"The strength of the United States is not the gold at Fort Knox or the weapons of mass destruction that we have, but the sum total of the education and the character of our people."
US Democratic politician (1918 - )
On September 3rd, President Obama announced that he would be giving a speech to school students to welcome them back to school. This however was not how it was taken by many people. Almost immediately after he announced this conservatives were already reacting with either "sure, ok" or "NO! He’s trying to indoctrinate our kids!" ... Well, although I am a conservative thinker I don’t necessarily think this was his intended plan.
in⋅doc⋅tri⋅nate
1. to instruct in a doctrine, principle, ideology, etc., esp. to imbue with a specific partisan or biased belief or point of view.*
2. to teach or inculcate.
3. to imbue with learning.
*emphasis added
Synonyms:
1. brainwash, propagandize.
“indoctrination." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 10 Sep. 2009.
Now this is the dictionary definition of indoctrinate- although this may be what people (particularly far-righters) are claiming he was trying to do I don't think he was trying to “brainwash” the children of America. However, I did listen to some of the speech and I did notice some things… Before you jump to conclusions let me explain- I had already heard all the controversy and knew what some people were expecting, with this in mind I tried to listen openly and think about everything that he was saying. Since he was intending to make it casual and smooth, just a pep talk, it would be easy to not notice anything. However, when I was listening to this speech I noticed he talked a lot about striving to do well to support your country, that your education is the future of this country. This may be true, but we don't live for our country. This country was made to serve the people. The view that we all put everything we have back into our country is the socialist view of nationalism. Now I'm definately not saying that Obama was trying to make the kids all nationalists and that he was trying to brainwash them, because its true- however far we take our education is as far as our country will go, but we don't live for our country- we live for the ideals and morals and vaues that our country represents: liberty, justice, equality, independance, etc... But we don't live to gratify the state.
I believe that we live in an amzing country, a country founded on the principles and ideas that all men are created equal, where justice is upheld as best as we can at all costs, and where we live by our personal freedoms. We believe in second chances and we accept all that we live among.
Is there a better nation? I don't think so.
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free." Ronald Reagan
40th president of US (1911 - 2004)
~K.C.
No comments:
Post a Comment