04.28.09
What You Don’t Know CAN Hurt You
This week I discovered how much people don’t know about their rights as citizens. I had two separate casual conversations which really opened my eyes.
I was talking with a young father about his concerns about the school his children attend. He was voicing his disapproval of policy changes currently before the school board. I asked him if he had written the school board members, or gone to their meeting. He said: “I can’t do that!” and was surprised that I thought he could. He just wasn’t aware that he had that right.
Then I was chatting with my hairdresser about children and asked her opinion of the proposed UN treaty on the rights of children. She had never heard of it. When I explained a little about it, she was appalled and wanted to know what she could do to stop it. Again, she was hesitant to write a Congress person about it. She wondered why she hadn’t seen anything about this in the news.
And then it hit me … we don’t see a lot of what happens in Congress in the news. Unless you are a real detective, it is hard to know what is going on in legislative circles. Even then, I often find it hard to get information on bills I know have been introduced. Bills such as the G.I.V.E. Act get passed without a ripple of interest. What we hear in the news and what is actually in the bill are worlds apart. Of course, most of our representatives don’t know what is in these bills either. They don’t read them. At most, they trust the legislative summaries to make their decisions. Or worse yet, they just vote the party line without ever trying to discern whether the bill is really in the interest of their constituents.
I think it is time to bring back civic classes in schools. We need to teach our citizens what government is about. Of course, once they discover that it is supposed to be of, for and by them, they might take it away from the people who currently wield power.