Got me thinking (all political and stuff)

I’ve been talking politics with people a lot. My friend at the office and I talk constantly about that sort of thing, especially now with an upcoming presidential election and the results of the primaries rushing in. Wendy and I talk about that sort of thing via IM.

So I’m going to talk about them here for a moment. I’m going to try and remain non-partisan, too. But I’ve decided I have to say SOMETHING here, especially after receiving an e-mail from Skeleton Crew that Frank Iero had posted something new on the boards.

I’m not going to copy and paste the whole thing, but this was the part that struck me:#1 If you’re 18 and live in the United States. Educate yourself on the issues at hand and register to vote! You can do this online at www.rockthevote.com. It’s real easy, fill out the form online and print it out to sign and mail. If you’re not 18. Find out about the issues and discuss them with your parents and friends. Express your opinion to them and make sure they vote. This is our world and we do have a say.

That got me to thinking about my generation and something that has concerned me for awhile about us. Political apathy, especially as it pertains to voting.

I’m not talking about voting in every primary, because I know I don’t even do that. But at the same time, I know people who just don’t vote at all. There’s a number of reasons, all of which make a certain amount of logical sense. A few I’ve heard:

1. None of the candidates stand for what I believe in. I can’t get behind their message.
2. It doesn’t matter who I vote for! In 2000 Gore won the election but lost the presidency!
3. It doesn’t matter who I vote for! Everything’s rigged anyway!
4. It’s just choosing between one middle aged white guy or another middle aged white guy.
5. They don’t speak to me.

#5 is a real problem for me, because it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Candidates don’t talk about youth issues because the youth vote is notoriously bad at turning out. Young people are so disenchanted with the political process that they just DON’T PARTICIPATE…so when you’re trying to gather votes why bother with people who aren’t going to anyway? So, they don’t address our issues and many of my peers, in turn, don’t vote because they don’t know where the candidates stand on their issues.

But we can force their hand. We can force them to change.

We can VOTE.

I don’t care what party you register as. I don’t care who you vote for. I don’t give a damn if you vote for a third party candidate who doesn’t stand a realistic chance in our bullshit two party system. JUST VOTE. You have the right, you have a voice. Yes, it’s true that the system is screwed up, but this isn’t a system you can change without having some part in it. Change comes from within, and changing the political system means that our generation has to become politically active.

It’s so easy, too. We have access to the internet, meaning that candidate’s views are easy to access, information isn’t centralized anymore. There’s Youtube if you just want to watch highlights of speeches or debates. There’s the highly rated Daily Show and Colbert Report, both of which are humorous but also offer INTELLIGENT REPORTING. They’re entertainment, but they’re also good new sources.

As a country we had to fight for our right for representative government. And for hundreds of years certain portions of our population were denied the right to vote. People FOUGHT for their rights to the polls and now we scoff at it because the system is corrupt.

We are the anti-virus. We can BE the cure. But we have to do something about it.

So? Make a change. Stand for something. VOTE.