Certainly, it is important that people know how many senators and congressmen each state has. It is also important to be aware of such cases as Roe vs. Wade. But it’s also important to pay attention to the issues that would affect them specifically. How about our ever failing economy, the Iraq war, our dwindling civil liberties, rising costs of gas and products? I could go on and on.
We could perhaps place blame on our failing education system for not educating our youth enough to answer your questions. Or perhaps you edited the piece to make it sound like the youth of America are complete idiots. According to Andy Bernstein, not only did you edit the piece, but the producer of the piece didn’t even know the answer to one of the questions he posed. Bernstein said of the incident:
When the camera crew began an afternoon of shooting these interviews, something pretty funny happened. The producer, Harvard graduate Andrew Sullivan, read a list of questions from a piece of paper – “How many states are there? Who is the vice president? How many Senators are there? What is Roe v. Wade?” The first interviewee answered some correctly, some incorrectly. Sullivan then came to the next question on his list – how many years a member of the U.S. House of Representatives serves in each term. The interviewee answered “two.” Sullivan, with a smug smile, said “No, it’s actually four.”
“Uhm,” I said uncomfortably. “It’s two.” He shook his head no, insisting it’s four. Was this really happening? I mean, were we actually going to debate this? One of our volunteers went to his Blackberry to verify, but that was farcical in itself. The answer was obviously two and has been since the birth of our country. The fact that an ABC producer was reading off a sheet of questions and had it wrong was just – well comedy and tragedy all at once. We corrected him and moved on. According to Stossel’s argument, Sullivan should not vote (we respectfully disagree).
I think it’s VERY elitist to say that if you aren’t aware of every Senator or Supreme Court case that you shouldn’t be able to vote. If that were the case we wouldn’t have that many people actually able to go to the polls and this includes the ENTIRE eligible voting population. It’s also discriminatory to say it’s our civic duty not to vote. Because as you may or may not recall several groups of people had to fight for the right to vote — several groups that is, except old white guys like you.
Do you recall the three-fifths compromise? The women’s sufferage movement? What about when the voting age was lowered to 18? That’s right Mr. Stossel, it’s okay for the youth to work at McDonald’s and serve you Big Macs, it’s also the civic duty of the youth of America to go fight in our wars and defend our country — but they should NOT participate in the democracy they are fighting to uphold?
Shame on you John Stossel and shame on you ABC.
And for the youth of America — you failed as a group to take much notice in the elections in 2000 and 2004 — and look how much we haven’t accomplished. So please, use this as a reason to sit up and take notice — but make sure you also tell it like it is on November 4th.
7 Responses
Excellent points…I watched this interview online and was appalled. John Stossel is such a conservative, right wing hack and I bet at the beginning of the story he couldn’t answer all the questions. We need a leader that inspires and it looks like we will have a filibuster proof congress too 🙂 Then we will actually see what liberals can do with the country…my hopes are high..BaRock the vote!
Anybody who tells you not to vote is a Republican.
VOTE!
That piece was the farthest thing from objective. They obviously ran the 5 worst answers of however many dozens of people they interviewed to paint a whole community as ignorant and unworthy of voting. Me and my faux-magical crystal will be at the booth come November, and regardless of what 20/20 thinks, I’ll be making my decisions based on having done the research. Great article!
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