The reason for this is the way History is taught in our schools. With a few exceptions, it is incredibly boring. Children don't learn about how radical the ideas of the founding fathers were. They don't learn that, by signing the Declaration of Independence those men were signing a death warrant for themselves if the King's men ever got their hands on them.
Children don't learn the real reason for the original Boston Tea Party: Taxation Without Representation. I know I heard that phrase when I was younger, but I still thought people poured the tea into the harbor because they didn't want to pay any taxes at all. That is a major issue in perception. It turns the Boston Tea Party from citizens demanding their rights in governance into a bunch of lawless rabble-rousers. Children don't learn any of this because all they are taught are long, boring words from a textbook. They are not given any context, in today's words and perspectives, how the events that have shaped our American history would have been viewed at the time. Because of this, American children aren't really learning history.
Some people might say, “we don't need to know every fact of American History. It is all in the textbooks and online and we can look it up whenever we need to.” To me, this is sad. Attitudes like this are incredibly prevalent among the younger generations of our country and it is causing a real problem: Americans don't know what we are fighting for anymore, so they aren't fighting at all. I don't mean “fighting” like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, though those wars are definitely relevant. I mean fighting a moral battle to keep The United States of America strong and prosperous.
As a result of our poor education in history, the young people of our country have come to take our rights and freedoms for granted, and to not understand that these blessings don't just inherently manifest themselves on all Americans everywhere. Since we don't understand the value of our system of government, we have become increasingly apathetic towards it. We put it in other people's hands with little thought and leave it to them to run things for us.
What happens when we leave it to them to run things for us
We don't know much or care much about politics and how government works, because we were completely turned off by how boring it all was in school.
Americans have had a very successful system of government, so far, because of thought, effort, and care put in by our country's leaders who knew they were accountable to the American people. Now, Americans run a great chance of losing that form of government (and freedom), so carefully and prayerfully thought out and protected since its origination, simply because we can't remember our history. We let corruption run rampant through offices that should be held with respect and decency simply because we did not care to look at all at what was happening. However, there is hope for us yet.
Despite America's love of having a hero to be able to worship and praise, our hope is not one person. Our hope lies in many people. It lies in all the people who are finally waking up from our stupor of years and calling for rightness in our leaders. It does not even matter that there are different ideas of what is right. What matters is that the American people are caring about it, starting to think for themselves what they feel is right, and are demanding that representation in Washington, D.C. Where before there were masses willing to be told by their representatives what is right, now there are masses telling their representatives what is right. Not only are the people saying that, they are also telling their reps that if the people aren't being listened to, the reps will be replaced. Bye-bye nice cushy job in Washington, with lobbyists wooing you, and being able to pass every bit of legislation in your own personal favor.
Perhaps my perspective is a little bit different from yours. Perhaps you don't see any of the changes that I do. That would not be surprising, really, because I am a college student. I go to school with the same people day-in and day-out, and we all think pretty similarly because, well, we are all being educated at the same place. But a few internet searches will tell you that I am really not far off-base. There are people now who are taking the time to learn the important lessons of history that we failed to learn, for one reason or another, in public schools. If you are like me, you may feel like there has been A LOT going wrong with the United States of America and its government lately. However, my years spent in higher education have been invaluable to me for more than my (eventual) degree. They have taught me that there is a change in the wind. Hollywood may be trying to convince us all that we have no morals left, and Washington may be the prime example for their argument, but I don't believe that is true. Many of the people I go to school with and many of the people I am taught by don't believe it either. I believe that the “average Joe or Jane” American has a value system and lives by it. Clearly they are not all the same, but that is not what matters. What matters is that we, the people, have not forsaken our morals, and we demand that our government does not either. We know that there is a difference between right and wrong, now we just have to educate ourselves about what that difference is. We need to re-learn our history lessons so we can be familiar with what our country means to us and what must be done to keep it healthy, prosperous, and free.
Where I think you are wrong, Alyssa, is your expression that the "people" are promising to "replace" the representatives if they don't do their will.
ReplyDeleteThat all sounds well and good - and is an idea that, if truly followed, I would support - but in practice the threat is really coming from the Tea Party types who are complaining against Democratic leadership they never would have supported threatening to replace them with Republican leadership. And we know how those 8 years of Bush turned out.
Republicans and Democrats are two sides of the same coin. Until people realize that, there will be no change or reform.
As Michael Moore put it, the problem we have now in this country is a vote between "the evil of two lessers."
And the really sad thing is that even those who think they are educated are not educated enough! You hear people ranting about following the Constitution, but they don't eve know what that means. You hear people claiming the Founding Fathers were hardline conservatives when they don't even understand the passionate debate between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans (now how's that for an oxymoron in today's world?). They claim Thomas Jefferson as their hero, failing to understand that it was Jefferson who first advocated the separation of church and state and who claimed no religious affiliation other than to say his religion was his own. The list goes on and on.
It's not enough to be able to spout out sound bites about America like Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin; one must be knowledgeable about what they are speaking. People rant against "socialism" but couldn't define it for you if you asked them. People rant against "gay marriage" but can't enunciate why they oppose it other than to say "it's wrong". People rant against "Islamic Terrorists" without being able to even find Iraq or Afghanistan on a map. And the list goes on.
I guess I could summarize all of this with this simple line: Few Americans know anything about anything, but they all have an opinion on it.