When I ran for public office over a decade ago, I involved my kids as much as possible, from going door to door to putting stamps on envelopes, to sign waving at passing cars. Winning would’ve been nice, but I’m proud of two things. One, was trying, and two, was the experience for my kids.

We have raised our kids with some expectation to get involved, to be more than bystanders, and to question anything they hear and read. They know that if they say something in our presence, it better have some validity to it and not be TikTok-derived.

Talking, conversing, and challenging your child’s budding belief system is fundamental for creating an involved citizen. After all, the legal requirements to preserve democracy are very minimal. If each citizen is to only pay their taxes and not break the law, that leaves a wide swath of area open to manipulation.

Nowadays, the amount of purposefully misleading information out there is incredibly high, from Facebook algorithms to Fox Corporation to pampered pundits and joint-smoking commentators. There is more profit in hype and spin than in true and credible sources.

My concern is that we are becoming less and less able to discern between fact and opinion, to know what real risk is vs. small quibbles, to think deeper and longer than the time of a commercial, and to have people around us who will challenge our thoughts and perceptions. Our culture is making it damn easy to be dumb and not give a shit.

One of my kids has been on a libertarian bent lately. He’s unhappy with either choice in the upcoming election and talks about not voting. So, we talk, and we have conversations. He knows where we are coming from. We expect him to vote. We expect him to have informed opinions and not just what he picks up in a bar or from a buddy.

I don’t think our son is any different than most youth in America. They’ve seen twenty years of living in a divided land that looks dysfunctional, odd, selfish, expensive, war-like, loud, and obnoxious. It’s a constant beat of division that they can click through anytime and any minute, even in school. How in the world do we combat this?

The youthful discerning citizen is typically created from three sources: family, school, and religion.

For families, divorce rates and job changes are high. It’s hard to promote civic duties when family wealth and memories experience upheaval. Wouldn’t be easier on families if our current system supported stability from the start? By the time youth are introduced to the workforce, they smell the BS their parents dealt with and ask why. Despite all of the corporate PR, if the stock price or the CEO pay is more important than mom or dad, why care about the company or the customer experience?

For school, it is a myriad of problems. The underwhelming expectations of lower standards coupled with teachers being told what and how to teach makes middle through high school boring. It’s also hard to get to civics if students don’t show up with basic respect and self-control. One would think the technological revolution that allows education from anywhere, and universal knowledge available at our fingertips, would have afforded more love for learning.

It has not.

Ask any young American to name the last five books they read, or the names of five presidents, five scientists, or five birds. Or maybe to sew a button or change a tire.

It’s hard to get to civics if the foundation hasn’t been laid.

For religion, much of it has gone daft, from preaching the attainment of wealth as God’s plan, to preaching on the unseen hand of God at work in the most deplorable human beings. No one can escape how the Catholic church handled the army of pedophiles in its ranks, or how many religions struggle not to dehumanize people based on their sexual identity. It’s issuing a fatwa or declaring a jihad in Western words.

The youth of America have become natural cynics from their constant exposure to this stuff, and it drowns out what works. Most of America does work, and it comes from a long history of public involvement. Democracy depends upon it, whether to end an unnecessary war, to ensure access to good jobs, to ensure access to health care, to make sure your food and water are safe, to not take advantage of people at their weakest points.

Which leads us back to our budding libertarian.

At its root, a libertarian is someone who wants to make their own choices without any outside interference or forces. That makes sense to me. I tell him I get it. I explain how our Bill of Rights was added to the constitution to ensure everyone knew that liberty was rooted in the individual, and to this day, even despite the daily bullshit he must assess, he has more individual liberty than almost any country in the world.

I mention that no man is an island unto themselves, a quote preached before the Constitution, and the reality is that millions of us Americans must live together. I plant the few seeds until the next discussion, hoping it’s enough to offset the endless stream of doom that wealthy men are selling and fools follow.

And that’s where I leave it. Until the next opportunity.

Since CNN and cable news arrived, the method of getting our information underwent a revolutionary change. Gone are the days of an anchor like Walter Cronkite trusted broadly by the American people. The terms journalism and news have been tarnished.

There is a legal terminology of letting the buyer beware when purchasing goods. The same thing goes for what you are listening to, reading, or watching when it comes to news. Have an inquisitive mind. Look for the substance and not the zingers. Whatever side of the fence you sit on, it is very important to fight the comfort of falling into a bubble.

I was 15 when I took my hunter safety class. At that time, I had no idea of the politics around guns or even remember it being a huge issue. The only thing I knew about the NRA is that they offered hunter safety classes. Somewhere along the line, it became more productive for the NRA to champion gun ownership in general and not just hunters.

I’ve followed the LaPierre saga for a while and I don’t think there is anything here to be surprised about. When Oliver North was hired and then left amidst questions about financial irregularities, it reminded me of the old quote that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Recent reporting from the nonprofit ProPublica has included recordings of efforts to hide expenses that the NRA knew would not sit well with financial standards or its general membership.

Now, I’m not a prude and I understand the adage that it takes money to make money. This is something entirely different, and it is unbecoming of an organization that is both a nonprofit and professes the importance of safety and concern.

LaPierre has been there for a long time, and I think the chickens have come home to roost. I hope when the dust settles this will restore the reputation of the NRA and also allow for some common-sense gun laws to get in place.

Am I missing something here? The Florida market is the 4th largest in terms of prescription drug spending. Anything that decreases the cost will put more money back in individual pockets. What leaves me flabbergasted is this archaic system we have in place. Is it cheaper to buy prescription drugs from our neighbors than inside our own country? We have to get permission to do so? Where is our free, competitive market?

This is a short book I wrote several years ago for new graduates and those interested in a career in public service. As the years go by, I’ve thought on it many times. It is a work I’m proud of and I tried to make it easy to engage with. Public service will always matter in a functioning democracy. These are the helpers and the protectors. The more efficient and effective and respected public service is, the better the country will be.

And Now….

Hope to see you next time. If you enjoyed this issue, please share it and ask friends and family to sign up. Keep up your reading regimen this week, and remember:

BE A GOOD HUMAN.