“You are the future. No pressure, but your generation determines how the world is going to be when you all are adults.” This is a lecture my United States History teacher began the class with. Hearing this and his further explanation on this topic made me realize that he’s right. It made me worry that my generation will never accomplish the responsibilities we need to keep our country alive as adults.
Being responsible to my nation includes many, many things you should on a day-to-day basis. I'm going to give only two that everyone, American Citizen or not, should be doing out of respect for the people around them. Being kind and treating people equally as you would want them to treat you is, in my opinion, the most important thing everyone should do every day. Tomas Jefferson, the 3rd president of the United States of America, happens to agree with me. "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their CREATOR, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." Sometime before slavery was abolished, if someone had said that you should treat everyone, men AND women the same, they most likely would have laughed in your face. Women had no rights whatsoever. They were not allowed to vote, own land, and they even had to listen to everything their husband or father told them. If their husband told them to do a chore or cook and they refused, they would either have been beaten, or possibly even killed. "we observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom--symbolizing an end as well as a beginning--signifying renewal as well as change." John F. Kennedy was a very smart man, who is very correct. Unlike all those years ago, today we are free. Men and women have the exact same rights as the other. Women can vote and it's not okay for a man to beat his wife if she chooses not to listen to what he has to say. This is obviously A huge change from how the world used to be, which is good. I agree with John F. Kennedy that this was a positive and necessary change.
Being kind and treating someone how you'd like to be treated can take you a long way. I mean, look how far we've come since slavery.
The second thing that is needed to be a responsible citizen to my nation is having at least an idea on what is going on in the political parts of the world. In the Declaration of the Independence, Thomas Jefferson states that "..it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security." In this quote, he is basically saying that if the government is doing something the people don't agree with, it is our responsibility to solve the problem. Seeing how our government is a democracy and the people of our nation have the right to vote for whomever is running it, it is our responsibility to know enough about each running candidate to be able to vote against what they think would be a bad president, or for the president that would give our nation just what it needs. If we, the people who decide who is going to run our country, has no idea about any of the people running, were obviously in big trouble.
So, everyone, kind or not, should have at least an idea of what is going on in the political region. So that our country can stay alive and healthy!
These things we need to practice. Everyone- young or old, boy or girl. We all need to realize that our responsibilities are what determine the future, our future.
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