Letters to the Editor: Yes, young people care. Here’s how to make them vote too.
I don’t think young people vote because as adults they think the system is unfair. I think it’s because they care.
In my opinion, as a 30-something, a few decades ago people stopped caring.
I have friends who say they voted because they didn’t want to be “rude.” Some because they “didn’t want to be a gazelle,” thinking voters were going to give them a vote and leave them out anyway.
They didn’t care. Because when the system was fair, they wanted it to be fair.
They wanted it to have standards and enforcement mechanisms. No. They wanted it to be fair. They wanted it to have the safeguards of an honest and fair process that results in a winner and a loser.
But by the time they were 18? They had their minds made up: “Oh, I don’t care what the rules are.” The people who didn’t care had their minds made up: Who cares if the system isn’t fair?
I didn’t care back then. I cared about what was right. And I didn’t care about the rights of “others” because they were not really “other,” they were just not important. And I didn’t care about rights or fair play because all we were allowed to care about was the result: Who’s going to win, who’s going to lose. I cared about the process, if it was fair, if it was honest, if it was fair at the end.
I’m a 30-something who doesn’t care about the rules or fairness. I care about who gets the results. Who gets what they deserve. Who gets what they need in life.
I care about people who have been given their dream life and I care about people who have been given a crutch life and I care about the dreams of others. I care about how the most vulnerable, those who are not given a chance to be who they want to be, are able to make the choices that will determine their lives. I care about who has power and how they use it to keep us down in the world. I care about people who are suffering. Who will be suffering if we keep telling them that their dreams mean nothing.
I can’t say that