The main points of Obama’s speech were listed in the beginning. The four big issues that he addressed were making sure that the emerging economy is fair for everyone, using developing technology in a way that benefits everyone and addresses long term issues, keeping America safe from threats military or otherwise without becoming the international police, and how to change politics to reflect what the country should be like. I think that Obama is addressing concerns that many Americans have had for a long while. I think that the theme of this address was making sure the future is someplace that you would want to be in. He said that there needs to be change in the economy to account for the changes we see today. There is new technology and policies that creates the opportunity for jobs and workers to be replaced through outsourcing or automation. There needs to be a change so that normal Americans are not left to fend for themselves while the money from replacements goes to the top. Along with technology, the future will need better education as well, which was addressed. Obama made a great point in that the schools should start teaching kids more computer and math skills. Computers are becoming more and more widespread and integrated into commerce and industry, so the new workforce will need to be trained on how to use them. Along with high school education, the issue of college education was addressed. Obama said that college should be more affordable and, at least for community colleges, free for the first two years. This will let kids explore what they want to do without being too locked into one path because it would be too expensive to switch degree paths. This is important because more jobs are requiring a degree, so a college education is becoming more important as factory jobs are being replaced with machines. These machines will need engineers, programmers, and technicians to keep them working, which will all most likely require a college education. This reflects the theme of needing to prepare for the future, in that education will need to change drastically from what it is now to prepare students for the future. Obama addressed another important topic that also has a big impact on the future: new energy sources. Obama stated that because of the growing industry of wind and solar energy, Americans are saving more money while also using a much cleaner energy source. He also said something I really appreciated, realizing that this change won't be overnight and that future generations will have to work for it.
Overall, I liked this speech much more than I thought I would. I didn’t expect to agree with so many things that Obama says, but his politics are surprisingly sane compared to what I’ve heard said about him. I think the part I agreed with the most were his points on education and technology. Colleges are expensive and put strain on graduates. It may be too ideological of me, but I think in a country that’s going to be changing in almost every way, economic strain shouldn’t come with you right into the job market. The only thing I wasn’t completely sold on was our involvement in world politics. I think the country is too focused on maintaining peace that it’s hurting us and other countries. We should be able to focus on our economy and well-being, especially if it will change as much as Obama says it will, which we can’t do very well if we’re worrying about who’s blowing up who across the world. He addressed this, but I think it should go a little further: America makes other countries weaker when we intervene so often. I agree with him not wanting our country to become the police again, but I think except for trade, science, and directly defending our security, we shouldn’t be involved with other countries because they will and have started to rely on us to step into most conflicts. I don’t understand why we can’t let the countries solve their differences themselves, otherwise they’ll be arguing over a river for 60 years until another terrorist group shows up. (For the Test)
+5 on Test 1 = 91
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