I am your boss, Mr. President. You work for me, not the other way around. If I have a question for you, it is your duty as an "elected leader" to answer it. If I tell you I want something changed, it is your job to see to it that all sides of the issue are studied and the best resolution for America and her people is enacted. If I have a grievence against one of your policies, it is your obligation to listen to those grievences and consider them. You work for me and the rest of the American people. It's too bad most Americans and yourself have forgotten this.
More beyond the flip...
Why has America forgotten this? Why do the American people not know that the Government of the United States of America is a Government "By the people and for the People"?
I was in high school not too long ago, I graduated in May of 2002, and I remember well the way American Government was taught. I remember my teacher handing packets out to my class, detailing what it "meant" to be a Republican, Democrat, or Independent. I remember having to take a rediculous little quiz that supposidly told us where we stood on the political spectrum. This took all of a week. The rest of the semester I was in that class, we learned how to interperate political chartoons and newspaper articals. Not what I was anticipating when I walked through the door that first day. To say I was quickly disenchanted with the public educational system is a gross understatement.
It wasn't until my sophmore year of college, when I took government again that I finnaly found the education I was mentaly prepared for two years prior. I learned, in exacting detail, the small beginings of our government, the party system that emerged, the leaders and details of their careers, and how the whole system was entended to work. Why did I have to wait that long? Sure, I already knew a lot on how the government worked and why it was designed the way it was. But then again, I am an avid reader, I had taught myself. What about all those people that don't learn on their own, that don't go to college or aren't lucky enough to find themselves in such a comprehensive class? What happens to them? Simple, they live in a dangerous ignorance, believing that whatever the elected leaders do and say must be right.
So what to do? Comprehensive government and American history classes should start early, in grade school. Every year, the teachers should have to expand and go into even more detail than the teacher in the grade before them. Make the classes suitable to what the mind of that age can process, but be as thourough as possible for that age. By high school, students should be able to discuss politics and current events with great understanding and knowledge at the dinner table with their parents. They should be aware of the beauty and importance our system of government holds. They should be aware that they, as one voice, do matter. By the end of their high school careers, they should, if taught well, have a passion for participating in the political process.
Perhaps I an envisioning the impossible, but I don't truly think so. The American people, the voters, do not have to be ignorant. They don't have to be confused, uninformed, uncaring. Perhaps if the American people truly understood and valued what our Founding Fathers did all those years ago, we would not be in the mess we are in today. To me, our system of Government can only function the way it was intended with an educated public.
Update: I am so excited that so many kossaks understand the value of a great education. As a commentor pointed out, parents owe it to their children to instill respect and zeal for the political process. Thank you to all of you for your overwhelming responce. I truly expected to get maybe one or two hits. Thank you.