Labor Day marks the traditional beginning of the election season in an election year. Every two years we wrap up this weekend. Eventually, start paying attention to the candidate, their background, their records, and what they suggest to solve the problem.
Town halls and debates, candidate coffees, and position documents often follow. will be trained and in Colorado you will receive a vote-by-mail ballot so you can mail it in, drop it off, or vote in person.
At least that’s how it should work. But there is something insidious going on, and regardless of your ability to agree to disagree, treat the candidate running for election with respect regardless of your personal decision to vote for the candidate. It seems to affect their abilities, even their ability to act as adults. Come to the hard working civil servants who run our elections.
In Colorado, voters have historically placed a high degree of trust in our elections and are proud of an election process that is nationally touted as the “Gold Standard Election Process.”
This year, more than ever, I found myself lamenting the lack of civics education. Not just recently, but over the last few decades.
Civic, sometimes called “citizenship education,” is the study of the rights and responsibilities of citizens and the functioning of government in society. The purpose of civic education is to prepare students to become informed citizens who understand how democratic processes work and how to participate in those processes. is. I believe that schools should help young people acquire the knowledge, skills and attitudes to build an informed society.
The term ‘civics’ comes from the Latin ‘civicus’, which means ‘related to citizens’. The term refers to all processes that influence people’s beliefs, commitments, abilities, and behavior as members or prospective members of a community and how that behavior affects other citizens.
In the classroom, civics instruction includes government, history, law, economics and geography, helping them learn how to discuss current events. But in practice civic education is not always intentional or intentional. Institutions and communities can convey values and norms in a nonsensical way.
But I truly believe that democracy can be maintained without active efforts to educate our children and ourselves about the responsibilities inherent in serving as members of this (for now) democratic society. was it?
For years, there is a growing momentum of those who have argued that the word “government” is a dirty word. They blame governments, they blame diseases they perceive (real or imagined), and they try to assign values to our constitution that weren’t there. in the minds of our founding fathers. That trend includes those who run as candidates and those who support candidates who refuse to lose.
A CBS News poll last weekend revealed that 60% of Republican candidates are against the election. They claim their right to “redo the 2020 elections.” There is no constitutional basis for “rerunning” elections. There is no constitutional authority to send US troops to seize voting machines. There is no place for political violence in American democracy. These are all signs of a fascist dictatorship.
The government of the United States was formed as a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” Not for corporations, not for the capricious complainers, not for the greedy rich power merchants, not for the interests of foreign enemies. It was created as a result of the compromises about slavery and civil rights that have plagued us ever since, but it has survived, at least to this day, as one of the best examples of civics the world has ever had. The country was built by those of us middle-class with a stubborn and painstaking belief that with opportunity comes responsibility.
As Benjamin Franklin said when leaving Independence Hall after the constitution was approved and asked what kind of government was approved, he said, “If we can keep it, it’s a republic.” I answered.
Featured Image: Radical transformation of the civic class. Photo by John Fonte on www.hudson.org
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