Ron Paul Inspires Online Voting, But Not The Real Kind

On Saturday evening I was spending time with family, and my grandparents who had driven all the way from Long Island to cold ass Syracuse. Needless to say, my first priority was not watching the MTV-MySpace “Closing Arguments” hoopdeedoo political review that was happening. But it was of some interest, and we did have it on in the background. Ron Paul appeared on screen to give his long-winded answers to some fairly simple questions, and it sort of enthralled a handful of us.

First of all, Ron Paul is the type of grandfatherly guy that you expect will slip you an extra $20 if he hears you’re going out to the strip club. Not that Paul supports strippers, but he should…they have money, mostly from congressmen, and there are a lot of them. But he seems like a genuinely great old man, if a tad touched. For some reason the Internet voting masses are in love with the man, but they have yet to prove themselves reliable at the polls that actually count. Which may be why other candidates haven’t reached out quite as much as the Republican congressman has to the niche group.

Rather than being asked about net neutrality, or something juicy like fair use, at Saturday night’s event the young generation asked pertinent questions like, “y be yung ppl 4 dem party not 4 rep prty?” I’m paraphrasing here, but I think that was the general question asked. Paul responded that it’s the issues, as it always is. Republicans generally won’t speak in-depth about the war in Iraq, or on economic problems. Ron Paul has been overt in his handling of both issues in the past. This has given him an advantage with the Internet savvy youth of America.

Here’s the problem though. We love to vote in polls, but until we get off our asses and vote in national elections we’ll impart no change on the country. You find so many young people on blogs spouting off on how they hate Bush, or income taxes. And when it comes time to make the hard decisions, those same vocal activists are the ones sitting at home blogging the election results without having ever dropped their name on a ballot. There are millions of people using the Internet, many of them over the age of 18. But the apathetic nature of many people means that the status quo will remain what it is after this next election.

We’ll continue sending troops to Iraq in a needless war, and the country will move forward as always. The young don’t inherit the country until they’re already accepting of the fate handed to them. No changes are necessary, and that’s a sad world to live in. Ron Paul may not be the answer, but the power of voting in polls is proven to entice the young. Now we just have to figure out a way to get them to leave home to do it. Who knows, we might wake up to a brand new world someday.

As Ron Paul said Saturday night, we like him because the things he says are uncomplicated. So is using a voting booth.