Dear Ball State University students - actually, come to think of it, dear students of the entire United States or anybody 18 years of age and older:
I have a question, and it might seem like a simple question, an easily answered question, one that requires less than a second's thought, but, just for a moment, let's hesitate and think about it a little more seriously than that.
I want to know, are we doing enough? As young people, as educated people, as people that are old enough to vote in this country, are we actually doing everything we can possibly do to help America in a time that it so desperately needs our help? John Lennon once said, "You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die."
Unfortunately, I am wide awake. And, I bet, so are many of you.
Most of us have parents that were born in the '40s, '50s and '60s. We are the offspring of generations of fighters, picketers and revolutionaries. Our parents and grandparents may have fought proudly in wars or marched against wars they didn't believe in fighting, but they did something. Our mothers may have burned their bras while attending school or they might have stayed at home to prove a different point, but they did something. Our fathers might have avoided a war they absolutely did not believe in, but - you guessed it - they actually got up and did something.
And what do we do? Many of us can answer that question very simply: We sit and we watch and we wait.
Oh, we discuss, too. We discuss until we're blue in the face. A lot of college students in this country have very strong opinions about the shape we are in and where we should go and who should be leading us. And I am just as much to blame as anyone else.
But, now that we are old enough to vote, is it fair for us to just sit back and spit political diatribe among our friends over coffee? Or will we actually be there at the polls on Tuesday to speak a little louder, to say a little more, to show that we are actually doers as well as thinkers?
We have an obligation and personally, I know, I hate obligations too. But most of us want our troops to come home whether we are Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal or moderate; that is just a fact. And how much of the blame for their absence can we place upon our own shoulders?
Rioters in the '60s and '70s didn't sit back and just talk about how angry they were. They stood up with signs and words that they shouted until somebody opened up the doors on Capitol Hill and actually listened to the earful they were spewing. John Lennon also said, "if everyone demanded peace instead of a new television set, we would have peace." And maybe he was right. Maybe he is right. He didn't believe in killing 'no matter what,' he would say. And yet here we are, 26 years after his brutal death, fighting wars for the same reasons we fought wars that no one believed in 40 years ago.
Sure, history repeats itself, but do we have to? Do we really have to keep going down the same roads all the time? I don't believe so.
There is at least one small thing that we can do to say that we actually did something: We can vote. And we can vote in Tuesday's election. No matter which way you believe or who you plan on voting for, you can go and cast a vote and make a difference. And it might sound cheesy and it might sound contrived or clich+â-¬, but you should do it anyway because, hey, imagine that we're all dreamers.
Now imagine what would happen if we all woke up - and did something.
Katie Papper is a senior English studies major and wrote this 'Your Turn' for the Daily News. Her views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper.
Write to Katie at klpapper@bsu.edu
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