"Duh!!"

Where is America headed? What does the next generation have in store for the future of our nation? I'm a little concerned about the coming generation; they have given evidence of being ill informed, basically clueless, about our government and our constitution. When I was in school about 10,000 years ago we were required to pass a "constitution" test or we could not graduate. Our teachers took this test quite seriously, we prepared for weeks and we became well versed in the "balance of power" in our republic, and the duties of each office from the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of our government.We were even required to know the names of our governmental leaders, and our teachers were very adamant about this fore they believed in an educated electorate. I remain thankful for their efforts to this very day as they did me a great service and made me a better citizen.

Last night on the "Tonight Show" Jay Leno had some young people on his show in a sketch that was quite disturbing. The young people were not coached, but were giving answers to the best of their ability about our government and it's leaders. Although the audience found this very funny it was actually a terrible indictment of our educational system. Not one single person knew who assumed power in case of the death or incapacitation of our chief executive. Some said the runner up in the last election would take over, others said Sarah Palin (not a bad idea), still one said the vice president's wife! What is happening to our youth!?

The sad commentary about all this is these young people are representative of the majority of American youth of today. These are the same young people who voted for "Change You Can Believe In". An uninformed electorate, ignorant of the precepts of our constitution, have put a man in the most powerful office on this planet and they have no idea of what his powers are or how he intends to use them.

Every time there is a budget cut the first place to suffer is education, we are cutting our own throats. We spent billion of dollars to take pictures of Mars that would have been much better spent on assuring that our progeny understood the works of our government and the principles of our constitution. The only way we will retain our place as the world's leader is to make sure we have a strong educational system. It will be very easy for unscrupulous influences to infiltrate our government if we continue down the road of lowering our standards in education.

Instead of concentrating on a health-care plan America doesn't want our president and our congress should be focused on bringing America back to it's prominence as the respected leader it is supposed to be.

Let's concentrate on educating our children, let's get back to the days when history and patriotism were in vogue. Our children know all about "The Amazing Race",or "Survivor", or the latest singer dropped from "American Idol" then they know about their own heritage as Americans. We must act quickly or we will see America disappear before our very eyes; and our children won't even realize it!!