Use your right to rock the vote

Ever since I turned 18 in April of last year, the utmost exciting thing to me was not the fact that I could, if I wanted to, get into certain clubs, buy cigarettes, get piercings and tattoos, or any of the other average cliches.

Rather, it was the realization that I would soon be voting in my first presidential election. I’ve been waiting for this opportunity for what seems to be so long and now that the opportunity has arrived, I must say that it is not what I was expecting. Why? Well, my answer is simply this: I’m not impressed by the candidates, to put it nicely.

I’m not usually one to bring up politics and let me make one thing clear: I do not judge or discriminate against anyone based on political opinions. I just feel so passionate about this subject because, well, shouldn’t we all be passionate and involved in what’s going on in our country? The answer is yes. However, that is sadly not the case.

 

It seems that many people in America are extremely and increasingly apathetic toward political campaigns. They may feel that it doesn’t affect them, and this is especially common for younger individuals because they may feel that since they haven’t voted in the past, they don’t need to now. Or, they feel as though their vote doesn’t matter. Also, many are in the same position as me: They are finding it hard to decide on who to vote for because neither of the candidates are desirable.

This apathy is obviously only going to hurt America. This is something that everyone should have a stand on, and if people aren’t involved, that’s when cruddy candidates like Romney and Obama make it through. And, in turn, when the individuals who are in the same position as I am are faced with this, instead of voting for the better candidate, it is more like we are voting for the lesser of the two evils.

On one side, we have an arrogant Republican candidate who has changed his views on so many issues, such as abortion, immigration, education and health care. In my opinion, when it comes to big issues such as these, most people are pretty solid in how they feel.

As a presidential candidate, it would be a good idea to be more clear on this. How in the world is Romney supposed to make decisions for the country if he can’t even make up his own mind on how he feels about an issue?

On the other side, we have the Democratic president who has increased the national debt by trillions andcreated Obamacare which is a huge step backwards from individual liberty. Many people, such as myself, fear that if he is re-elected, he will not do anything different from what he has been doing.

I’m not so ignorant to say that there will ever be a presidential candidate that doesn’t have downfalls or that I will feel 100 percent confident in. However, there have been some way better candidates in the past, so why is it so hard to find better ones now?

The most important thing though, as Americans, whether we like the candidates or not, is to be involved and vote.

Apathy is not how we will improve our nation. Use your vote as your voice.

The process to vote is fairly easy as long as you are 18 and a U.S. citizen. I registered online at presidentialelection.com, where all I had to do was fill out simple information and mail in a form. The Student Life office on the first floor of the Main Building also has forms available.

The voter registration deadline in Oklahoma for the Nov. 6 presidential election is Oct. 12.

Locations of county election board offices in Oklahoma can be found at www.ok.gov/elections/documents/cebinfo.pdf.

To contact Paris Burris, email onlineeditor@occc.edu.

Leave comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked with *.