Why I'll never be a part of Society--Part 4 (standard:other, 1590 words) [4/4] show all parts
Author: Thunder God	Added: Apr 29 2002	Views/Reads: 2421/1884	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
The fourth in the series, including thoughts on elections, indoctrination within school systems, and religion. Feedback welcome as always.

Well here it is.  I'm back after a little while.  I've in the forum
discussing a lot of issues with everyone.  I have to say that this is a 
unique experience here.  I've really enjoyed every moment of it.  Some 
of you may not have enjoyed having me around so much, but that's okay.  
This might be the last in the series of rants.  I'm seeing a lot of 
agreement from the regulars in the forum.  I don't feel like like I'm 
reaching a lot of new people and frankly, I'm starting to run out of 
material. 

So I'll get started.  In Part 3 I encouraged everyone not to vote, now
here's why:  Voting doesn't work.  Statistics show that less than half 
the populations is registered to vote in national elections and all 
those that are registered don't necesarily vote.  The people that are 
voting are members of the upper and middle classes.  They are people 
with an economic interest in maintaining the status quo in this 
country.  Certainly, if the other half of the population were to vote 
against the elite there could be some change.  There's a problem with 
that.  Who would they vote for?  In order to reach the national level 
of politics a politician must have amassed a fortune.  On top of the 
fortune a politician has the option to recieve government funds, 
although this comes with a limit on a campaign spending, and can also 
receive campaign contributions from lobbyists.  The kind of person that 
has access to this kind of wealth, is someone that comes from a very 
different place than the rest of us.  They've never delt with the kinds 
of problems that the working class has to deal with on a daily basis, 
especially those problems that exist because of a lack of wealth on the 
part of the worker.  How can the rich politician represent and vote on 
legislation that is in the best interest of the worker?  He can't 
because he doesn't know what the interest of the worker is; he's too 
far removed from that social group.  So that's one reason not to vote. 

Here's the problem with the politician once he gets into office.  The
politician won his seat in Congress or as President because of the 
efforts of lobbyists and his own party.  As a result he is expected to 
fufill his duties to these two groups.  He/she must work on legislation 
that these groups are asking for.  If a politician ignores his 
obligation to lobbyists and his party his chances of being reelected 
are slim to none.  Assuming the politician wants another term he has no 
choice but to act in the best interest of lobbyists and his political 
party, rather than working for the working class.  Because of these 
oversights in the political system, we have an entire socioeconomic 
class that has been left out of the government entirely. 

If anyone doubts that their Congressman is not interested in their
problems, I'd like you to try an experiment.  Write to your 
representative, complaining about what you'd like to see happen in the 
government and insist on meeting to discuss how he is going work 
towards those ends.  If you get anything other than a form letter, in 
response I will be amazed. 

Next, briefly, I want to mention the way children are indoctrinated in
schools.  Schools teach an extremely biased world view.  Incidetally, 
our public school system is an extension of the American government, 
altough much more localized.  This government wants to bring up 
children that are content within the poltical process.  They want them 
to be complacent.  There is allowed some room for differing opinions, 
but only regarding superficial problems.  I distinctly remember from 
highschool having to answer a question regarding the morality of the 
bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII.  The question was a part of 
a statewide standardized test that all highschool students had to take 
and pass.  The question was obviously, only supposed to be answered a 
certain way.  Truman did the right thing by killing hundreds of 
thousands of innocents.  In fact it was really the only position we 
explored in class.  I don't think that anyone wrote an essay 
disagreeing with the using the A-bomb.  It would seem to me that the 
schools are not interested in presenting students with varying 
viewpoints on many topics.  English classes are getting better.  They 
are starting to focus on multiculturalism.  They read literature from a 
lot of different areas of the world in the hope that students develope 
a sort of empathy for other viewpoints.  Unfortunately, the lesson 
doesn't extend into other subject areas.  Ultimately, I believe 
strongly in the freedom of the indvidual to choose for him or herself 
what to believe in.  I don't think that raising to children to believe 
in religions and governments without giving them the option to not 
believe is right.  We should present the information in a 


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