This I Believe

What Happened To The Youth of America?

Eric Cartmen once said (hippies, hippiesa they want to save the world but all they do is smoke pot and play Frisbee.) In the sixties protestors were called hippies because they believed that peace, love, and happiness could change the world into a better place. In the sixties America was full of life, they didn’t believe in consumerism, and they fought for what they believed in. Today America’s youth just sits around smoking pot and thinking that they don’t have to do anything that someone else will do it for them. Nobody wants to fight anymore. No one has a passion for life. All America’s youth believes in is finding out who slept to whom on the Real World and obsessing over (reality TV). The youth of America doesn’t care anymore. I am a part of the youth of America and I believe we should start fighting.

In the sixties Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his life fighting to give blacks the right to vote, but in 2007 I might not have the right to vote like many of my peers because of my skin color. Some people say ‘oh that will never happen, this is America’, but look at what America has done so far. The national deficit has grown into the trillions of dollars, but do we care. We should it’s our asses on the line. In a few years we will become the leaders of America and we will have to deal with many ethical and moral issues. Will we stand up and fight or sit back, smoke pot and think someone else is fixing our problems.

I am criticizing my fellow peers on the way they live life, but I haven’t been entirely honest. I haven’t tried to change anything. I haven’t gotten up and protested for what I think is right. I’ve just been sitting around watching the world change, thinking that someone else will fix the problem and wondering ‘how did we get to this point of no return’. As a part of the youth of America I am ashamed of failing the hippies and abolitionists who risked their lives fighting to give us the freedoms that we take advantage of. That is why I’ve written this essay to try and open the youth of America’s eyes. Neil Young once said, (It’s better to burn out than fade away), will you fade away?