People need to think for themselves

What it takes to be a good citizen is a question that I have often pondered. It began after I read the “Gettysburg Address” while attending high school. I read it over and over again, and I am very familiar with every word. This causes me to ask: “What is a government of, for, and by the people if there is no one willing to question the establishment's version of the truth?”

Mainstream truth is just that. It is what the mainstream thinks is correct. It is not always the absolute truth, but it is an attempt to explain the truth. The war in Iraq is an example of how popular media, in their attempt to sell more ads, got it all wrong. For this is a good reason why you should question everything you hear and not allow other people to think for you.

To be sure of anything you have to do what people have had to do for as long as there has been a mainstream way of thinking: You have to read more than just what the mainstream is saying and read other sources in light of what mainstream media are reporting. This was true as far back as history has been recorded. Therefore, if it was true in the way the news was reported on the war in Iraq, it can be true about issues such as voting.

People need to be involved. They need to think for themselves. So how does one become informed enough to vote?

The simple answer is that we become informed by our willingness to read and watch the news. Yet that does not mean that all media are the same. Mainstream media often are more concerned with making money by basically telling us what we want to hear, and not what we need to know.

My career as a writer started with the idea that if I could persuade people to vote, that was all that I needed to do to accomplish something important. Now that I have read more, I realize that there is much more than just telling people to vote. The new question becomes: “What does it take to be a good citizen?”

Being a good citizen means looking harder for the truth. It means adopting a core set of values that will enable you to judge the news that used to be written by outsiders. For that is the mark of a good citizen, that you have to read things because the mainstream does not mean absolute certainty of a political view's correctness, but is often the cause of the error in that view.

So the bad news is that it is up to you to educate yourself, read, and be informed. The good news is that this is very do-able. Take some time, and be prepared. It is OK to have a little controlled paranoia because that is what it takes to be a good citizen. That is the only way to fi nd the real truth, and that is what I try to do. You can do it, too.

— Joseph Kastner is a staff writer majoring in journalism.