I am 21 years old. I am what you can call ignorant. I know not much about the issues of the world. But now I am willing to learn. Please tell me everything going on right now about politics, etc. Also, links to sites that are good news sources would be welcome. Please help, fellow Clutchfans, I want to be a more educated individual. Thanks.
basic coverage of most events: http://news.google.com http://news.yahoo.com local coverage: http://www.chron.com http://www.houstonpress.com
I admire the OP's gumption. Takes a lot of balls for a 21 y.o to recognise and admit they are clueless.
Read the Economist front page daily. Google the references they give. Do this for a couple of months. There's bias in any source, if you're starting out, read enough of it to recognize it.
I was ignorant a few months ago before I started following this forum. Then I began to care about stuff. Try parsing the ideas in a hot thread, come up with your own opinion, and express it thoughtfully.
If you smoke weed and like gay pornos, you are more than likely to be a Democrat If you have 5 wives and hate black people, you are more than likely to be a Republican I kid I kid
My two cents: Check out the front section, or at least the front page, of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal each day. The first two are free with registration; the last one hides much of its content behind a subscription service. They're generally thought to be the three best American newspapers. If you only have time for one paper, make it the NY Times. If you're interested in their editorials, ignoring the token op-ed columnists, the Times is center-left, the Post is (despite its reputation) center to center-right, and the WSJ is bat---- right. But that's okay, because unlike a Fox News, generally speaking they all keep a wall between the editorial boards and the news reporters. There are cracks in those walls aplenty, but usually the dams hold. Also, if you're interested in politics specifically, Roll Call covers Capitol Hill pretty much exclusively: it often focuses on the minutiae of law-making that is difficult to find elsewhere. For example, you can find out in its sports section that our representatives waste their time in beer leagues, too. Talking Points Memo is one of my favorite websites; it's a blog by a journalist which has expanded enough to be able to hire other journalists to report/write for him. It's written from a left-of-center perspective. Politico is another politics-only website. Its tone, though more varied, leans right-of-center; though it covers a lot of the trivial stupidity of political back-and-forth as if it actually matters, it's worth keeping an eye on.
You need context... spend a year reading history and philosophy and political science and science and sociology and literature. When you know what has happened and why things happen, you can understand what is happening.
Though you may not have guessed from this thread, there are also other countries in the world. Start with your country (obviously) but don't forget that being a notch to the left or right in US politics is not as important as the rest of the world - most importantly, I urge you to focus on global poverty around the world. You will find a lot of answers when questioning what's going on in the poorest of countries.
On here I've managed to learn that Rush is Republican God. Dick Cheney is Satan. Barack Obama is the greatest thing since JFK. US healthcare is awful. And cops shooting a monkey is racist. Its a liberal world in here, with a few conservative crazies. Sometimes it has extreme entertainment value.
You're 21, and American? Start by watching IOUSA, and reading what you can find by David Walker. For any American under 50, the debt is issue number 1. Everything else is less important.
Hey young man, I said this with the utmost love and because I'm nearly 50, old enough to be your parent. This forum is the wrong place for you to learn about politics foreign or domestic. Except for a few respectful posters, the overwhelming population this place is your far angry left wing Obama lovers. The moment you have a different opinion and a slightest hint of criticism about the Messiah, you will be torn into pieces, they will go after you and sometimes even your loved ones. Just ask a few conservatives posters around here and they will tell you, don't take my words for it. I have never attacked or hurled insults at another fellow posters, I believe in civilities in this forum because we are all in this together. However, I have been insulted, called names and even earned a few negative rep points from Clutch Crew for just speaking my mind against Obama. Meanwhile you guessed it, the lefties that attacked me personnally went on unpunished! What I'm trying to tell you is this, you are so young and yet you have the initive and the interest in politics
