I am one of those people that actually enjoys watching the news.  My favorite program is Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor hosted by Bill O’Reilly.  One of the segments on O’Reilly’s show is called Waters’ World and is hosted by Jesse Waters.  During this portion of the show, Waters goes out so some heavily populated location where he interviews passersby on the political issues of the day.  Like I said, I do enjoy watching the news to educate myself; however, Waters’ World always reminds me of the horrific extent to which political apathy exists in America.

The public school system is currently putting significant emphasis on the subjects of science and mathematics.  The idea here is to make our students more competitive nationally and internationally.  It is important not to forget the subjects of history and English in this venture to produce the world’s top students.  America’s history contains so much information and there are so many lessons to be learned.  As Waters’ World points out once a week, the majority of Americans are in desperate need of a history lesson.

News broadcasts often seem uninteresting and much of the content can easily be depressing.  This is no excuse for being uninformed.  If Jesse Waters visited Edgefield, I would hope that everyone he passes on the town square could offer substantive opinions on Benghazi, the Obama economy, and the potential of a Hillary Clinton presidency.

In many of the interviews, Waters simply asks participants to identify an individual in a picture.  Chief Justice John Roberts, Vice President Biden, Senator Ted Cruz, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are among the faces few recognized.  All of these individuals play primary roles in creating the current political environment.  Harry Reid in particular has the power of the US Senate in his hand and has used it to effectively extinguish the conservative voices in the upper chamber.

Barack Obama has been elected twice on the national stage because of emotion, not because of any substance.  When we allow presidential elections to be won on emotion rather than substance, we have a legitimate problem in our country.  Emotion makes us feel good, but when an election is won based on a simple message of “hope and change”, we have reason for concern.

Many politicians have an uncanny ability to present wonderful speeches in the most charismatic way possible.  In many cases though, these speeches are little more than a red herring.  I strongly believe that the day on which we collectively decide to stop accepting everything these politicians are saying as truth, the landscape of Washington will be changed.

If Waters came knocking on your front door and asked what you thought of an array of political issues, would you be able to answer confidently and substantively?  If he presented you with a series of relevant political figures’ pictures, would you be able to identify every one of them?  If not, I strongly encourage you to watch the news more often, even if it is only a few minutes each day.  Washington is roughly 600 miles away, but most every decision made there has some type of impact on each of us.

Political apathy enables politicians to get by with some truly outrageous things.  They have become accustomed to doing as they please with little accountability and we have let them.  Educate yourselves.  An informed electorate is the greatest threat to Washington’s political nonsense.