Political Education (09-01-08)

My parents loved to talked politics. Every four years, during the presidential campaigns, my parents would soak it all up. They would debate and argue, theorize and predict, and both would be glued to the television come convention time.

I would like to thank my parents for my political education. Thanks to their love for politics, I consider myself educated in both the workings of government and the dynamics of the modern political campaign.

Earlier in the week, I stopped into a junior high social studies classroom and was pleased to discover that the topic of conversation was current events, and thus the current convention (they would be discussing both). However, I was quickly dismayed. “How many of you watched the speeches last night?” No response. “How many of you know who so and so is?” No response. “How many of you have heard about this or that issue?” No response.

So the education began. The teacher challenged the class to become more politically informed, to watch the news and try to see a speech from the convention. The next day, a few of the students began to raise their hands in response to the teacher’s questions. The day after that, many more could begin to identify the issues, and by Friday over half the class was interested, engaged, and showing some degree of political education.

Now, first, I want to thank our wonderful teachers. I found the discussions to be unbiased and informative. I especially appreciated how the teacher used current events to teach the students about our constitution, branches or government, and the system of checks and balances.

I believe that education is the foundation of our democracy. An uneducated electorate is vulnerable to all sorts of misleading information and political manipulation. Without education, we cannot truly know for whom and for what we are voting. Our voice and our vote become guided by deception rather than by truth.

Democracy only works if the people pay attention. This line of thought led me to realize that political education must not end in the classroom, must not stop once we reach adulthood. More than ever, it is essential for adults to put in some time and effort towards educating themselves about the people who will lead them, and the issues those leaders will decide.

Recently, I have been sent (and I know plenty of other people who have been sent) various emails claiming to have “important information” about the candidates. The emails have been forwarded to me by people I know, love, and respect.

The emails contain all sort of information about a candidate’s life, character, patriotism, and their positions on a range of issues. My parents taught me well, and thus I used the Internet to research the claims. Always, I found the emails to be sprinkled with three things: truths, half-truths, and outright lies.

It is just this sort of scurrilous political manipulation that highlights the importance of being politically educated. And it has never been easier to get the facts. Try this: the next time you receive an email that purports to have “important information” about a candidate, copy (by either cutting and pasting or by typing word for word) the title of the email or a sentence or two from the email into Google (or some other search engine).

Chances are you will be directed to “Snopes.com”, an Internet site dedicated to uncovering email hoaxes. Whether it be Snopes, or some other website, you should be able to find, with relatively little trouble, a line by line diagnosis of whatever email you received.

Again, you will discover that some of the statements are actually statements of fact. Some are simply distortions of facts, quotes taken out of contexts or actions that are misinterpreted. Some information, however, you will discover, are outright lies, designed to manipulate the reader into some pretty strong negative emotions.

Then, before you forward the email on (thereby lending the credibility of your good name), you can delete the half-truths and lies so that the information you pass along is true.

I am not trying to tell you how to vote. I only hope that before you vote, you educate yourself. Next, I encourage you to follow my parents’ example to talk to your kids about what is going on in the world. Political education is a life long endeavor, and in my perspective, it has never been more vital for the health of our democracy