Ignorance is Ignorance

We all know the cliche "Ignorance is Bliss." Well I'm here to tell you that ignorance is not always bliss. In fact, most of the time it's just damn ignorance.
Where the real question comes in here is who's to blame for ignorance. In this particular instance I am ranting about the general public's ignorance with regard to politics. This is particularly true in younger citizens. A recent poll in North Carolina showed that less than half of the voters could name the party in charge and that younger voters are least able to answer basic questions about state politics and to get out and vote.
As someone who only very recently became of voting age, this kind of infuriates me. However sadly I have experienced this apathy firsthand.
In the most recent presidential election I was too young to vote by a couple months. This was the first election that my brother could vote in. The magnitude of this election, as everyone knows, was huge. Obviously I was a little peeved that my vote wouldn't count and jealous that my brother's did. However, my brother could not have cared less about voting. I heard every excuse from "what difference will one vote make" to "Maryland always goes Democratic anyway."
I guess I can take some consolation in the latter argument because it is true that Maryland always goes blue. I was finally able to convince him that of any election to not vote in this would be the worst.
Is it his fault that he doesn't care about politics? Yes and no. Each person needs to take a minimal amount of initiative but also the people around him and the media need to take some sort of attempt to engage him in politics.
The solution that my friends and I have found is to become a little informed about a broad range of topics and argue until we're blue in the face. As someone who is fairly stubborn this is not only fun for me, but also helps me become more informed and strengthen my views. What the media lacks in engaging me I make up with friendly debate.
The problem with our generation is the perpetual thought that our parents care enough for all of us and as long as they're voting why should we care. The obvious fallacy in this argument is that we will one day be our parents. If we don't learn to start caring now when do we? Is there some point in life when we decide that we should start caring about politics? We have to start now or our country's political activeness will slowly fall by the wayside. This is not an option.
Ignorance is no longer an option for citizens. Whose fault it is is sort of a moot point now. We are in a red alert and something--either by the media, our peers, ourselves or a combination--needs to change the political mindset of our generation.

Posted by Jordan Powell