The other day I was stuck in traffic behind a huge truck covered in anti-Obama stickers. It had the one of him looking like Heath Ledger’s character from The Dark Knight, the Joker. There was another one claiming something about how Obama is going to ruin our country, and then, my personal favorite, one claiming that President Obama is actually a socialist.

This is always an interesting argument to me because I do not believe that Obama is trying to make America a socialist nation. I simply do not see the logic behind that idea. It’s one of those ideas that you just keep to yourself because you know that it’s… illogical.

This senseless thought has returned to the forefront thanks to President Obama’s televised speech on American education yesterday.

“Every single one of you has something that you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer,” Obama told students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia and to students around the country via CNN.

In this speech, Obama encouraged students to do well in school so that they can prepare for the future. He discussed their importance, hitting on the fact that they are the future of this nation.

Students from kindergarten to seniors in high school were encouraged (and some forced) to watched Obama’s urge for American students to get their priorities in order. I couldn’t help but laugh at some of it. It was like he tapped into what my mother told me years ago.

“At the end of the day, the circumstances of your life: what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home. None of that is an excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude at school…” Obama said. “There is no excuse for not trying.”

BAM!

Of course, people don’t like being told that they control their own destiny. It makes them even more mad when the President of the United States goes on national television and tells their children what they’ve never told them.

“[We need] every single one of you,” he said.

Every. Single. One.

According to USA Today, many schools received complaints about the President’s speech and urged their public schools not to show it. One such parent claimed that his speech to the children was “just wrong.” (This parent lives in Texas.)

What’s “just wrong” is the dropout rate among high-school students in America. What’s also wrong is the amount of graduates who don’t know how to do basic reading, writing and arithmetic.

The last president to address America’s youth was George H.W. Bush in 1991. Many things have changed since then and our depression bound country depends on future generations to follow.

It’s about time that a President showed some concern for America’s youth, and it’s about time that the youth of America knows that they’re being counted on.

I say we make the education speech annual; that is, unless we all go socialist in a few years.