Please Don't Vote: A Plea for Our Country's Good

This is an actual assignment and subsequent post in response to the assignment in a forum from an online college course. It was sent to me by a friend who is taking the online college course.

Here is the assignment:

As it points out in the textbook: The family is no longer organized primarily around child rearing (Carter & McGoldrick, 1989). Talk about the struggles of today in the raising of a family. Shouldn't child rearing be the main focus? Why or why not? If child rearing isn't the main focus, what is? How is the raising of a functional family impacted by single parent homes and/or two parent households where both parents work outside the home?

Comment on the old saying, "The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother." Additionally, we have all heard the old African proverb that states, "It takes a village to raise a child," but what about the idea that it also takes a family to raise a child. Exhaust the topic.

Here is the response from one of the students:

The troubles today on raising a family today is money and a stable job placement even after so many yrs people still loose there jobs and now it leads the kids to get out of daycare and find someone to watch them while you are in school or at work and if you get laid off you'll have to find a part time job that pays min wage and you will have to work it just to provide for your family and after while it puts a toll on families because money startsto run low and arguments tend to start . I dont think child rearing is the main focus i beleive the whole family should be the rearing some parents end up being sucidial killing themselves over funds and even children just to take the family out of there miseries . I believe that it is hard on both families single or both parents in the home single parents not neccassarily meaning single they raise there child on there own but the other parent does not live with them and some do and the motheres dont want to receive child support on the fathers cause they dont have a job but the dads are out in the streets hustling which that is not a good environment for the kids at all now with both parents working there is a more likley chance to have one working if the other gets laid off but if both loose there job and was saving there 401k then there shouldnt be a problem my opinion you have to have some kind of investment or a good stabaility in order to have a child because then only you have to take care of your child and yourself and if you only have enough for youself then you shouldnt have a child until you can provide for more then yourself .

The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother."

Good quote but its very hypercritical i beleive it works both way and you cant force something that is not meant to be the quote should be "The best thing you can do for a strong family is love your children first and gain stability."

village meaning a family well logically saying it does take a family to raise a child but you have to realize a family didnt have a child one person did and family depends on the individuals some families are supportive and others are not some families have passed and there left with themselves and some familes are not stable with money to support you and a child let alone themselves and there households a child is a very important responsibily they needs nourishment, love, affection, trust, honesty, unconditional love, support, and child is not a part time responsibilty its a full time and no matter if you get tired or feel out lost dont give up

This is the end of the post.

Incomprehensible.

The person who wrote this, a 29 year old woman, is for all practical purposes illiterate.

There is a more fundamental point here: the connection between language and one’s ability to think critically. This person’s language skills are minimal. The person cannot organize a phrase, much less a sentence. The individual who wrote this is trying to provide a critical analysis of the topic, but her thoughts are so disjointed and convoluted as to be incomprehensible and self-contradictory. I believe that this individual’s inability to write coherently is directly related to her inability to think critically. After all, we think in language.

I wish this were an isolated incident. In my graduate work at Lincoln University, I was often dumbfounded at how others managed to pass the various classes we had. Their work was not all that different than this, and that was graduate level, people who had graduated from college with a bachelor degree and were pursuing a master degree. I eventually decided that I should not hold resentment about this, because I was not in school for their education, but mine. What I learned and how I applied myself was independent of what they learned and how they applied themselves. I would only worry about me.

I wonder, though, about education today. The ability to write a sentence seems insignificant, something we take for granted. Our ability to use language, however, is not insignificant. It is foundational to our ability to think critically. The woman who wrote this has been able to attain a level of education that allows her to participate in a college level course. She cannot write a sentence, basic noun/verb agreement. I would argue that she cannot think critically because of her inability to use language coherently.

But she can vote.

This isn’t a commentary on liberal vs. conservative. I have no idea what her political persuasion is. I don’t care. I’m going to go out on a limb here and probably draw a lot of criticism, but I think this woman should not be allowed to vote. Thomas Jefferson is attributed as saying, “The greatest threat to our democracy is an uneducated citizenry.”

Alexander de Tocqueville wrote in “Democracy in America” that tyranny in America would not come in the same form as tyranny in Europe, through an unassailable monarchy. He stated that tyranny in America would occur when an ideological group gains control over the means of education and information disbursement (newspapers during his time). He argued what would happen is that only information that the ideologues wanted learned and disbursed would be taught and reported, and so people would not be given the tools they need to think critically about what the government is doing, or even about who we elect to the government. Lack of education and information would lead to an uninformed electorate, which in turn would lead to the ideological group gaining and maintaining power not through violence, but through the consent of the ignorant masses. As long as those who are unable to think critically would be allowed to participate, then the ideologues would maintain control and govern with impunity.

I am honestly fearful about what is happening in our country and around the world today. Our government has supported the “Arab Spring,” which has resulted in a terrorist organization with the stated purpose of destroying Israel, The Muslim Brotherhood, to obtain power in significant Middle Eastern countries. Our government continues to squabble over energy production, while my family’s gas and grocery bills have increased significantly over the last month, and not because we are buying more. We are actually buying less at this time at the grocery market because our grocery bills have gone up so much. We are buying less, but still spending more. Our nation’s debt is at the tipping point, and we will be bankrupt if we do not stop the outrageous government spending. At this time, you could tax every working American for every penny that they earn, and still not be able to pay off the national debt.

I don’t want people who are uninformed and cannot even organize their thoughts into a coherent structure to be able to vote. If you can’t move from point A to point B to point C in something as simple as the writing assignment that is demonstrated at the beginning of this post, please don’t vote this year. I cannot stop you, but I will beg you. Stay home on election day, and leave the fate of our country in the hands of people who can actually think. Please.

The irony is, people who can't think critically won't realize this plea applies to them.