Your Right Fight for It

Top 5 Reasons YOUth Should Vote
Why vote? We'll tell you why...
From Mike Hardcastle, former About.com Guide

You live in a democracy and that means that you get a say in who runs your country, and by way of this privilege you also get a say about how your country is run. It is very easy to be blase about your right to vote and take a "whatever, who cares" kind of attitude about it but you shouldn't brush this great honor off so quickly. Sure registering can be a bit of a chore, and yes, you have to head down to a polling station on voting day to pull your lever which takes some time out of your day and may cost you a few bucks in gas, but whether you know it or not these are very small prices to pay for the right to vote. In some countries people are literally dying to be able to cast a ballot and make a difference. Here, we list five very good reasons that every eligible young person should get out and vote.

The youth vote is sadly underestimated by party analysts.
Yes, it is true, the trend analysts who tell party spindoctors where to target their advertising dollars and public relations efforts traditionally over-look the youth market. Why? Because the sad reality is that election year after election year the percentage of eligible youth who actually register and vote is small when compared with other demographics. This doesn't mean the youth market isn't a force, just that it isn't a main motivator in the drafting of campaign platforms and pre-election advertising. So, like any self-respecting rebellious young person the natural thing to do is go against the grain and do the unexpected. Keep them on their toes, shock them into the 21st century and get out and vote!

The biggest election issues often directly effect the youth of the nation.
The war in Iraq (young soldiers are the ones dying), education funding both public school and post-secondary, employment and job training programs, and reproductive rights issues are just a few of the current hot topics that directly effect the quality of your life RIGHT NOW. Think about the future and the world you will one day "inherit" from the power generation and you can add environmental concerns, fossil fuel consumption, farming and livestock funding (think the food supply is shrinking with every farm that can't sustain itself) and the list just gets longer. Add any issues that are near and dear to your heart on a personal level and the list becomes a little overwhelming. Don't vote and you effectively kiss away your ability to have any influence as to how these issues play out in your world, and dude, that's just lame.

The only way democracy works is if citizens, young and old, are active participants.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, this one is an oldy, but hey let's face it, it's also a goody. A government by the people, for the people just can't work without the people. This is a simple fact. Like a car without an engine, or a computer without a hard drive, a democracy without voters is just a shell and has no power. While it is easy to say "one vote doesn't make a difference" the reality is that every vote counts... have you heard of Florida? Also you have to remember that as an individual your vote may seem to be little more than a whisper but when your vote is combined with the votes of others who share your views it becomes a voice and the more like-voters there are the louder that voice grows. So get out there and make the youth vote be heard.

If you don't vote you really have no right to complain about government decisions you don't like (no matter how much they actually suck).
OK, if there is one thing that is really annoying to us actual voters it is the endless ramblings on the bad political policy of a current government spewing from the mouths of eligible voters who never bothered to cast a ballot. If you don't vote it is like saying you don't care how your country is run, so if you don't care where do you get the idea that you can complain when something happens that you don't like? If you don't vote you really have no right complaining about anything the government does and if your like most young people you like complaining and have it down to a fine art. Want the right to complain when TPTB (the powers that be) make a truly heinous decision? Then you must exercise your right to vote.

Bottom line: you should vote because you can.
Voting is a tremendous gift. Believe it or not, young people just like you in other countries actually fight and even die for this right; a right that so many youth in democratic nations take for granted. You should vote because you can, if you don't you may one day wake up in a country where you can't. It can (and has) happened. Enough said!

Pumps Purses and Positvity

Troubled Youth

While in the daily hike to work on our local public transit system in my city I have come to realize that many of our young people lack a lot of guidance. Just to listen to the conversations they engage in (not intentionally just because they are so loud). I remember high school and riding to school with my peers but it was nothing like today's teens. They talk about things like who is sleeping with whom (tame version), who slept with whom, young ladies degrading each other by name calling. Where has the innocence gone?

Believe me I am a parent of a teen girl but in my wildest of dreams if I ever thought that she was carrying on this way there would be hell to pay and dearly. I find it hard to understand why anyone would think that it is either cute or acceptable to behave that way. It is sad even to the fact that they had no regard to the people around them. If they chose to speak that way maybe not everyone wants to listen to it.

I suggest to anyone that has a teen or that is involved with any on a direct bases have a conversation. Let them understand that speaking in ways like that is very disrespectful to those around and to themselves. I plan on having that talk with my own child tonight.

Much Love

Chanel
Real Life, Real Talk, Real Women

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I’ll tell you what it means to me.

Regardless of your dislike for a person, it is totally inappropriate to call them out their name, heckle them during a speech or impose your views of that person on someone else. It bewilders me how someone would heckle the president during his speech. The highest authority in our country and you don’t even have enough respect to listen. If you disagree that much, then why are you there in the first place? You are free to disagree and even hate behind closed doors but have enough respect for yourself to act as an adult!

I had a 13 year old child say to me that “I made her sick” because I asked her to remove her coat from an empty chair so that I could sit down. When I mentioned it to her mother she simply stated, “I know, she is always so disrespectful”. HELLO! What do you plan to do about that MOM? I can offer some suggestions but they will actually make her sick, for real this time. The lack of respect from our youth is beyond belief. However, it starts and ends at home. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and neighbors, please stand up and put these children in their place.

Here’s wishing you ……a little respect (sock it to me, sock it to me,
sock it to me, sock it to me)!

Clutch

Real Talk. Real Life. Real Women.