Originally Posted by Cyrano
It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.-Mark Twain
You can't wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.
The only problem I can really find with it is the idea that "we" have to do <something> because "we love our country so much". If "we" drop out of school then "we let our country down". I think the idea of true freedom is that if you want to waste your life away, you may... just as you're free to feel however you do or want to about your country. You're free to do that just as you're free to do anything else, including deciding you don't care about education and that your way is better for you. Of course, if you waste your life away then the person you're "letting down" the most is probably yourself. But everyone has their struggles... even those "wasting their lives away"... and really the only one who can determine if it's a waste is oneself.
However, this kind of "togetherness" feeling isn't really isolated to Obama, and comes out frequently in politics it seems. Since nowhere directly does he seem to really be undermining anyone's autonomy I can't really be concerned, only slightly uneasy (and it might be similar if it were JFK or Carter even). Basically, he's just trying to motivate people to do their best in school... and I don't disagree with that. And I've also heard similar things when I was going through school. It bothers me I guess in the same way that everyone being required to say the Pledge each morning bothered me. A feeling of if someone really had their way they would force everyone into a collective where we are "required" to feel certain ways about certain things or at least lie that we do... but they can't have their way... and it probably wouldn't even go that far if they did. So it doesn't matter. As long as I have the freedom to avoid it, then I can return to not really caring (within the limits of reason).
when he was like, 'hey you should really pursue an education in your lifetime, kiddos,' i was like WTF? socialist propaganda.
asd
One of the points of the American government having checks and balances was so that people who don't give a shit about politics can go about their lives doing what they want, without having to worry about their rights being infringed by the government. It was Lincoln who undermined these rights by denying the states' rights to secede from the union. If the sole interpreter of the constitutional contract is the federal government, then there no longer exist checks and balances (the so-called checks in the federal government itself aren't real). This is why we have presidents who are indifferent to the Constitution.
Also, this beta political habit of trying to jolt people into action is both improper and largely ineffective in America, thanks to our (sometimes dormant) paranoia of taxation and government expansion.
I also believe that the President should inspire the people, but in things that are relevant to his/her position. Personally, it makes me cringe when politicians appeal to children and hold babies to demonstrate their "soft" side, or things of that matter :/. But then again, you still have to appeal to Joe & Joelina Schmoe who are watching tv and are deciding on who to vote for.
To me this is not an issue about Republican vs Democrat, though I bet the majority of people who are angry about it are probably Republican. He should have known better than to make such an address to children, in a way that encroaches on "parent" territory. The fact is that this type of thing raises red flags to people who come from a socialist country, or simply have an understanding of its evolution, where the image of the government leader is that of a parent. Of course, other presidents might have done the same thing before, but considering how people rumor about Obama's ideologies, it surprises me that he would take this risk.
I agree.
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