about voting just by listening to a couple people argue about issues for a few months. I need to know where money is going and why I should vote a certain way on a certain issue. For as little as America knows about the rest of the world, we also don't know anything about our own country. We are a nation filled with people who just don't care and even worse, are allowed to vote based on nothing.
Sure voting is a right, but it should be treated as a privilege. People should not be allowed to vote based on some inherited view of politics for what their uncle or some random person thinks. It should be based on your own principals and thoughts. I know too many people who are voting for Obama but have no idea why. They say they want change but don't know which Bush policies they want changed. They'll say, "I like his ideas on health care," but have no idea what those ideas are. I have made it a point over the last year to involve myself in this election and learn all I can about the candidates. It started before the primaries and I made a serious effort to learn about every democratic candidate I could. Unfortunately Michigan didn't have a Primary so my effort was somewhat fruitless. But the point is that I still don't know everything I should. I can't imagine trying to jump in this late and decide.
To nutshell a little bit, I think people are idiots and many don't deserve to vote or don't know enough to. Also, I'm scared McCain might win. I'm out. Go big or go home.
-M, p, z & shredder
2 comments:
Mr. Blow's Civics class didn't do it for you?! Hahaha. Actually, maybe you had Mr. Jones...
I think that part of the problem is that, unlike GH, some schools teach kids how to educate themselves on an issue, to question what they are told, what constitutes proof, how to assess whether a source of information is legitimate, etc...some combination of critical thinking and the scientific method. Look, not everyone in the world is smart, but if we were all capable of doing that to the best of our intellectual abilities, I genuinely believe the world could be a better place.
typo: some schools don't teach that type of thinking...
Post a Comment