Government can't be abandoned
To the editor,
In response to Benjamin Kim's article about the League of Non-Voters:
I'll be the first to admit that there are many things wrong with our government. With regards to my personal life, I have an aunt and uncle who will most likely lose their ranch this year depending upon who wins the next presidential election, and I know that neither candidate knows of my family's situation, or in the case that they did, that they would even care. However, not voting doesn't look like the answer to me. Until humans reach a greater understanding of themselves, government is needed to control people, who by nature and example are greedy. If there were no government, and everything were privatized, who would take care of the poor and elderly? Will the League of Non-Voters feed my children when I die in a car accident? Most likely, the answer is no. The very nature of corporations is to exploit people. Ford corporation invented a car that could run at 64 miles per gallon in the 1960s, Microsoft knew about the threat of the Y2K disaster by the late eighties, but did these corporations try and better our world, make life easier for us or take care of us? No. In the days of Rockefeller, Carnegie and Morgan, before there were laws regulating big business and trusts, these men ruled the economy and crushed smaller businesses who couldn't offer the same products at a lower price. Who is to say that this won't happen again?
The Constitution was written under the basic principle that it could and would have to be changed some day. It is evident that it is time for change.
Perhaps there are no candidates who represent the views of Robert Peters or Kirsten Tynan, but if that is the case they should spend their time setting up there own platform, and running for election themselves someday.
Will Harris
History/Spanish junior
Real statements require courage
To the editor,
It strikes me as exceptionally pointless to encourage people not to vote as a means to bring about change. If one is seriously that dissatisfied with the system, there are really only two options. The first is working within the system to change it, which requires voting. The second is working outside the system to change it, which really implies revolution.
Their (League of Non-Voters) position is neither. Rather, it is simply not working, within the system. It effects no change in the status quo at all. It ensures that their grievances have no power whatsoever. Complacency is exactly what allows many of the things they rail against to occur in the first place.
It requires courage and ambition to change things, but neither to hide your head in the sand.
Ethan Cox
Cognitive psychology graduate student,
Representation works
To the editor,
Rebellious voters, in rebuttal to your campaign against the government by persuading college students from voting, I offer you this: Our government that you so easily bash is founded upon the principles of democracy. In those principles, one leader shall represent an entire nation and speak for the majority.
I realize it is unfortunate that President Clinton didn't personally speak up for you when you only managed a C+ in Media Arts 101, but leaders have serious issues to attend to. They look out for you in ways you don't realize.
Open the newspaper and look at the violence going on in other countries.
Do you understand what a privilege it is to live? To live in the United States? Your kind would better serve the world if you rebel in other ways.
For instance, try spending one day without something the government has provided for you. Let me break it down for you, the government is ultimately in charge of everything you touch. Tough! So, please, don't drink our water, don't eat our food, don't use our electricity, don't buy our clothes, don't use our plumbing, our transportation, our roads, everything. Please, go home tonight, fall asleep on your fluffy pillow one last time, and then venture down to Mexico, or swim to the Middle East, and then tell me if you feel like voting.
Ryan Hartman
Mechanical engineering junior
