Uneducated Voters: The Downfall of American Politics

Disclaimer: this is not based on any Scientific evidence, rather the inner workings of one politically motivated idiot. I've had the idea of expressing my views on this subject matter for quite sometime, yet due to time constraints and writers' block I am only now publishing. Here it goes:

I am sick and tired of our generation referring to themselves as believing in certain idealogies (i.e. liberal, moderate, conservative) which, in turn, prompts them to vote for a particular party to which they really have no idea about only because they have been force fed these political views their entire life.

I admit, I am one of those people.

Don't get me wrong, I have no intentions of passing any blame on my parents, or even your parents for that matter (if this describes you); yet simply put, this phenomenon is an "An object of conditionality" that has enclosed our generation to a feeling of apathy in forming their own independent ideas about the political environment in which we exist. What I mean when I use the phrase "object of conditionality" is that the conditions that we live, work, and play and the people that we consistantly interact with are the key variables in determining how we think politically. We live under a democratic style of government(yes, you could argue that we are more of a true Republic by James Madison's definition, nonetheless international politics have defined it otherwise, and so we will call it a democracy) that's main truth is "choice" or "freedom".

The basic freedom of a democracy then must be the right of every person who is of voting age to vote. Here in lies the biggest problem. We are caught up in the idea that the "power of the people" lies in your sole ability to directly elect the leaders who represent you. Which is, in its purest form, correct. What we forget, however, is that the leaders we elect have all power and authority (within our system of checks and balances) to pass laws that directly affect our everyday lives.

This past presidential election could be best characterized by the "get out the vote" initiative, especially among my generation. The best example of this was Sean "P. Diddy" Combs' "Vote or Die" campaign (which in itself was quite strange). The idea behind it was that we as a nation would rather see 80%(or more) of the entire nominally qualified population of our country vote, educated or not, than we would a smaller, more educated and qualified group. This, in turn, has the biggest backlash because citizens that shouldn't be qualified to vote, are qualified. There vote can then be directly attributed to my theory of conditionality. I don't say that to incinuate that the constitution should be amended to raise the qualification standards for which one can have voting rights. I do, however, believe that by raising the number of voters, the level of political education should also increase.

Our government is too strong an entity for it to controlled by "conditionality". We need citizens who have a clue as too what they believe in. When our forefathers wrote the constitution, they did not foresee an America that was apathetic towards the basic freedoms that its governement entails.
If you claim to be Democrat then know what Democrats believe in. If you claim to be Republican, then know what Republicans believe in. Don't claim to be something that you don't know anything about. Hell, just don't vote the next time we have elections.

Uneducated voting should no longer be tolerated within the political landscape of our great nation.