You are lazy, ignorant and ungrateful. You are what George Bush counted on in his victory in 2000 and what he is banking on for his victory in 2004. You are invisible to a state assembly that continues to slash the appropriations for public higher education with relative impunity. You are what Osama bin Laden counts on every time he attacks this country, a young population lacking resolve and the ability to stop a president from playing right into Al-Qaeda's hands. You are what is wrong with America, a generation of lost souls with more interest in who will be the next American Idol rather than the next American president.
Hopefully, these statements have caused you to nearly rip this paper into shreds, only being stopped out of a morbid curiosity of what further defamations lie in the words to follow. Unfortunately, there exists a sizable portion of both the world and national population that truly believes many of the aforementioned allegations. And even more perilous, there actually is some truth to many of these charges.
Democracy requires the input of those governed to run effectively. Those who contribute run the country any way they wish, regardless of the voices silenced by indifference. They do so although the silent voices constitute nearly half the population of the United States. In the Borough of State College, those silent voices make up the vast majority of the population.
Activism among college students has declined drastically over the past 30 years. For those who see the previous statement as an unsubstantiated opinion, a bit of empirical evidence: the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 59 percent of Americans ages 18 to 24 were registered to vote and 51 percent actually showed up to the polling places in 1972. Conversely, only 45 percent of the same age group was registered for the 2000 election and only 32 percent actually voted.
Voting has become less a civic duty and responsibility of patriotism and more like the optional extra credit exercise that everyone skips because the professor offers it on a weekend. This trend needs to be reversed, especially by our generation, if the course of this country is to change away from elite pluralism toward populism.
Students comprise two-thirds of State College's 40,000 citizens. Mayor Bill Welch retained his seat with only 1,800 votes in the affirmative. This means that if 2,000 students were to vote, it is quite plausible that a student could be the mayor in a few years, or that we could continue to back the student-friendly Welch.
The election for seats on the State College Borough Council is slated for November, and should 1,500 students register and vote, students will be directly represented on the council. If you need some extra motivation, just think about those Orwellian devices installed, by the Borough Council, in Beaver Canyon tracking your pizza consumption habits.
Next target, Rep. Kerry Benninghoff, R-Bellefonte, who inherited much of downtown and campus via the Republican gerrymandering incident of last year. As everyone knows, Republicans are all about preemptive strikes and this redistricting was yet another example of this. The redistricting ensured that young voters in State College would be neutralized because the student body is split in half.
Even so, Penn State voters could have booted Benninghoff out of office with 6,106 votes last year. Benninghoff isn't even a member of the House Education Committee, although his district encompasses the largest university in Pennsylvania. Fortunately, the 77th district (the other half of State College) is manned by champion of Penn State and public higher education Lynn Herman, R-Centre.
Tuition increases are directly proportional to the inability to show force at the polls. The General Assembly need not worry about maintaining the 47th lowest appropriation to public higher education in the country, because those who are affected most choose to call in a vote for a guy named Ruben rather than pay attention to the politics of their state. Should we muster 25,000 voters (a little more than half of the undergraduate population) we could send one of our fellow students to Washington, D.C., to represent the 5th district of Pennsylvania in Congress. Oh the possibilities!
Do yourself and Penn State a favor; register to vote or re-register in State College because your votes are far more valuable here. It should only take a few minutes out of your day. You can download forms online from votenet.com or get a bunch for you and 25,000 of your closest friends from the Undergraduate Student Government office, 223 HUB-Robeson Center.
Become a member of the student constituency that exists outside the boundaries of conservative and liberal politics, as many of the problems we encounter cannot be categorized ideologically. Prove everyone in this country wrong who contends this generation is unappreciative of the right to vote. This right to vote has been extended through the pain of the suffrage movement and the outright violence and death of the civil rights movement. People have died and continue to die for something that most of us take for granted every day.
