Amidst the raucous presidential debates, vicious campaigns and utter turmoil in the 2016 presidential election, reason martials my will to vote.
Shakespeare wrote, “Things growing are not ripe until their season, but I being young till now ripe not to reason. And touching now the point of human skill reason becomes the martial to my will.”
Voters age 18-24 may be young, but over the last four years we have been growing and now it is our season. Our votes are ripe for the picking.
Kevin Douglas Neighbors
Argonaut
Logic should lead us to love, empathy, to compassion. We are one nation, one race – the human race. Logic should lead us to preserve all humankind.
It should bring us to the leader of our free nation, a person who will take charge to ensure the continuous well-being of anyone who stands on our soil or on earth at all.
We are a generation of learners, thinkers and social changers. We have access to virtually endless data, ideas, facts and information in our pockets and our electronic windows to the world that we carry around in our backpacks. With these tools in our pockets my only hope is that now that we are ripe and ready to vote, we will be ripe to reason as well.
In this campaign cycle so far I have seen little logic or reasoning from anyone.
Rather than discussing issues intertwined to the prosperity of our human race, I have witnessed the leaders of our country discuss the ever prevalent issue of the size of our candidates” “hands,” what goes on in our private bathroom moments, who sent what email to who, who”s older, who”s crazier, who”s attracted to who”s daughter, who was born in Canada, who”s ideas have shifted slightly as the natural evolution of society occurs. Let”s not forget who can scream and yell the loudest.
I have observed childish finger pointing and a complete lack of intellectual or fact-based talking points – in other words, a complete lack of human skill. For the last year our politicians have talked in circles, avoided issues and made needless accusations that observe mostly irrelevant actions or qualities of their political opponents.
The media hasn”t helped much in directing our “leaders” to the issues that need to be discussed. They have fueled the fire that our presidential election has become. For what? Our entertainment?
Choosing the president of one of the most influential countries on earth is not a play to be performed on stage or live television meant for the entertainment of our citizens. The world is not a stage. This election is a serious matter that needs to be met with facts, policy and human skill.
We live in a dangerous and changing world. Our politicians need to stop arguing over who stole the cookie from the cookie jar and face our real national and global issues. Bickering will not protect us from ISIS, from North Korea or from certain global economic disaster.
We need a leader who does not bicker, but debates issues facing the world, so when the time comes to discuss the future of our society, they can find a solution before we delve into chaos.
As a nation, it is time that we stop this mad show and take our politics seriously. Treat this year”s election with the gravity it deserves, especially in the delicate political state of our interconnected societies.
Vote, and vote for the right reasons. It”s not too late to turn this around. We need to demand our leaders close the curtain on this slapstick production and focus back on logic and reason.
Vote for a leader who will not only ensure the safety and welfare of our country, but for all of our sisters and brothers across the world.
Kevin Douglas Neighbors can be reached at [email protected]