Standing Rock Sioux Tribe: Community Analysis

This semester in history, we talked about many things that I would not think about on a daily basis outside of school. Our lessons made me think in new ways about different concepts. The two things that made me most interested were learning about the Dakota Access Pipeline involving the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the requirements for voting for the President of the United States. DAPL made me more aware of our environment and realize how one thing could drastically affect so many areas of our world. It also made me see that there are many cons but there are also many pros. And, with all the research, debate, and opinions in our classroom, it made me question how I viewed the issue. I ended up changing my stand a few times. The Dakota Access …show more content…
It turns out that those are the only requirements to vote in the US. I think, to be able to vote in the US for the president, you should be able to read in some language, be at least 18 years of age, be a citizen of the United States, and show some type of political activeness. I know this is hard to test, but it is important to show that the person actually understands the content and is involved with the government and politics. During our discussion, the majority of the students were saying that the voting age should be lowered. Their arguments were valid. They said that adolescents are very opinionated, they would be affected by a lot of what the president decides, and the younger, future generation should have a say in who runs their country. Although I do believe we are very opinionated and somewhat very knowledgeable, I believe that our brains are still maturing. Teens are extremely easily persuaded and influenced by their surroundings. They may say they like something just to fit in with their peers and close friends. Parents have a huge influence on their children. Growing up in an environment where one view is correct can directly affect how a child will vote. Social media is another huge factor. An enormous amount of teens have social media and anything can be put online that could potentially persuade or give false information. This could also be said towards adults, but teens are more vulnerable to it. Most students have plenty of other things to do rather than educate themselves about the candidates and how his or her hundreds of policies will work. However, besides my point, I think the strongest argument to lowering the age would be the double-standards teens face. We are held to have thousands of responsibilities that adults do, yet we don't have necessarily all the exact same rights. Voting, as many people