In November of 2008, I declined the opportunity to cast a vote. Some say it was my duty. My privilege. My responsibility. My right. Whatever it was, it was squandered. Supposedly.
“Well what if everyone did that?”
“Everyone isn’t doing that.”
“Well, there are soldiers risking their lives so you can have the right to choose your leaders.”
“I don’t think my white, middle-class voting privilege has ever been the subject of foreign conflict.”
“Well (in an exasperated, last-ditch-effort tone) if you don’t vote, you don’t have the right to complain about something the President does.”
“Do you promise?”
The right to complain?
I haven’t cast a vote since. I don’t attend town hall meetings. I don’t watch debates. I don’t join in on conversation of politics. I don’t march, rally, or protest. I don’t campaign. I click the option to hide the Facebook status updates of people who continually rant in generalized terms about how “G** d*** stupid that particular political party is.” I don’t even live in the United States. I’m taking a much needed 15 month vacation.
And yet, somehow, the Greatest Nation in the World continues down its inevitable path.
Maybe if I argued more, stressed myself to death by thinking my political views actually mattered, actually changed things, actually re-wrote policy, then maybe I’d be a good, cookie-cutter American.
The past 7 months abroad, 12,000 miles from the US, have been the most relaxing of my life.
Apathetic? In its most extreme form.
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