So I am watching the speech from Obama to the kids on the importance of education. And I am waiting on him to do something controversial. Because clearly that must be the reason why so many parents are not supporting having their kids talked to by President Obama.
Maybe it was leaked somewhere that this was really a ploy to tell kids why health care reform was good and their parents were evil if they didn’t support it.
Maybe he hinted that he was going to provide a website so that all children could sign up to be Young Democrats.
Maybe he had put into his speech a one-liner – “SOCIALISM FOREVER, Supreme Ruler of the Socialized States of America is in the building!”
But when it was all said and done, in a short speech at that, Obama encouraged students:
1) to be responsible for their education
2) to understand that the path to their dreams is through hard work and dedication
3) that even the most successful people fail and realistically everything is not sunshine and happiness.
4) that although everyone’s circumstances are different, using your circumstances as an excuse is even more crippling.
5) That giving up on your education is unpatriotic.
So after this speech, I am like, what is the deal?
Fact. There have been presidents before Obama that have addressed the kids or the nation on a topic or issue.
Fact. Education is important.
After listening to this speech, I thought to myself, this was so non-partisan that this address could have come from anybody. The significance of it coming from the President of the United States just added symbolic importance to the matter. In fact a friend of mine pointed out these ideals were typically conservative in nature – you know – if you just work hard and dedicate yourself, all things will come together for you. Dedication and perseverence and the will to succeed trumps circumstances.
Circumstances play a larger part in the success or failure of an individual’s ambitions and goals, and that simply “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” without equal access is a task that still leaves some people wearing Payless Branded “Tims” while others rock the authentic Timberland boots.
This message was about working hard and giving back to your country. And so I look at the opportunity cost for these kids that some parents let sit at home instead of hearing this “indoctrinating speech.” Instead of your kid listening to why it is important to value education, you take them out of school, to probably sit at home and play XBOX while you’re at work, and think that you are doing them a service. Shame face at those parents.
The sad thing is, this has been perpetuated since Obama became inaugurated in January. He is wrong if he does something, wrong if he doesn’t. He is president, but I guess not president enough to speak to America’s children. It hasn’t even been a year, and people have began asking why the economy is not in a surplus, why everyone is not working their dream jobs, why families don’t have their houses back, why both wars haven’t ended like yesterday, and why the deficit is still so high. The only being I know that works that fast is God, so you might want to lean on His will and pray for an individual breakthrough, because Obama is working as fast as he humanly can to fix America’s problems. I mean seriously people, we gave President Bush much longer than a year to sit around and do nothing until 9/11 came around, and then much longer after that to get us deep into Iraq and forget about the other war in Afghanistan.
Yet, somehow Obama is still inadequate because he cannot figure out how to feed a multitude of needy Americans with two fish and five loaves of bread. I think Obama spends more time trying to find a way to convince Americans he is qualified to tackle major issues than he does being a President. In the case of Bush, we gave him chance after chance and he messed up. Like a victim of bad relationships, Americans cannot recognize a good thing in front of them because we were scarred for 8 years prior – so we would rather see Obama as always at fault for the bad taste in our mouth that we have had from other presidents.
Obama is not going to be perfect. But at least allow him to do some semblance of a job first. And do not hold him back by treating him as three-fifths of a president, and then blame him for not doing all he could to reverse some issues in America.
Contributor, Young Writer’s Block
Contributor, The Carmon Report
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