Should the voting age be raised?

The other day I was having a political discussion with some younger people (early twenty-ish) and it really scared me. One of them made the comment that they were voting for President Obama because “the other guy wants to take away a woman’s right to contraception.”

Huh? Seriously? Where do these kinds of thoughts originate from?

Mind you this is the first year they are eligible to vote in a presidential election and this was their reason.

After a few minutes spent educating the young lad, I watched as the discussion switched back and forth between texting and half paying attention. Clearly internet photos and jokes rank equally with discussing the election of the leader of the free world. It did not take long to watch as their eyes glazed over and the discussion came to an end.

I walked away realizing that this was not an isolated case. I wondered how long this has been going on. Do you remember the TV show “Family Ties” with Michael J. Fox? It was a sitcom back in the 80’s. Fox’s character was a Republican in an otherwise left leaning family. Mom and Dad were hippies from the 60’s who were members of the Peace Corps, and dad was currently employed with a PBS station. It was funny, because it interjected a strong republican twist and was so opposite what was, and apparently still is, the normal for Hollywood.

But this creates a considerable dilemma for us as Americans.

Who really is educating our children?

Where are they getting their information from?

We as parents have abdicated our roles. The reasons are as varied as we are: hectic lives, apathy, dependence on the school system, etc. We must however come to terms that if it is not us doing it, someone will fill that void.

Our children are like raccoons, they love shiny shit. Look at the lines that wrap around city streets for the latest video game, phone, etc. it doesn’t matter the weather, time of year. They’ll build shelters in the snow just to be at the front of the line for the latest release.

They can spout off at length about the technological advancements regarding the latest phone or gaming system. Yet, if you asked them to explain what bicameralism was they’d probably say it was a new HD movie camera.  

To put it as succinctly as possible, kids today are lost when it comes to politics. They believe and repeat what they are being taught. The question is who is doing the teaching.

As parents, we must realize that we are not cool. We do not have the standing of a celebrity, musician, or for that matter the un-celebrity. Un-celebrities are, as I have come to define, people who have done nothing in their life but, somehow in some weird twist of fate, they have made a celebrity career out of, well, nothingness. It is bad enough when these diminished luminaries spout off about issues, but what’s worse is when they degenerate it to the level of vicious personal attacks. During this election cycle I am astounded by the lack of viciousness spewing forth from left.

The other day I read a large series of tweets that spoke only about how they either were or wanted to “key” cars with Romney bumper stickers. These “kids” were admitting to damaging or wanting to damage other people’s property simply because they disagreed with their political choices. Another series of tweets dealt with the destruction of, or defecation on, lawn signs.

It seems that when it comes down to what is important in our children’s lives, legalizing marijuana and lowering the drinking age has the highest priority.

When did this become acceptable behavior in America?  

These are kids, who in many instances cannot even vote. There was a report about a 15 year old kid being investigated by the Secret Service because he had tweeted that he wanted to kill Romney.

Honestly, what do you think this kid knows? Who is teaching him this?

Each and every day we send out kids off to schools and we think they are safe.

But are they?

Our kids are being spoon-fed political pabulum in schools and we wonder why we have given rise to a social class of entitlement children?

We used to send our kids to school confident that they would get an education that would prepare them for the real world. Now we have to seriously question whether the education they are getting is preparing them to mold the world to their liking.

I remember being at the demonstrations after the start of the Iraq war. The protesters, mostly college kids, would chant about “no war for oil.” I said back then and I stand by it today, if the best you could do was chant that we went to war only to get oil, go back to your college and demand a refund of your tuition.

But what has changed since that time? Nothing! Now we have the “Occupy Wall Street” movement. Again our kids, even younger now, are being taught that capitalism is bad, and that corporate greed is responsible for everything wrong in this country.

And during it all, these “peace loving” people, do their best to destroy whatever they want. If you stand against them, you are vilified.

The sad truth is that we, as Americans, were always on the look out for a danger coming at us from the exterior. The hard truth is that the danger came from within and was in reality ourselves. Years of apathy led to where we are at today. They recognized that we would always come together against a common enemy, so they took a different approach. They identified the most vulnerable, and they focused on them.  In the same way a pack chases down the slowest and weakest.

Our children were fair game. Their influence came from agenda driven teachers, actors, musicians, and media. They had time on their hands and they played it well. Each new generation was like a force multiplier for the next. They moved out and preached their new found political principals to the next.

And one day we woke up and realized we were the enemy.

The old fashioned notions of hard work, personal responsibility, and tenacity died on the altar of entitlements.

What happened to that message, delivered on Inauguration Day 1961, in which President John F. Kennedy said "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

Sadly our children have lost their way. They were taught that style means more than substance; that electing someone, based solely on popularity, takes precedence over capability; that we should lower standards to include everyone instead of helping others to rise above their circumstances.

I’m not sure how we repair this. Like everything else it didn’t occur overnight and there is no easy fix.

I had thought about whether it might not be a bad idea to raise the voting age, wait until they had made their way in the world and learned the value of hard work and responsibility. Then I thought about our young men and women in the armed forces and what they have had to learn the hard way. It reminded me that I was just looking for the easy solution, lowering standards instead of requiring higher ones.

In the end, maybe it is our generation that has to do the hard work. To finally take back responsibility for the children we have brought into this world. To actually put in the hard work required of being a parent.

Will it make things better? I don’t know. But I would rather teach my children and have them reject it, based on what they have researched for themselves, then to abdicate my job to the likes of Ashton Kutcher, Snoop Dogg, Kim Kardashian and the talking heads over at MSNBC.

In 1974 President Gerald Ford made the following statement to a join session of Congress: "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”

Whether you call it welfare reform, providing for the poor, or simply redistribution of wealth, it all remains the same: a government who will care for you, as they deem necessary. We are heading in this direction, all for the “collective” good.

In the end, I pray that we wake up from our slumber and teach our children the important lessons before it is too late.