Naomi Wolf: With system threatened, millions of young Americans no longer know how democracy works

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Hey, Young Americans, Here's a Text for You
By Naomi Wolf
Sunday, November 25, 2007; B04

Is America still America if millions of us no longer know how democracy works? When I speak on college campuses, I find that students are either baffled by democracy's workings or that they don't see any point in engaging in the democratic process. Sometimes both....

***

This lack of understanding about how democracy works is disturbing enough. But at a time when our system of government is under assault from an administration that ignores traditional checks and balances, engages in illegal wiretapping and writes secret laws on torture, it means that we're facing an unprecedented crisis. As the Founders knew, if citizens are ignorant of or complacent about the proper workings of a republic "of laws not of men," then any leader of any party -- or any tyrannical Congress or even a tyrannical majority -- can abuse the power they hold. But at this moment of threat to the system the Framers set in place, a third of young Americans don't really understand what they were up to.

According to a recent study by the National Center for Education Statistics, only 47 percent of high school seniors have mastered a minimum level of U.S. history and civics, while only 14 percent performed at or above the "proficient" level. Middle schoolers in many states are no longer required to take classes in civics or government. Only 29 states require high school students to take a government or civics course, leaving millions of young Americans in the dark about why democracy matters. A survey released by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute in September found that U.S. high school students missed almost half the questions on a civic literacy test. Only 45.9 percent of those surveyed knew that the sentence "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" is in the Declaration of Independence....

***

The United States has been blessed with more than 200 years of a strong democracy, so it's easy to yield to a comforting -- and lazy -- conviction that it's magically self-sustaining and doesn't need to be defended, an idea that would have horrified the Founders, who knew that our democracy would be a fragile thing.

In recent years, the trend away from teaching democracy to young Americans has been at least partly a consequence of the trend of teaching to the standardized tests introduced by the Bush administration. Mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the tests assess chiefly math and reading comprehension. Basic civics and history have suffered. As a result, teenagers and young adults often have no clue why the United States is different from, say, Egypt or Russia; they have little idea what liberty is. Few young Americans understand that the Second Amendment keeps their homes safe from the kind of government intrusion that other citizens suffer around the world; few realize that "due process" means that they can't be locked up in a dungeon by the state and left to languish indefinitely.

This dangerous ignorance is confirmed by the Knight Foundation, which has found an alarming decline in student support for the First Amendment. In a 2004 survey, more than a third of the student respondents thought that the First Amendment went too far in guaranteeing freedom of speech and of the press. By 2006, the number who held that view had swelled to half. In the absence of strong civics training and in the presence of a "war on terror" that insistently portrays freedom and checks and balances as threats to national security, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights have become controversial for today's young people....

(Naomi Wolf is the author of "The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot.")

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/23/AR2007112301302_pf.html

[annabanana]

1. "reading comprehension" is not useful if there

isn't something worth reading put in front of them....

[Hidden Stillness]

2. The Structure has Already Been Ruined

The processes of government have been so sabotaged and undercut by the current Republican Party that, as Representative Louise Slaughter of New York put it a couple of years ago, (at a committee meeting that Slaughter was on and carried by C-SPAN, I think), when Republicans/corporate lobbyists were still running things and writing laws, the things that kids learn in school about "How a Bill Becomes Law" and all the rest, no longer even happens. Republicans had the process so twisted that bills were suddenly changed in conference AFTER Congressional votes, they were put into 1,000 page multiple-bill proposals and given to Democrats at midnight, to be voted on at 9 AM that morning, written by lobbyists with Democrats actually kept out of meetings, etc., etc. The actual "way it is supposed to happen" does not happen anymore.

Further, because of the "D"LC, etc., the whole idea of a political Party accountable to you, with a Platform they will vote on and stick to, has been completely replaced by the corporate lobbyist/fundraising arm, with favors going only to them--only "payback" for legislation now--and the "Bill Clinton Fan Club" with no local organization anymore, although Howard Dean has been trying for a few years now to repair it all. You are now starting to get the really threatening results of a generation that has grown up with no social/public-spirit/ general-welfare sense of policy, only corporate favors and tax cuts. Grim--what would they possibly feel any allegiance to?

[DeepModem Mom]

4. I was recently in a conversation with a Gen Yer, who said similar.

With what they have seen in this country since they were old enough to understand, how can they not be skeptical of their own ability to affect the democratic process -- or, that is, what's left of it?

[Breeze54]

3. K & R'd

http://bensguide.gpo.gov/9-12/index.html">Ben's Guide to US Government Grades 9 - 12



;)

[gateley]

5. K&R - I have become SO impressed by Naomi Wolf! nt

[davekriss]

6. K& R - ditto (nt)

[bdamomma]

12. me too,

but after watching the news tonite, truly got me sick, people rushing through store doors, like they don't have anything, shows how shallow some people are. No wonder we are not taken seriously by our Reps or Senators, just give the American people a sale and they go crazy, where are people's priorities.

[seafan]

7. The right to be secure in persons, houses, papers and effects, ... -----> Fourth Amendment

Are the WP staff doing some creative editing of Ms. Wolf's article?


From the Washington Post piece:

Few young Americans understand that the Second Amendment keeps their homes safe from the kind of government intrusion that other citizens suffer around the world; few realize that "due process" means that they can't be locked up in a dungeon by the state and left to languish indefinitely.

U.S. Constitution: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment02/">Second Amendment

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Actually, the Fourth Amendment refers to security of persons in their homes against unreasonable search and seizure.


U.S. Constitution: Fourth Amendment

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Carry on.

[hansberrym]

8. What's the difference? They are all Collective Rights anyway, and

we must trust the government to do what's best for us. After all, if the framer's had intended that each of our homes be free from unreasonable searches, they would have said "the right of each person to be secure..."

Obviously the framer's had in mind collective security and so we must accept that the governemnt will have to spy on some individuals in order to keep the people collectively safe from terror.



(sarcasm)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. Glad to see the "sarcasm" indicator at the end, but what's scary is that

some right wingers actually argue that way.

[hansberrym]

11. Yes, but it seems that is where we are heading. The same sort of non-sense that was

applied to interpreting the Second Amendemnt seems to be infecting the way people see all of our rights.


I wish we could say that only right wingers are affected by this, but as Naomi Wolf points out, the real problem is that few young people are getting a proper civics education. Many do not know their rights and so may not be able to defend them as government encroaches on those rights in the name of protecting us from the evil of drugs, terrorism, or the next boogie man they spring on us.

[demodonkey]

10. I spoke on Election Integrity at a college a week or so ago...

...was a showing of American Blackout sponsored by the student NAACP and other groups on campus. I learned as much as I may have taught in that these young people indeed are concerned and involved. So there's a little hope out there.

[Mythsaje]

13. They tested our resolve when they instituted

the drug war and its constant chipping away of the Consitution. But what's worse is that we've been training our children to conform and bow to authority...for all the right reasons, perhaps, but we've allowed our children to be drugged, zero-toleranced to a fault, and restricted to the point that they can only wear school-approved clothing. I've been saying it for years--we've allowed it to go too far and eventually we'd end up paying for it.