By Nick Wright, Satirist
My editor Katie Toth is always bringing you down by going on about one thing or another.
Recently, she was in some sort of panic over this thing called the O’Neill Report. According to Toth, if the government were to act on the suggestions outlined by O’Neill, my tuition would go up or something like that. I concede that increased tuition would be a bad thing; I would have to readjust my budget to include fewer nights at the Palace, and God knows I hate to miss a foam party. Unlike Toth, however, I am not particularly worried about this situation coming to pass. I am protected by a guiding political philosophy which I would like to share with you.
I call my philosophy voter responsibility. This means that I hold the voters—one of which I am not—responsible for making the decisions which I simply am too busy to be bothered to make.
Hey, as students, our lives are pretty full. We have to spend most of our time reading books, writing papers, organizing beer-pong tournaments, and keeping up on the latest and most obscure musical trends. With all this essential activity, how could we possibly be expected to keep up with things like current events or politics? This is the reason that I believe so many of us make the conscious decision not to vote. Few of us are capable of keeping up with mundane issues like current affairs. Thus, we instead choose to give that responsibility to those who are better equipped to make the decisions which affect our lives.
Let’s look at the statistics. Students are, for the reasons I stated above, one of the lowest voting blocks in the country. People who do vote are much older and wiser than us, and thus better at deciding what is best for us all. The largest voting block in the country is, in fact, the elderly.
Obviously, such a generation is much better equipped to choose candidates who will work in the best interest of students.
Now, this isn’t to say that all students don’t vote. In fact, there is a small cadre of brave (and most likely socially inept) nineteen to twenty-somethings who do. To them, my heart goes out. These students, aside from making the hard decisions so I don’t have to, also keep what is known as ‘student politics’ alive.
I have recently heard of a mysterious organization called the DSU, or Dalhousie Student Union. Although its workings are a mystery to me, I do know that they keep our best interest protected from all those out there who may wish to do us harm. I know that every spring they hold a mysterious ritual called an ‘election’ in which the chosen few who know of their ways select our leaders for the next year. Oddly enough, I have never actually managed to meet anyone who has participated in this ritual. I tried to find someone who had participated in the election, but a quick survey outside of the McCain building made me realize just how scarce the people who follow DSU elections really are. I am positive, though, that they do exist, and that they—much like the elderly—are much better at making electoral decisions for me.
You see, voters are the sacrificial lambs of our age. One might even go so far as to call them Christ-like. They take it upon themselves to interpret the facts through their own views and then apply those views through voting in order to make sure the best candidate gets picked. Those of us who don’t vote are dependent on these saint-like beings, and I would just like to take this opportunity to thank them.
My response to Toth’s fears of the O’Neill report, or the privatization of healthcare, or the off-chance that for absolutely no good reason we might go to war with China or some other such nonsense, is this: We, the uninformed and apathetic masses, don’t need to worry. We have voters to protect us by electing representatives that reflect their views. I’m sure that they know what’s best for me better than I do.
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