Voting is sexy...and civic!
I wholly agree, sir.
“Rock the vote.”
I think I will.
“Get the fuck out and vote.”
Okay!
Whether you’ve elected to Barack the Vote or Drill Baby Drill is up to you. But if I find out you just couldn’t make it to your polling place or the line was too long or you got arrested for intimidating other voters, I think less of you.
The second most unsettling political expression I’ve heard this semester is “Don’t Vote.” (The first? A serious statement that “Obama is a Muslim,” said on Locust Walk.) And while I’m not happy that I heard it here on The Spin, this nasty little “Don’t vote if unless you ‘get it’” argument is alive and well all over the country.
Because yes, the over-abundance of campaign flyers, canvassers, e-mails, infomercials, surrogates (Drew Barrymore gets canceled?! C’mon, Barack!), and debate watch parties is ulcer-inducing. However, if it gets people to the polls, then I’ll live with it.
So please, friends, do not tell your classmates and neighbors or the good people of Philadelphia that they should only vote if they know the issues.
Why? Because people know the issues a lot better than we or even they think they do. People get that their 401(k)s are in the toilet. People get that gas is pricey. People get that their kids’ schools aren’t good enough. People get that there’s a War on Terror and a War on Choice.
Americans get it.
No, they may not always phrase it as eloquently as we well-programmed snobs at Penn, but they get it. It is nothing less than voter intimidation to imply that in some manner voting is only for those who obsess over blogs.
Saying “Don’t Vote” on a college campus is especially dangerous because every four years we register ourselves in record numbers and every four years there are high expectations for our turnout and every four years it’s just a bit too low to get the guy that polling shows we actually wanted elected into office. “Don’t Vote” has an effect; it tells people that it’s okay to not vote.
People my age: it is not okay to not vote. We spur the belief that our generation is killing America when we don’t vote. And it’s true that nobody cares about the issues affecting young people when young people don’t vote.
So, please: VOTE… or die.
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October 30th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
This is horribly untrue. For instance, there’s not a “war on choice.” Even if the republicans nominated enough conservative justices to overturn Roe vs. Wade, they probably wouldn’t do it anyway. And even if the longshot scenario happened, it would become a states rights issue–meaning that women would simply have to drive across a border to get an abortion. At best it’s a “war on not driving.” Yet, a huge percentages of voters base their choice on this issue–for no reason.
401k’s are in the toilet and gas is pricey, but it has little to do with politics and more to do with the cyclical nature of the economy, supply and demand, and poor economic choices. Every president in the past 30 years has tried to get more people owning homes (which they did and created this mess), and has also pledged to decrease our dependence on foreign oil.
October 31st, 2008 at 12:01 am
AH! I definitely just accidentally typed “on” instead of “of,” Derp. My total and sincere apologies, though thank you for highlighting this in your comment. I apologize for the proofreading error. I meant “War of Choice,” as in the Iraq War. I essentially agree with your point about the abortion issue, though again I was not at all referring to it.
Thanks for the comment,
Will Steinberger
October 31st, 2008 at 12:49 am
Will-
It seems that you have misunderstood the point of my blog, and the point that a lot of others are making. Of course I support the American public going out and voting, what I don’t support is the type of decision making that seems to go along with voting. I think that people should decide for whom they vote for based on who they think will best serve our country. I do NOT think that people should blindly follow one candidate based on a song they heard on youtube, or based on who their parents voted for.
When writing my blog, I was trying to call out these “well programmed snobs” here at Penn. I couldn’t put it better, we are programmed. We aren’t thinking for ourselves, which is what I was urging people to do.
Voting is extremely important, and I think that everyone should voice their opinions. But I think when they voice these opinions, they should be their own.
In the future, if you plan on smearing another one of your fellow bloggers’ blogs, you should consider discussing the issue with them first, or at least warning them.
-Chaia Werger
October 31st, 2008 at 12:51 am
for whom they vote*
October 31st, 2008 at 5:27 pm
I think uninformed voters are better than uninformed nonvoters. I think even if people are voting based on YouTube or what their parents believe or what people on the Walk were shouting, we’re still better off than when all these folks stay home.
Our founding fathers believed that voting could only be trusted to the gentry. In theory we have learned better, but I think we run the danger of saying that voting can only be trusted to a different kind of gentry.
November 3rd, 2008 at 1:52 am
McCain ‘08!
November 5th, 2008 at 12:23 am
i don’t agree that uninformed voters are better than uninformed nonvoters. i’m currently abroad and met another american (who has only been abroad for 3 months) who didn’t even know who was running. that’s not okay. i don’t want her voting when she doesn’t know anything about the issues.