I am speaking to my daughters high school civic class on Thursday

[gopiscrap]

she is a Sr. this year and her teacher has invited me in. I know I'll talk about my life narrative and also my experience running a city initiative and running for Congress, but I would love to have my colleagues input on here: what do you think a high school Sr. should hear from a guest speaker about politics.

[redstatebluegirl]

1. How important it is to be an educated voter.

Also how not participating in the process hurts them now and down he road. Young people are not informed on the issues and they need to be.

[grantcart]

2. that comity is essential to Democracy

I would use the example of John Adams defending the British soldiers at the Boston Massacre and putting aside one's particular interests for the larger interests of building a system of laws.

I would then explain how what is happening now is an example of how one side doesn't respect the law making process and rather than contest the laws at elections is trying to create dysfunction to coerce a redo. It is like when your younger sibling loses a game and calls for permanent "redos" until they get the result you want. Or when a friend says 'flip for it' and after losing the flip says "2 out of 3" and then "3 out of 4". Democracy requires comity, a respect for the civility of the system even when you disagree with the other party.

They are witnessing an example of Democracy without any comity, indeed a faction of a party that is in principle against comity.

[11 Bravo]

3. Would it be possible to respectfully point out that the "both sides are to blame" narrative ...

is pure, unadulterated, mother-fucking BULLSHIT!
See, this is why my kids only had me come to school on Veteran's Day, (which is not a holiday in Fairfax County, VA)

[MindPilot]

4. Reality.

High school seniors deserve to know the truth; that most everything they have learned up to this point about the theory of government and the rights of citizenship is complete bullshit.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

5. to be engaged and vote as soon as they are able

and to seek out news from a variety of sources since "news" has itself become something the political groups try to shape.

[kimbutgar]

6. I would tell them......

There are two sides of every story - Research BOTH sides before making a decision
It is never bad to ever admit you are wrong
It is just as important to look ahead as it is to look at what is right in front of you

The weekly magazine "The week" is a great resource. It shows both sides of a situation.When I was in High school we had to read Newsweek and discuss current affairs. The teacher would give us time to browse the magazine and asked us if there were any articles we were interested in. It really helped polish my critical thinking skills.

Just my two cents

[haele]

8. Actually, tell them there are often more than two sides to every story -

And to understand that in every situation, there is always going to be someone who is counting on benefiting from that situation. Follow the money, and you'll usually find someone who doesn't need a resource or assistance trying to get it on the backs of other people who do need it.
The job of the voter is to ensure that it isn't always the same someone(s) benefiting most of the times, and that community resources and opportunities remain available to all who will be impacted from them.

Just my two/three bits.

Haele

[tillikum]

7. hello.

I would drive home that passion and political engagement is both urgent and important but that it should exist in balance with other urgent and important things that define a well rounded and balanced person.

hope that helps!

[MineralMan]

9. I think the key thing is to stress how important it is

to participate in the political process. If it were me, I'd avoid talking about current political realities and focus on why individual participation and participating in campaigns for your favorite candidates can make a difference in the world. I'd then focus on the importance of local politics and how local offices are the training ground for future state and national leaders as a way of encouraging participation in local political races, where individuals can make an enormous difference.

By going that way, you'll avoid the unforgivable sin of embarrassing your daughter. Maybe.

[gopiscrap]

10. Good point and I was going that way!

although the teacher want's me to talk abit about my run for US Congress and the yard sign case that I took to the Supreme Court and won.

[MineralMan]

11. Well, I think that would be just fine, too.

You'll still probably embarrass your daughter, but that's probably unavoidable.

[gopiscrap]

13. yeah I know, but she's the one who brought me in

because she gets extra credit for it.

[BlueCheese]

12. Which case was that?

If you can tell us without revealing your identity, if you would prefer not to.

[gopiscrap]

14. "Collier-vs-City of Tacoma"

in 1990 I ran in the primary as a Democratic candidate from the left against a DINO. Mainly because he was voting for funding for The School of the America's in Ft. Benning, the school that trained the assassins that killed the 6 Jesuit priests in El Salvador in 1989.

Because I didn't have very good name familiarity (first race ever) I place red and white political yard signs all over the city on people's lawns and windows (none on public property) because the US Congressman involved didn't like seeing all those signs and because I placed them there before the city said I could (most cities have a sign time limitation) I got my name out way better and much cheaper than I could have any other way. The Congressman harangued the city to get the signs down til the time when the code said you could put them up and went to people's property and took the signs and knocked on the doors and said get them out of the windows.

We took this to court and won at the city level, lost at the state court of appeals and then the WA Supreme Court kicked to the US Supreme Court and they handed it back to the State Supreme Court to hear. We won 9-0 basically because there are no limitations on real estate and commercial signs (and there will never be unless that official wants his campaign contributions to dry up) and because political speech has to be protected before commercial speech the court had actually no choice but to rule the law of time unconstitutional. It is now one of the test cases in electoral sign law. There were some other components of this also, but this was the main part.

I was in South Bend one day working (I work for a religious agency that sends me to speak and sing at churches and religious colleges)and the person who was to be my guide asked me if I was the Mike Collier from Tacoma in the yard sign case, blew me away., It turned out that she taught electoral law at Notre Dame and she asked me to speak to her class. Blew me away. Any that's it in a nutshell.

[BlueCheese]

15. Interesting.

I would have thought that the First Amendment obviously protects people placing signs on their property. Good on you for standing up for that principle.

[gopiscrap]

16. the law was used as a ruse to help incumbents

after all it was incumbents who made the law.