By: Nick Bergeman ~Staff Writer~

Dear students,

I, for one, welcome our middle- aged overlords. Thankfully, most of us will not vote in the upcoming election. Statistics get thrown around about how young people do not vote. Usually, estimates indicate that about 50 percent will vote in presidential elections and less than 25 percent in mid-term elections. I say we can go even
lower. I hope we do.

Those of you who are still voting, obviously, have not been listening to what older generations have been telling us for years: Our viewpoint is irrelevant.

Nothing we think, hope or believe matters because we have no idea what we are talking about. College students should not even be able to vote. All of us are thinking it, so it feels silly to even note, but only older people should vote. They know so much more than us.

Now, some of you might be outraged and think that we have some sort of “civic responsibility,” that “your voice matters” or that “our nation has always thrived on the strength of a diversity of viewpoints that ultimately contribute to a society that properly represents the population,” but then you would be wrong.

We have fallen into a culture of delusion that just because we are technically allowed to vote that we should. Obviously, we should have no say in what happens to our country, community or even us. That responsibility belongs to people that know what is best.

We can trust our parents and grandparents to make the decisions that are most prudent and reasonable. Occasionally, we may take exception to certain policies, but do not allow them to persuade you to register and vote. Those disagreements are just a side effect of allowing someone else to make important decisions for you. None of us are qualified enough to make those decisions, and we have the fortune of our parents wanting to, so we should let them.

Remember that we are lazy and entitled millennials. How could we possibly have reasonable opinions about tax systems, the Iran nuclear deal or immigration? The sheltered experiences that fostered our inability to work hard translate into an utter inability to participate in the political process.

I feel bored thinking about reading a paper, watching the news or investigating issues. Even if I would put in the time to learn about that stuff, I would then have to dedicate time to register to vote. You have to go out somewhere and spend an entire half hour filling out a piece of paper. I have more important things to do. The country will survive without our votes. We only have one vote, so it is not like all of us using them will make a difference anyway.

Maybe I would be interested if there were any interesting candidates with ideas that appeal to me, but I never even bother to look or listen because they are all the same. I mean, I assume, because I have absolutely no idea.

Regardless, the political system is too liberal or conservative for me. Whatever older people vote on will be better than anything we come up with. Our lives will probably be the same if we pay attention or not. We barely even matter.

The thing you should take away from this, if you take nothing else, is that we have to worry about our own lives. Voting has a major effect on our ability to live, so it is worth thinking about exactly how much participating in a political process matters.

In all honesty, I am tired of conversations about whether voting is important or not. The answer is clear and everyone with reasonable intelligence understands how much of an impact a college student’s vote has in an election: just as much as everyone else.

Well, I guess a vote only counts if you cast it, right?

Sincerely,

A concerned citizen