September 12, 2004
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TOPIC: I’m voting!!!
It’s funny, deep down I always knew I should vote, but it was literally a matter of inconvenience that I’ve actually been living life knowing that I didn’t have the initiative in me to register. And that’s what voting is all about. It’s not just taking 5min., it’s taking the inititive to look up how to register, and following up on it. Here in St. Louis, many people couldn’t vote in 2000 because they went to the wrong polling stations. My roommate is just like me up until moments ago, he has no intention of voting, because his cynicism about “my one vote won’t matter, and i’m still gonna have to go to work the next day,” was enough to kill the necessary inititive one needs to vote. He said he would vote, but when asked where, he said he didn’t know.
Which leads me to this point. Voting isn’t as easy as we think. Call me lazy, but that’s not my fault. While many run around screaming, we need to vote, here’s how to register, many have come to tune it out. You hear it so many times, you stop caring.
In time however, voting will become as commonplace as shaking hands when you greet someone, and saying, “Hi, how are you?” It will become part of our culture to vote, because there will be social pressures to do it. Just as you wouldn’t not shake someone’s hand when offered, not because grabbing onto someone’s hand really means anything, but because our society has deemed that a necessary gesture in order to exist as a normal member in our society, voting is becoming that way.
I am giving into that pressure. I want to say, “Yeah, I voted for John Kerry,” even though I live in a Democratic state where a Kerry victory is expected, and unless the vote is decided by just one vote, then it wouldn’t have mattered if I did vote. I want to say, “Yeah, I voted for John Kerry,” even though I don’t believe that by not voting for Kerry, I would be in some way supporting Bush, that I would be responsible for Bush being re-elected if he were to be re-elected, and that I would be in some way giving up my voice by not voting (and I ask, what voice does a Kerry voter have if Bush wins, versus someone who didn’t vote? And when did voting become necessary to have a voice in this country, when there are still other ways to be involved and voice opinions such as lobbying, protesting, writing, or simply finding a line of work such as education or environmental protection so that you are voicing your politics through your own actions, rather than simply stating your preference for a politician?)
So, basically, I’m going to vote because the social pressures are getting to me. I now have the reason to take the initiative, for no other reason than to be able to say, “Yeah, I voted for John Kerry.” Pres. Bush must be help accountable for his actions that chip away American liberties and that have wounded our image and relationship with foreign nations around the world. Is voting always going to be important in America? It will depend on the election, I think. But, it’s good to see that the way America has responded to President Bush’s leadership is through social pressure to vote him out. I suddenly see why protests have purpose. I suddenly see what voter registration drives are important. They create the social pressure to make people not just realize their political views, but they make people vote. If I was in college and was forced to take a class and forced to write a paper, I’d certainly write it about the realizations I’m having right now. Fortunately, I don’t have such pressure (that’s my tie into College Daze, available online) or preview it here.
