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General thoughts on Politics

    I'll be honest, I never cared the least bit about politics before my first international trip to Europe in 2017. In Europe, I found that people speak a lot about politics, which was the topic of many of my discussions with strangers. After having so many interesting conversations about US politics with Europeans, I came to realize just how important politics really is and how little I knew about it. After returning to the US from Europe, I immersed myself in several political classics like Plato's The Republic and Marx's Communist Manifesto along with following different channels that talk about politics, geopolitics, economy, and history on YouTube. I really wanted to gain some insight as to why different countries have different systems and the history behind them and how they got there. As a result, geopolitics has become one of my favorite subjects to study.

    I think that everyone should be more informed about domestic and international politics because the world is a much smaller place than most people think. It doesn't matter your political affiliation; people need to know more about political systems and how their governing systems are different from other countries. Every country has a different demographics, geography, history, culture, which in turn, has led to their political development. All these variables limit how those systems may be transferred over. A country cannot simply copy policies that work in another country, to solve their own problems. What should occur however, is that we compare our own political systems to others, so that we may think critically about how our own systems can be improved to benefit our society domestically and abroad.

    Ignorance is bliss which is why many people prefer to stay ignorant. Politics is a dangerous thing to be ignorant about however, because it directly impacts us all, every moment of everyday. The centrist and nationalist emphasis of the media, and focus on local or national events, means most of the population is not made aware of breaking news from other countries. This limits what people perceive to be important. The reality is that what happens in Asia or Africa, DOES have an impact on us.

    In my opinion, the best advice for getting interested in politics is to travel and talk to people around the world. Having discussions with people from other countries is essential for reflecting on domestic politics. Traveling also builds compassion for other types of people and customs, which is also necessary to have a global perspective. We are like the microorganisms of this planet, our individual impact is small but as a collective we can transform the earth, for better or worse.

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