For the past two weeks, every day I see young people on campus canvasing and registering people to vote. After as many years as I have spent in academia, I am not a proponent of young people voting. Young people are emotional, irrational, and quick to react without thinking about consequences and without verifying what they are told. I have been worried for a while that this was a biased sampling process. I've proselyted, and I talked to people I thought might be mean, might not be interested, and might be bad choices, but these people profile, I think.
They aren't interested in educating voters, only in getting them to vote. Although most young people assume at age 18 that they know everything, we all know that's not true. Most of the students know very little of anything consequential, and so these are frequently the most harmful voters. I prefer that people not vote rather than cast a random or uneducated one. Furthermore, I think I was stereotyped by these activists. For many days, I walked past these people, and I wondered if they were profiling me. Nobody asked me if I was registered to vote until today. I guess it's because I don't look like the demographic they expect to vote for and advocate big government. Perhaps it's because of my age, but sometimes I walked by after they talked to someone else or when they were not talking at all, and they let me pass with narry a word. Until today, when a nice young black man came up to me while I was getting out of my car, did anyone seem interested. Only he seemed like he was serious about doing a good job. The rest looked like they wanted the excuse to talk to young, cute girls, and some of them probably got numbers too. Incredible.
They want signatures, not action. Americans are willing to do anything as long as it doesn't cost them anything. A signature is easy. Doing work is hard. After I told the young man that I was registered and that I appreciated him asking, he mentioned two ballot initiatives. While I stood there and read the provisions in the proposed action, he seemed surprised. I consider myself educated, but I'm not really sure about the legalese they use, because it's not as simple as the paragraph byline makes it sound, and I doubt very much it's as innocuous as they want you to think. There seem to always be unintended consequences. After reading the forms, there was no follow up. The petitions empower politicians, not the people, and once you sign away a yard of your power, they take a mile and "act on your behalf".
They do this because they are paid. It is said that you truly only know the measure of a man when you consider how he treats those who can do nothing for him. Fact of the matter is that most people do things because it gives them an advantage. We talk in evolutionary biology of altruistic action, but altruism is generally also oriented towards self-interest. I doubt very much that anyone does anything without any ulterior motives. The nice young fellow confessed that he earns $13/hour. That's pretty nice considering you don't need an education and that you don't have to actually care. As long as you meet your quota of signatures, you get paid. He isn't out there because he believes in the legislation or voting or the republic. He's out there because he believes in cashy money. He's out there because he believes he's worth more than the minimum wage paid to the employees at Wendy's across the street. What message does it send when they will pay people with no skills more than people who actually contribute? I guess this is what superpac money and campaign funds buy- young people who will sell something that sounds good for a mess of pottage.
Liberals seem willing to stop at nothing to buy votes, but the problem is that they often buy people with their own money. Patrick Henry somewhat presciently preached that often our calamity is heightened by reflection that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Young people are notoriously fickle and unqualified. Yet, they are the ones with tons of free time and undirected passion and energy. Ergo, giving them power to vote and trusting them to use it wisely is a political pandora's box. Young people are liberal, and liberals know that, and so they abuse that in order to empower themselves. Liberal politicians are ancient fossils with tons of money. They pay a paltry sum to get people to sign away their power. They don't like all people. They like people they think can be manipulated, can be bought, and can be hoodwinked. So, they come to colleges too. Apparently, I am easy to discern as none of the above.
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