The Mis-Education of America

Back in fall of 2009, over the course of a month, 3 people who do not know each other told me to read "The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin. So I did. I wrote this the next day.

As college students, we are entering the final stages of our education. We are in the greatest time of our lives while our country, America, is in its greatest turmoil. It is indeed the best of times and the worst of times. This turmoil is not the recession, terrorism, or healthcare. This turmoil is ignorance. America is drowning in a deep, dark, and devastating sea of ignorance. College students must serve as lifeguards rescuing America from the murky waters of ignorance, which are stifling the breath of our nation: liberty.

Education is the primary weapon against ignorance. Sadly, the current healthcare debate has revealed ignorance is a weapon of mass destruction in the mental arsenal of many Americans. We continually hear older people say they want their country back. It is time young people move our country forward.

We must do this by asking the questions which need to be asked. How are politicians, Democrat and Republican, accepting money from health insurance companies making America a better republic? How does blowing up children and maiming innocent people in Afghanistan make us safer in America?

What our parents, politicians, and business leaders do is their responsibility. What we do is our responsibility. It is our responsibility to be the light America sorely needs. America is dying a slow painful death, but this death is not because we are an evil country. It is because we are a spineless country, unwilling to fight for what is right and for what is true.

Our grandparents fought on the frontlines of the Civil Rights Movement. Our parents fought against the immorality and unrighteousness of the Vietnam War. What cause shall we fight for in our generation? What cause are YOU willing to die for? Those questions are not to be taken lightly.

So let us forget everything our parents, teachers, and religious leaders taught us as children. Let us give serious and assiduous thought to liberty, democracy, and capitalism based on our own experiences. Based on those experiences, we will come to know what is right and what is true. Once we collectively have this truth, we must fight for it. The alternative is death.