When I first started reading my classmate's blog about a political blooper, my immediate first though was "Awesome, another rambling student complaining about our national nominees because of a simple slip-up." However as I read on I was pleased to read that this wasn't simply about political blunders or debate bloopers, but rather the impression that these people are making as our leaders.
So Santorum made a live TV oopsie, big deal. But when we look at the big picture of all of these "oopsies" played out by our soon-to-be leaders, I'm left in awe at the stupidity of some of these people. Apparently Obama thinks that there's 57 states in the United States. Apperantly Dan Quale believes that Pheonix is in California. I understand that when giving a speech, these men are under a load of pressure. They are given long scripts and are expected to read them with accuracy. I get it, mistakes happen.
However, when other countries start making fun of your own country because your political leader can't speak proper grammar on live television, you become the laughing stock of the world. It is at this point, that we must take a look at who we are allowing to run our country and reconsider the situation.
This student gives some great ideas on how we can help fight this stupidity that seems to be leading our nation into an unfair game of dodgeball, in which we are the nerds, targets of comedy in the eyes of more literate countries. Just as others have suggested, he suggests that we implement government participation, "a civil service to ensure our continued prosperity." He points out that we currently pay Congress hearty salaries for a few weeks or work out of the year in which they seem to make little progress. Those salaries need to be reduced, and the duties should be placed partially in the hands of the citizens. I agree that we need common men, who are part of our local communities to bring some down-to-earth knowledge to the political arena. This student isn't just encouraging us to vote because our votes matter, he's encouraging us to vote for the sake of our nation. We can't leave it all up to the politicians, who have a hard time remembering the number of the states in this nation. I agree, we need to take some initiative to ensure that our country stays successful.
About Me
- Lee Bailey Bradshaw
- I've lived in this country for 21 years and I probably can't tell you much about the fundamentals of my own national government. It seems that despite my years of experience, I managed to look past the importance of government and the impact that it has on my life every day. Thus, here I am, registered for this Government class, desperately hoping for both an A and a better understanding for how my country is governed. You know, maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself. I scored a 69% on my Civics Quiz. The preface to the quiz stated that most students scored an average of 50%, so at least I did better than the average. I found it disturbing that the preface also stated that college professors scored an average of 55% on the test. These are the people teaching us! No wonder we score so low! In leu of this information, I hope that this class will allow us to reach higher than the pitiful average of the 50% mark. Currently I would consider myself a Republican, however, I'm taking on this political standpoint by inheritance. Although I want to think that I understand what its is to be Republican and why I choose to be one, my idea of this political view is probably very askew.
You made a few great points about my article, even a few that I hadn't really considered when writing. Though I fear you may have misunderstood me on some fundamental points, and the fault lies with me for sacrificing clarity to achieve better literary flow. Mostly what I was hoping you would take away from this, is the fact that we as citizens are equally qualified, if not more so, to handle the pressures of office, than those who have been targeted by big business and formally groomed to fill these positions. Also it was about the dangers of career politicians, who are, at best, disconnected from reality or, at worst, outright crooks. Also, the analogy to dodgeball was meant to allude to our current socio-political environment in the US, with the bullies as a reference to big business and career politicians, while the nerds are meant to describe the other 99%. In the end, this article was meant to inspire normal people to run for office, because lets face it, your vote, statistically, really doesn't matter, but your time in office could cause significant change.
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