Why I hate being politically illiterate

[matt1993]

During a political debate in class:

MY HISTORY/ENGLISH TEACHER: Ah, so you're a socialist.

How was I supposed to know that?

Comments

[rovanda]

Still, not knowing leads to learning. Although I would say that a lot of people, myself and possibly your history/english teacher included, have fuzzy ideas of the definitions of different political groups.

Now that the term socialist has been brought to your attention and applied to you in conversation, it may be worth looking it up - on wikipedia, in the dictionary/encyclopedia, and on the websites of socialist groups - and deciding for yourself whether the label fits, and why or why not.

One of the most disconcerting things I learned in school was that teachers don't always know what they're talking about. Though keep in mind, most of them *really* don't like having that pointed out...

[matt1993]

I've heard the term socialist before, but I can only think of two things I've heard it applied to before then: a) Nazism (since if I remember correctly, it was originally called the National Socialist something-or-other), and b) this image (which I didn't know was supposed to be of Obama until I did a Google image search):

[pathvain_aelien]

What prompted your teacher to say that?

[matt1993]

I brought up that I agreed with the Sixteenth Amendment since it would give all Americans the chance to prosper, not just the rich.

[pathvain_aelien]

FYI, a lot of people call Obama a socialist, or communist, and these people often have an uninformed definition of the words. If someone is calling you that, it might mean that your teacher doesn't really know what it means. And plus, it's not a bad thing. Amanda and I could talk about this for hours, so I will just stop now. :)

[matt1993]

I know. It just bothers me that other people seem to know more about what side I'm on in debates than I do.