I am Sick of Politics
(Please read. I promise there is a point)
I am a teenager. I am extremely interested in politics and I like to think active as well. It is my opinion that it is my duty as an American citizen to pay attention to how this country is run. With that said, I do not blame the people my age that do not care about politics and have absolutely no interest in voting. For that, I blame the politicians in this country.
In my life, I can remember many elections. I say that very loosely because I do not remember what position most of the candidates took on important issues but rather, I remember what bad things the politicians did in their lives. In the politics of today, it does not seem that we elect people based on the legitimacy of their positions but instead on how good of a person they have always been and that is shameful. How can anyone expect my generation to vote when the only information that we have to go on is whether a candidate tried cocaine at one point in his or her lives or if the other has a gay daughter. Let us think back to the presidential election of 2004. I guarantee you that if anyone were to ask someone my age what they remember about John Kerry they would say one of two things, swift boat or flip-flopper.
Today as I watched the Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central, the only good source for political information because they seem to be the only ones that recognize how low politics have gone in this country; I saw news clips from the days surrounding the Virginia Tech shootings. These clips were filled with politicians and reporters alike attacking each other for trying to politicize that tragedy. Each side wanted to use it in the debate over gun control. I feel that this is a legitimate example in that debate but instead of talking about gun control, both sides fought about how disrespectful it is to use such a tragedy to push an agenda. The attacks flew back and forth over the tactfulness of using the event rather than an actual debate over gun control. This is a perfect example of how low attack politics have gone.
I am not going to blame this decent from responsible politics on either political party or on the media. Instead, I blame the country as a whole. We cannot allow this to happen anymore. I call my generation, the young Democrats and Republicans alike, to make politics right again. Make it about the issues again and not about slander. If you are against war, vote for the person that runs on an antiwar platform. If you are against the waste of federal funds, vote for the person that is running on a platform of reduced spending. Vote for who you support, not for the person that did the fewest stupid things throughout his or her life. Most importantly vote, because we can make a difference and anyone that tells you we can’t is wrong.
From the brilliant mind of Mike Kean, your friendly Sergeant at Arms.
