Is no choice really a choice?

I'm posting this column by my friend and satirist Graham Culbertson because The Gamecock wouldn't print it. It should be read, not censored. Here you go:

The Rich Guys Don't Care About You - by Graham Culbertson

In case you haven’t noticed, I have one simple policy in my columns. I don’t deal with issues. Everyone else writes about issues. Everyone writes about social issues, economic issues, and, most of all, political issues. Everyone writes about Republicans and Democrats, Kerry and Bush, pork barrel politics and the welfare state. The mistake that they all make is that they care.

Nowadays, everyone, from MTV to MoveOn.org to Puff Diddy to The Gamecock, is telling all young people to get out and vote. Rock the vote. Care about the vote. Vote for someone, vote for anyone. And this issue offends me so much that I’m gonna have to break my only rule to attack it.

Put simply, voting really is for old people. It seriously is. The AARP has tremendous political clout because they all vote. Does that mean that I should vote? Doesn’t that just mean that the AARP is made up of a bunch of people who don’t have jobs anymore but think that Kerry instead of Bush, or Bush instead of Kerry, is actually going to change something? Does their tremendous political clout result in anything?

I’ve got some news for you, AARP members and “young people should vote” activists. Voting doesn’t matter. Bush is a multimillionaire, and so is Cheney. John Edwards is worth more than both of them combined. Senator Kerry-Heinz is worth almost ten times as much as the other three. And Puff Daddy thinks that me voting for Mr. Billionaire and his super millionaire partner is better than voting for a pair of super millionaires? Does the American President even do anything? Because if I remember my civics lessons, he can’t declare war, doesn’t levy taxes, and can’t even pass laws. But oh yeah, if I don’t get out this November and pick super-rich Yale graduate A or super-rich Yale graduate B, I’m losing my all-important right to make a difference. Thanks, but I’ll take Option C, which is cut class, lay around watching sports, and then mug a College Republican for his “I Voted” sticker and show it to my professors.

In case anyone out there has missed the last 230 years, here’s how America works: Everybody here has more money than everyone else in the world (except for Luxembourgians or Luxembourgites. Whatever.). Everybody has a car, a TV, and free public education. Corporations run the country (and the world), but we insist on pretending that a few hundred grumpy rich white men in Washington are really running the country (and the world). And now Puff Daddy says that if we’re not involved in picking the next rich old white figurehead, we’re doing something wrong. Thanks Puffy, but I think you and the rest of the old people are doing a pretty good job pretending that the political process matters. You don’t need me.

So please, Don’t Vote. If you vote, then you think it matters, and if you think it matters, then the AARP has won. Think about it. You’re a student at a university who is definitely not paying for college out of your own pocket. You’ll graduate, get a job, get a house in the suburbs, and buy a Lexus. You get to go to movies and buy CDs and watch football in HDTV. Is something wrong here? Do we want Ralph Nader running the world instead of BMW? Just do me this one favor, and don’t vote. Your good life is coming to you either way. Don’t waste a Tuesday in November now. Save that up for when you’re old and you finally think it matters.