I would like to commend Jed Pressgrove for encouraging our fellow students to be more active in exercising their ideas and beliefs. However, I am appalled at his justification for not voting. As Dr. Phil would say, “Jed, you don’t have a leg to stand on.”
I understand your disillusioned point of view; it is easy to feel your bubble on that ballot does not matter. It is also easy to convince yourself that the voting system is full of blind sheep and the “manipulative animals” that lead them. However, you failed to realize in your diatribe that unlike yourself not all voters are uneducated followers of politicians’ foggy messages. It is a little more personal than that.
When I marched to the National Guard Armory to cast my vote, I was not thinking about the fact that my vote will soon be lost in a sea of others. I was thinking about myself, a well-educated voter, who is about to take a stand (even though it might be a small one) for what I believe in.
I voted because my great-great-grandmother couldn’t and because my great-grandmother fought hard so I could. I voted because there is a boy I love that I want to come home. I voted because I know it is my God-given right to choose when I can and can’t have children. I voted because WMDs were created in a press release, not Iraq. I voted because I believe in a fair and balanced Supreme Court.
I also believe that my vote gives me the right to stand for or against anything our government says or does. Ignoring the media, politics and, most importantly, your right to vote gives power to those institutions you hate the most. Your non-vote breaks the legs of anything you stood for and not a pass on responsibility. Like you said, take action, even if it as small as a single vote.
Laurel Kirksey is a senior communication major.