By Rhiannon Pabich
Fall 2012
‘Sup, apathetic youth of America! I totally get where you’re coming from, don’t worry. I think you’re right; you shouldn’t vote.
For starters, your vote doesn’t count, right? Some electoral districts in battleground states don’t sometimes decide winners by a 5-vote margin. And the stakes are hardly high; it’s not like it really matters who wins. All politicians are the same, right? Whether it’s Obama or Romney that wins this election, four years from now everyone’s going to be in the same position—women, minorities, people who aren’t heteronormative, students, the elderly, small business owners, teachers, veterans, whomever—so why make the effort to cast a ballot?
By Corey Kane
Fall 2012
There’s no good reason to vote. Logically the odds of one vote making a difference are miniscule. And the differences between the two candidates in our two-party system are not as dramatic as the rhetoric would lead you to believe. Weigh this against the hassle of registering to vote, then standing in line on Election Day—or even worse the hassle of ordering and mailing an absentee ballot. As Barack Obama might say: “It’s math.”
By Greg Phipps
Fall 2012
Ever wonder why Social Security and Medicare are referred to as the “third rail of American politics?” How many times during this election cycle have we heard of Paul Ryan’s desire to turn Medicare into a “voucher program”, or of President Obama “stealing from Medicare to pay for Obamacare?”
By Steven Graff
Fall 2012
I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all
oppression and shame;
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with
themselves, remorseful after deeds done;
I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying,
neglected, gaunt, desperate;
I see the wife misused by her husband–I see the treacherous seducer
of young women;
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, attempted to be
hid–I see these sights on the earth;
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny–I see martyrs and
prisoners;
I observe a famine at sea–I observe the sailors casting lots who
shall be kill’d, to preserve the lives of the rest;
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon
laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;
All these–All the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, look
out upon,
See, hear, and am silent.
-Walt Whitman’s “I Sit and Look Out”
“Why vote?”
Why not?
The consequences of not voting have a more certain and negative impact on your life, and the lives of all members of your community.
Culture is becoming more and more geared toward being catered to in a way that suits its multitasking/short attention span/need for instant gratification ways.
Democracy, however, hasn’t changed.
By Fabiana Perera
Fall 2012
The very short answer is that I vote because I was born in New Jersey. When you are born in the US (say in New Jersey, for example) and grow up knowing that you can vote and maybe hearing that voting is useless or time consuming or inconvenient, you forget that
voting is a privilege afforded only to those who are citizens of this country. Thanks to the generosity of the writers of the US constitution, my parents’ careers, and the outstanding staff at Saint Barnaba’s Medical Center in Livingstone, NJ, I was born in the US and thus afforded the privilege to vote even when nobody else in my family can.
