Teenagers Power and Affect in Government | Teen Ink

Teenagers Power and Affect in Government

October 2, 2013
By Joseph_A BRONZE, Westerlo, New York
Joseph_A BRONZE, Westerlo, New York
1 article 0 photos 1 comment

Favorite Quote:
Never forget what you are, the rest of the world will not. Wear it like armour, and it can never be used to hurt.


One our nation’s founding principles and ideals was that each and every citizen influences and has involvement in the decisions that the government makes. However how much power do each of us have? More specifically, the young adults and teenagers of this country. We are the age group that is considered the future and we will define the country in years to come, but how much do we offer right now and how can we improve upon that?

Many teenagers today feel that they have no part in the government simply because they are not eligible to vote. Albeit, if you’re a teenager under the age of 18, you do not have the ability to vote; however there is much more you can do to voice your opinion of the government.
There are many ways you can have your voice heard in today's government is you can attend rallies on various things or you can organized your own depending on what you want to change or get out of them. You can also contact a congressman, representative or senator about your concern or whatever it might be. Either by attending events or writing letters or even a meeting. Along with the things I have listed above you can just get active in your community and just helping out. Many people including teens have ideas, thoughts, actions that they want to form into action and that is one of our main goals is to put the power back in the next generations hands.
Our project is not original and we got this idea to find our own power from a very important event in history, the American Revolution. We feel that the american revolution’s issues of power and leadership and the issues we have of finding what power the teens in this region have are connected by the fact that we both were trying to find the power of the people. Though the revolution was on a bigger scale the main concern still was to break normal everyday illusions and gain personal power that they could control, which relates to us because we also are trying to break this rut of ignorance we are in and find what personal power the people of this region have.
The american ideals that every american including teenagers to some extent has which are liberty, equality, rights, opportunity, liberty, and democracy, which was what our founding fathers wanted to be our ideals. For the ideal of Liberty, everyone has the ability to do whatever they want but teens are not free to do what they want they have to be presided on by an adult. For the ideal of Equality, every person no matter there creed(Race, religion, and beliefs) all are equal but teens are not as equal as adults. With the American ideal of Rights everyone has constitutional rights (the right of free speech, the right to bare arms, ect.) Teens have most rights but not all, such as the right to bare arms. In the ideal of Opportunity, everyone has the chance to become whatever they want like if they want to be rich or not to run for political office teens have the ability to grow up into any opportunity . The ideal of Democracy is a government where power is shared and people vote for who is in a political office a teenager can not run for political office. Most of the founding fathers ideals do not affect or affect teens very little until they become legal adults.
As teenagers, we may not have as much to offer in politics or our government, but there is still a plethora of actions for us. We may not be able to vote, but we can meet, e-mail, or talk with our congressman, senator, or representative and voice our opinion on current matters with them.


The author's comments:
The authors of this article are myself (Joseph ), Harley M, Stephen L, and James S.
We had the option to present a topic in any form or medium that related to the American government and the five founding American ideals. Our team had decided upon writing an article and submitting it to TeenInk. We did this because we hope to inspire more teenagers to get involved in politics and our government.

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This article has 1 comment.


on Oct. 7 2013 at 12:54 pm
Joseph_A BRONZE, Westerlo, New York
1 article 0 photos 1 comment

Favorite Quote:
Never forget what you are, the rest of the world will not. Wear it like armour, and it can never be used to hurt.

How do you guys get involved with your community and local government? Also, what do you think of the article?