They say if you don’t vote you can’t complain, but that’s never stopped young people before. So start your bitching now, you pathetic whiners – we all know you’re not going to bother to take 10 minutes out of your busy, self-absorbed lives on Nov. 19 to vote in our municipal elections.
Oh, you’ll have your reasons for not voting. "It doesn’t matter who we vote for," you’ll simper, "because nothing will change." Wahhh!
Or maybe you think you’re unqualified because you don’t know the issues inside and out, and don’t trust yourself to make what is, after all, a really simple decision. If you spent as much time paying attention to the news each day as you spend picking lower back tattoos and carefully angling your hats in the mirror, this would be a piece of cake.
But angst and qualifications aside, we all know the reason young people don’t vote is that you’re too f-ing lazy, too f-ing cool, or too f-ing wrapped up in your own little lives to take much of an interest in the world around you. If only you could vote by cell phone.
The thing you’re missing is that this is your life and your town, if only for a little while – so why won’t you take a few minutes out of one day to try and make things a little better? The mountains close early, and it’s too cold and wet to spend the day at the beach, so don’t tell me you have anything better to do.
Apathy is too sophisticated a word for you bottom feeders. People are dying around the world just to get that one vote you’re too lazy to cast, you ingrates, you leeches on the ass of democracy.
Enough young voters could turn the tide in elections. The B.C. Green Party would have a few candidates in the legislature by now if young people had the courage to vote their convictions. The power brokers in Ottawa might actually care about issues affecting young people for a change if they were worried you were paying attention to what they were doing, and might decide to vote your consciences for a change.
South of the border, George W. Bush would probably be history and the Americans would have a viable third political party if even a fraction of all people aged 18 to 30 bothered to cast ballots in 2000 and 2004.
But noooo, young people always seem to find something better to do.
Every election it’s the same thing.
The election observers wring their hands and wonder, once again, why young people are staying away from the polls. One common rationale they come up with is that young people feel disengaged from the process, that governments don’t really care about young people, that all politicians are somehow corrupt, and it doesn’t matter who you vote for because it isn’t going to make any difference.
Boo hoo, I say. Sure, politics can be a dirty and divisive game, but that’s a symptom of voter apathy. If people really followed the issues and cared enough at election time, that perception would be a lot different. We let politics become dirty and divisive, and yes, sometimes even corrupt.
Every big election someone tries to motivate young people to vote by hosting sad little "Rock the Vote" events, trying in vain to make the civic duty of voting cool.
"Vote, or Die!" P-Diddy said last November, and then nobody voted and nobody died as a result – unless of course you count all the people in Iraq and Afghanistan, poor people in New Orleans, or the thousands that will die from pollution, disease, poor health care or other problems young people don’t realize they have the power to solve.
Here’s a secret for all you young people out there – the powerful people who are responsible for all the problems in the world don’t want you to vote ! They can’t afford idealism or optimism or courage of conviction. They need people who are older and afraid of losing their jobs, their homes, their old age security and their equity in the stock market to push through their iniquitous policies.
Young people are the wild card that could keep the system honest, but for some reason you never, ever play that card.
Of course, local politics don’t encompass the same life or death struggle as provincial, national and world politics but the people you won’t vote for could still do a lot for you.
Municipal government can help build affordable housing, so one day you’ll be able to live here without winning a lottery.
They decide where to put money into our infrastructure – the skatepark, dirt jumps, mountain bike trails, Valley Trail, public parks, sports fields, transit system and more, while also boosting the tourism experience to ensure you’ll always have a job and your standard of living and playing is the best in the world.
Local government pays the RCMP – and yeah, they’ve probably busted up a few of your parties, but they also busted a ring of bike thieves this summer, which might have saved you some valuable gear.
Local government supports arts and culture, the environment, and keeps the streets and bus shelters clean – the same bus shelters young jerkoffs trash every single night to show just how badass they are.
It’s not easy being young, I know that. It’s not easy being 32 either, and from what I’ve heard it only gets harder from here on in.
But it is easy to vote. So take a couple hours to learn about the candidates and the issues. Then take 10 minutes on Nov. 19 – long enough to show some I.D. and get your ballot – and get your sorry ass to Myrtle Philip and vote. No more excuses.
