Perhaps it’s best if you don’t vote

More proof that it’s hopeless:

Also, 70.5 percent said they believe that one vote can make a difference, including 70 percent of the students who said they’d give up their vote for free tuition.

This from an NYU survey in which 2/3 of students said they’d give up their right to vote in exchange for a year’s tuition. 20% would give it up for an iPod. 50% sould be willing to give up their right to vote for life in exchange for $1,000,000.

Of course, most of them have no clue what voting means, anyhow. These are the Boomers’ kids: overfed, understimulated and raised in a system that no longer teaches even rudimentary Civics in school. Money and status were the most important thing for the Boomers, and now they’ve raised a generation of children who are just like them, but incredibly pliable. They respond to knee-jerk soundbites, and beyond what’s in it for them, they’re blissfully unaware of the larger ramifications of their choices.

Most will likely vote for whatever candidate promises them some sort of material gift. This is the future of our country, folks: the echoes of the “Me Generation” writ large.

Political apathy isn’t anything new, but this whole, “give me a cookie and I’ll go away” thing is just horrifying. Of course, if you listen to the Left, that’s exactly what they’re banking on. The question is “what I get out of it,” not “where will this steer the country?”

Trust me, you won’t get the things they promise. Perhaps it really is best for the rest of us if you stay home on election day. Heck, I’ll buy you an iPod if it’ll keep you from screwing up the Democratic process in the name of self-interest.

And yes, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that it was my generation that voted Bill Clinton into office. I remember sitting in the mess hall and watching the local news station interview an otherwise intelligent person with whom I shared an English class. When asked why she was voting for Clinton, her response was, “Umm…because he’s better than, um, Bush. ‘Cause Bush is, um, really bad, um…for the country, and stuff.”

That was the stuttering, incoherent voice of my generation. Man, I despise my age group.

So, is it that America now produces a less inspired breed of statesman, or is it that we’re just willing to settle for what we get? Where are the Trumans, Jeffersons, even the Reagans?

Screw it: I nominate Bubbles, the irrepressible Panda. I bet he’d be a forceful negotiator with hostile regimes, and he wouldn’t take crap from special-interest groups.

In the meantime, I feel obligated to admit that I only scored a 26% on the Mall Ninja Aptitude Test. I shall now chop off my own earlobes to atone for shaming my ancestors.