By Chelsea Albers, JMI Intern and Florida State University Junior in International Affairs & LanguagesTags: Transparency, VotingSome have gotten a good laugh at County Supervisor Peggy West’s (Milwaukee) lack of knowledge about American geography and U. S. Representative Hank Johnson’s (Georgia) fear of Guam tipping over. However, thank goodness they were publically called out on their uneducated statements because most citizens would not pay much attention to their uneducated votes.Although Americans are beginning to pay more attention to their elected incumbents’ actions over their words, unfortunately it takes verbal blunders such as these for many Americans to realize their elected officials are not putting enough effort into understanding the facts. This proves to me that many politicians put more effort into getting the job, rather than performing the job. We must expect our politicians to self-educate themselves on issues before choosing a side.It would have been absurd for these silly statements to go unnoticed, but uninformed decisions made by our politicians go unnoticed every day–it us up to us, the constituents, to hold our politicians accountable. That implies that we must be self-educated voters and constituents as well. America needs decisions based on facts, not guesses based on feelings.
