Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Left or Right?

I don't and never have considered myself to be an overly political person. I think that it is beyond ridiculous that if you call yourself a republican that you automatically agree with every other republican, that you all have the same views, and that you all have the same priorities and values. Vice versa with democrats. I call myself neither a republican nor a democrat but more of a centrist with left leanings. This may be considered odd by some because we're a military family but that's just how I am. My dad, however, would be appalled because he's very much a conservative, heheh.

I've also never been one to agree with people or ideas because of trends or because something is the "popular" choice. I make up my own mind based on facts that I can see for myself and not blindly believe what other people tell me. I like to think that I make informed decisions.

All that being said, I'm going out on a shaky limb to say the following about the President's address to students.

I've read the text of the speech myself and I don't have a problem with it and the message it is conveying: Stay in school, achieve your goals, get your diploma. What made me angry in the beginning is that the whole thing was made out to be like the President was using this speech as a method to push his agenda on our kids. Turns out, in all honesty, that that wasn't the case. I think the Whitehouse should be blamed for not presenting the speech for what it was correctly from the get go. What REALLY made me angry is that on Friday, I called my daughter's school and asked if the student's would be watching the speech today in classes. This was before the text of the speech was available to be read beforehand. I was informed that they would be recording the broadcast to show at a later date after sending home permission slips to parents first. I found out today that that wasn't, in fact, the case and that they were showing the broadcast as they deemed it appropriate to the curriculum for the day. I feel like I was lied to or at the very least, misled. In the end, I would have been angry if the Whitehouse had intended to broadcast the speech without allowing parents and educators to read the text first and know ahead of time what they were exposing the children to. In my opinion, it is the only responsible thing for parents and teachers to do, to know the materials that their kids are reading and watching before the kids actually read and/or watch it. They, and I, would do the same thing with any movie.

It also ticks me off that parents who agree with me are automatically labled as being eccentric conservatives or unpatriotic or conspiracy theorists. That kind of thinking says to me that people think that because I choose to be involved with my children's education and because I care what kinds of media that they are exposed to, that this makes me a crazy parent. I think it makes me a responsible parent and I don't defend my point of view.

Does all this make me more of a republican, fanatical conservative? I don't think so but I do think that it should be beside the point altogether. First and foremost, I'm a parent and then I'm a concerned, informed citizen. I think everyone, lefties and righties, need to get a grip.

6 comments:

  1. You're not crazy. What is crazy is that people would automatically assume that a speech for children would e politically charged. And it is not unheard of to want to watch something before it is viewed by your children. I think it is a reasonable request. Political parties are so unappealing. I think we should totally do away with them. And people could think for them selves.

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  2. So, if your opinion is that I'm not crazy, then if I am, you must be too. LOL!!

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  3. Anonymous9:47 AM

    Hmmm....I like the idea of doing away with the political parties altogether. I think the country would be chaos because then people would be forced to think for themselves.

    The problem is parents who don't care about what their children are reading or watching. Your child = your responsibility. It's part of being a parent. If you can't handle it then you shouldn't have kids.

    For the record I didn't see the "political agenda" behind the message. They didn't broadcast it in the schools here (big surprise) but it's on their website so you can show your kids if you want. Guess they think they're doing the right thing by giving parents a choice. Whatever.

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  4. Dana~~I agree with you that no political parties would probably end up being a bad thing. God forbid people should have to think for themselves.

    I didn't see anything wrong in the speech either. Seems like everyone made a huge deal over nothing.

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  5. I couldn't figure out what everyone was getting in "tizz" about the whole speech. Other presidents have addressed children and I don't remmeber there ever being as much riot of it. We just watched because it was the President.

    I actually heard someone say that they weren't going to let their child watch the speech because Obama was the devil. Then again, I live in a state where it's primarly conservative so I hear stuff like this all the time. I tend to be more left leaning (my dad would vomit if he knew) so it's hard to hear certain comments and most are false statements that most are simply repeating because they heard it from conservative talk radio or something.

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  6. Pam~~I read similar comments in news articles and heard them in news interviews too. While I think that may be a bit extreme, I also think it's the prerogative of the parent if that's how they feel.

    I know that I had to be in school when Regan and Bush made their speeches to kids but for the life of me, I can't remember it at all.

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