You're 16, You're Beautiful, and You're a Voter: A Reflection

Today in class I participated in a socratic seminar that focused on and article entitled "You're 16, You're Beautiful, and You're a Voter", where the author gave her opinion oh why she though the voting age should be lowered from eighteen to sixteen.

After our seminar today, I felt rather accomplished. I felt as though I made my voice heard, voiced my opinion, and put several topics down on the table. I found that by the end of the seminar, I agreed with the author that the voting age should be lowered to sixteen. I believe that the teens that would actually take the time to do such a thing like voting, are the ones who are really concerned about what's going on in our country, and that their opinion is as important as anyone else. At the end of class I was surprised to see that barely half the class agreed with me that the voting age should be lowered. I really thought that more people would be in support of this act.

The one part of the article/seminar that I was particularly passionate about was the fact that the article stated something about lowering the legal alcohol consumption age to sixteen. Several people brought up the point of having a "voucher" that allowed only certain teens to purchase alcohol and only a certain amount, but no one could change my mind on how much I disagreed with this.

The Year of the Youth Vote (Vocab Test)

When one turns the age of eighteen, it is common knowledge that said person has just become a constituent; allowing them to vote on elections as well as on local referendums. Unfortunately, this ability has never been one that many eighteen year olds embrace; that is, until the 2008 presidential election came about. Teens are now using their suffrage to make their voice heard. They now see that they also have the power to control who becomes incombent and takes the power to veto bills, and form coalitions with other countries.

TIME Magazine recently published an article entitled "The Year Of The Youth Vote" that focused on how this year, youth turn out at the polls should sky rocket due to the fact that so many of them are tired of seeing the same two families living in the white house that have been there since they were born. Progressive candidate Barack Obama is a fresh face showing up on the ballot, and has made the most effort to rope in the youth for their vote. Other candidates such as Mike Huckabee and John McCain are trying for the youth vote as well, but are turning out to be to evangelical and conservative for an eighteen years olds taste.


So, will Barack Obama be able to sway the majority of our youth into voting for him? I guess we'll have to wait until November to find out.

A Mock Election- My Thoughts

Recently my class took part in a mock election; the class was divided into six teams, each of which then handed out topics to each member. I was assigned John McCain with the infamous topic: stem cell research.

I found research on the candidate's different views to be easily excess able. It was the actual information on stem cell research that I found most challenging. It was all there, it was just the daunting task of sifting through it. Some sites were worded with so many medical terms, I had a hard time deciphering it, others were easy to read, but didn't have enough information.

Research did prove to be useful though. I learned so much about the controversy over stem cell research that comes from frozen embryos or aborted fetuses. I found that most Republican candidates were against the use of any of the sources I've listed. They don't like the fact that the stem cells would be coming from something that "could have been a child". They say that adult stem cells are just as good; not necessarily true. It's proven that adult stem cells don't work as well when it comes to doing their job of replenishing "sick cells" in the body. So why shouldn't we use the sources we have such as frozen embryos or aborted fetuses? These are otherwise going to be discarded! I believe that if these "dead children" could help cure things such as cancer or diabetes, we should use them to their fullest potential. I guess that mean I disagree with 2/3 of the Republican candidates! Mitt Romney believes that adult stem cells will do, Huckabee thinks that stem cell research should NOT be funded, and John McCain thinks that it's a banner idea, that is as long as it's not an aborted fetus.

I'd be interested to learn more about what the candidates think about stem cells coming from the umbilical cord during birth.