This upcoming Tuesday is supposedly the most important day of the year for politics, and honestly, I couldn't care less. Tell me about my civic duty, the fact that my vote could be the deciding one in a close election, tell me all the things that Diddy was telling people two years ago.

I don't care. Voter apathy has been considered a growing problem in our country for years, especially among college students. The argument against refusing to vote is that if nobody cares about the election results, everyone will eventually become disenfranchised and politicians will become tyrants.

The real problem is that people continue to vote for politicians who don't do anything to respect their voters' concerns. The business of politics is the business of getting re-elected, and once in office, an incumbent spends at least half his or her time and energy trying to win another election. There's little to no work involved with doing actual work like drawing up resolutions or researching issues to the fullest, at least when compared to all the fundraising and campaigning a politician does.

At the heart of the issue is the fact that, once in power, politicians will do almost anything to stay in power. The only saving graces for the American political system are term limits, like the one that keeps President Bush from returning to office in 2009. But on the Congressional level, we have representatives who must run for re-election every two years. There's no motivation for representatives to put much effort into their actual jobs when they have to put so much into keeping them.

I'm not proposing any solutions here because there are much smarter political scientists who could probably come up with much better ideas. But for my own part, the solution is the same as it would be for any other dysfunctional organization -- a boycott. If McDonald's served up half-cooked meat, I'd boycott. To me, the U.S. government is serving up half-cooked meat.

In the odd situation that there is a candidate worth voting for, the nature of politics is so out of whack that it's difficult for a charismatic leader to earn success. Think back to Howard Dean in 2004. In an enthusiastic promise of things to come, he let out an overzealous yelp that pretty much cost him the Democratic nomination. God forbid we should have someone who cares about politics working for the government. Instead, we have cookie-cutter candidates forcing people to choose the lesser of two evils.

And really, is there much difference at all between a Republican and a Democrat? It's not like Vladimir Lenin is running for election. In a two-party system, there really isn't going to be much difference between the parties, save a few issues. I hesitate to call these "key" issues, since the ones that are hotly debated never seem to be resolved. Abortion, gun control and gay rights have been and will be disputed until both parties are blue in the face. The U.S. government is not very prone to sudden change.

You can Rock the Vote if you want on Tuesday, but I'm going to do my civic duty and abstain. In a political sphere where everyone is yelling their loudest to have their voice heard, the most stark noise is the sound of silence.