A Pen and Paper Do So Much Justice to One's Mind

I love to write. I hope that is obvious to those who view my page on a continuous basis because words can not truly describe how passionate I am about the power that a pen and paper have. While I do tend to write things on a personal level in a journal or elsewhere, I am sometimes assigned to write something for school that is not a research paper. I must admit, I can come up with some wonderful things to write in under 10 minutes and am usually VERY proud of the result. Recently for my American Government course, we were assigned to write a short 2 page paper on citizenship reflection and how we feel about the fact that many people say young citizens are very disengaged with things dealing with politics and what not. I decided to share this paper I wrote with you because I wrote it in about 10 minutes and reading it again today, months after it was assigned and completed, I must say I am very proud of the outcome. So here you are:

To say that young citizens are disengaged from the political system and simply uninterested with issues such as public deliberation, community involvement, volunteerism, and educational values is not necessarily valid. It is especially not valid if you are speaking in general regarding the young population of the United States of America. After all, was it not 21 million voters that showed up at the polls on Election Day that were between the ages of 18 and 29? Is it not MTV, the haven for pop culture on cable TV, that aired continuous commercials in order to get the word out that voting was important among our young citizens, and has most recently been airing commercials to raise awareness on issues such as the prevention of AIDS/HIV and ways to donate and/or help with the tsunami disaster? Why do these things go overlooked by those who make that comment claiming that young citizens are simply disconnected?

To be quite honest, it is completely understandable why some of these things are overlooked, especially by the conservative bunch that makes up much of today’s politics. The same network that has attempted to air more commercials and programs sparking awareness for such life altering situations is also the same network that thrives in its reality shows that depict "young citizens" engaging in sexual intercourse with different partners, hardly ever using condoms or any other contraceptive. From my personal opinion, I feel that the critical concern lies in the mere fact that today’s youth is meant to promise tomorrow’s future. However, much of today’s youth continues to have the same "I’m invincible and I’m fabulous" attitude that has caused the teenage pregnancy and AIDS epidemic stats to rise. This same unvanquishable attitude promises little to nothing on such minuscule matters as taking out the garbage to much greater issues such as graduating high school. Yet these will be our doctors, lawyers, grandchildren’s teacher, perhaps even President. It is definitely an issue to ponder and most definitely attempt to take care of as soon as possible.

While I don’t fully agree with the statement that was made, I definitely understand from what point it was made. However, we must first learn to try and tackle the problem where it is most evident than to just make a generalization that throws an entire generation into the hot seat.