Quit whining about the presidential election and go vote

With Election Day quickly approaching, campaign advertisements are becoming increasingly harder to ignore. It seems that every media outlet from cable television to YouTube and Facebook are plastered with the faces of President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. This is starting to get annoying.

However, something that is even more annoying is hearing friends and classmates lament things like, “I can’t wait for this election to be over,” and, “I hate politics.”

I generally do not consider myself patriotic and I definitely don’t go around chanting “USA.,” but never for even a moment have I forgotten what an honor it is to live in a country like the United States.

I am incredibly grateful to live in a country where our government is literally a government of the people, where all citizens are given the opportunity, purely by being born on American soil, to be an integral part in this nation’s governing body.

And I am incredibly grateful that for a couple months every four years, our media attempt (for the most part) to educate voters, without bias, on the decisions they will be faced with at the polls.

This is not something that should be taken lightly. As a citizen, when you vote you are literally deciding the fate of our country, and in many ways making a choice that will affect the rest of the world.

How many of your friends and classmates would recognize a photo of Honey Boo Boo? How many people from that same group could distinguish Speaker of the House John Boehner from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid?
Let’s get our priorities straight here. You can handle the annoying campaign advertisements, you can handle the Oval being closed for one day when the president of the United States comes to campus. We cannot handle being passive citizens. This nation is ours, and our government is built from us. It is time we stop complaining and go out and vote.