An Educated Opinion

It’s amazing how every four years, Americans become super concerned with how the country is governed. Those who have watched one episode of Bill O’Reilly suddenly become experts on politics and everyone has a bunch of views on who they think should become president to “save our country.”

Now, I guess it’s natural for a democratic society to have opinions about their government and who they want to see “in charge,” but if we are going to be opinionated about the government, why are our opinions primarily geared toward the executive branch? It’s as if government elections don’t occur until it’s time for the presidential race and suddenly a massive amount of “VOTE” commercials and “YOU HAVE A VOICE” advertisements take over the media.

Don’t get me wrong, I do agree that presidential elections are very important, and I think everyone should vote, but I also think people should educate themselves — and I’m not just talking about on the candidates, I’m talking about on the government as a whole. If Americans take the time to review the standard American government class, which explains the branches of government and their powers, they may see that government is more than a president. What about our senators or our congressmen? Their elections go unnoticed — no increased advertising, no constant encouragement to vote, no true interest — and then we wonder why the elected president can’t do everything they promised.

While I support the efforts of the many organizations encouraging the people to get out and vote, I think a lot of our issues can be solved if we put the same emphasis on our entire government as we do just one portion of it.