Many American voters don't know where the candidate they vote for stands on certain issues. Even more surprising, many American voters don't even know what party controls Congress, and THEY elected them. Media Malpractice created a video of twelve voters and asked them questions after they voted. Here is the link (you do not need to watch the whole thing, it's ten minutes long):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm1KOBMg1Y8
While the company that made this video is extremely right-wing biased, some good points are brought up here. Our country's voters are very uninformed! This may be because of a lack of caring on the part of the voter, but it's mostly because of the media now days. Most political advertisements are not talking one candidate up over the other, they're talking the other one down! How are voters supposed to know who to vote for if all the candidates do is sling mud? The media is not the only problem.
Here at MHS, Political Science is a required class to graduate. This is not true at many high schools. Some schools don't even offer a civics class at all. No wonder we have uninformed voters. How are voters supposed to vote properly if they don't understand why and how the system works as it does?
In conclusion, my questions for you are this: what are your reactions to the video? Does it's bias make it seem less reliable? Should the government control what goes into political ads and TV and otherwise? Lastly, should civics be a federally-required class to graduate from high school, to make people more informed voters?
The bias makes it so unreliable. It seems like the only goal that the makers of this video have is to have people think of Liberals as uneducated people. Politics in general is such a goofy thing now. Republicans will do something stupid one day, and Democrats will announce their mistakes, but then Democrats will do something just as stupid, and Republicans will announce their mistakes. People won't listen to each other. Everyone is stuck on doing things that will only help their political party. Videos like that should be meaningless, but sadly, people actually listen and watch them.
ReplyDeletePolitical science classes are beneficial to a certain point. I remember I was so fed up with my class, because there were some kids who wouldn't even listen to the facts presented in class by the teacher. It's like they only believed what their parents told them to believe. I feel like there are few people in our generation who have a respectful balanced way of looking at politics. I don't even think that those kids will change. There are some kids who get something out of political science classes though. I know I did. Some people are just too selfish to admit that republicans and or liberals are wrong sometimes. I think political science classes should be everywhere in the country. At least the class educates some people. I don't know. There will always be someone who disagrees, and there will always be someone who agrees. That's how America is, and that's how America has always been. It probably won't change. Bummer. U.S.A! U.S.A!
The video is extremely biased. Instead of picking an actual representative sample of people who voted for Obama, it seems like they specifically picked uninformed people. However, I do know that a lot of people are uninformed, and I believe that if you are going to vote, you should make an informed decision. I do think that ads should be controlled, especially when thinking about the recent election. The advertising was endless, and most of it was not about the REAL issues.
ReplyDeleteI agree that political science should be offered in every high school. The class wasn't my favorite, but I did learn a lot, especially about the importance of becoming informed and doing your own research to form an opinion. Too many people just listen to their parents or friends, and they don't really think that they could be wrong. Political science classes help us to learn both sides of issues and let us think for ourselves.
Beyond the obvious bias of this video, there is an underlying problem. Because let's face it, who wants informed voters? Why would anyone want the general public to know what they are really up to if what they're up to isn't in the best interest of the people? As corruption in politics and the media becomes more and more of a problem, so does the importance to have informed voters. There are some areas in the U.S. that don't even get progressive talk radio. Fox news, a wide-spread and far-right media outlet in the U.S., is run by a man named Rupert Murdoch, who not only has control over The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, and many other media outlets in the U.S., isn't even a U.S. citizen. This obvious bias in the media makes it that more crucial for voters to be informed. I think that the government controlling our political media would be a bad idea because whoever has majority will be the only voice heard. Beyond that we must have Poli-Sci classes, however I believe they need to start at a younger age. In middle school children need to be taught our our political system works, what our rights are, and the repercussions of what certain political movements will do. Not just short-term, but long term.
ReplyDeleteObviously the video is biased, we all know that; an equally pathetic one could have easily been made at a McCain rally. But there is certainly merit to the idea that American voters are among the most apathetic and uninformed in post-industrial democratic nations.
ReplyDeleteCivics classes would certainly help this, and as much as I love the idea that a civics class would be required in every high school in the country, the Republicans would never let that sort of bill pass. If this seems biased, it's honestly not.
Repubicans don't want people to be informed voters. Actually they don't even want people to vote at all. Those citizens who are eligible to vote but don't are largely the poor and the minorities, two overwhelmingly liberal factions of society. If voting was made easier or if these people were encouraged to vote by being required to take a civics class, it would drastically hurt the Republicans' chances of winning an election (why do you think Republicans are trying to require a driver's license to be presented at the booth? Those who have limited access to DMVs are the poor and the minorities. This will hurt those groups' voting numbers.) The idea is to find loopholes in order to disenfranchise the liberal voters. Sad, but true.