November 15, 2005
OPINIONS
Only the informed should votefter reading the recent article on voting, I agree that the aims of MTV, the WWE, and similar organizations are noble in their pursuit to increase voter participation among college students; however, they bastardize and trivialize the political process en route to their goal. By turning a functional system into the fad of pop-culture politics, we create a Hollywoodesque reality with replaceable villains and heroes to suit our fancy and be discarded at our leisure.
While students should be participatory in the political process, a truth that the college and high school systems fail to teach must be recognized: political apathy is as much a part of the political process as political activism.
Every individual affects the political process, albeit directly or indirectly, but should they all strive to a true activist status? The sad truth to total participation by an uninformed electorate would lie less in a candidate’s policies than his favorite character from Laguna Beach.
Call me pessimistic; but, after hearing that a colleague voted for Bush because he ‘looked cuter than Kerry’ and has yet to stop complaining about the War in Iraq, I’m much less afraid of the Religious Right than the Quasi-Political College Kid.-Stephen Protasiewicz
Undecided