It's no secret, I don't vote, I don't care, but I'm glad to be able to find humor in this, as well.
If you can get past the beginning, it's quite funny, in my opinion. The beginning is a bit well...pointless. I know what they're spoofing, but it's not worth it. The second parody in the video is of "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry (who is such a waste of a singer).
The video's language is pretty explicit, so if that bothers you like it does me, you may not like this as much, especially if you're not understanding the parodies.
The second thing I want to talk about. The other night I got a text at about 12:30 AM, asking if I was still up. I was reading for a class, and told them yes, I was. He then asked if he called me. So I called Fathead (the guy's blog that I posted), cutting to the chase, wondering what in the world he'd want.
Through the grapevine (or my friend Katie, ha ha), he found out that I had re-posted the blog, and he read through the comments, and let me know that he appreciated it, and said it was cool seeing it re-surface again. Just another example of how nice he is.
*EDIT*
I just read that John did a blog on almost the same subject, and I want you all to know, this is a simple matter of timing. I respect John's love of politics, it's his future profession, and I'm glad people like him care about it. This isn't to attack anyone's beliefs. I honestly couldn't care any less about politics than I do now. Just a video I thought was a bit funny.
*EDIT*
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13 comments:
this kid is both an idiot, and a slave to pop culture
Actually, he's pretty smart, and rarely does much about pop culture.
This is a second account he shares with a friend, to just do videos they wouldn't do on their normal channels.
His normal channel is all news-related.
That was hilarious. That made my morning.
I'm definitely not as into politics as John (though I agree we need people--especially young ones--like him), but I'm a bit more involved than you. I'm definitely not a McCain fan, but I wasn't before his VP choice (and that didn't add anything to his campaign in my book).
Thanks for posting this, anyway.
i don't follow politics either but i am glad there are people like john that do. but i always vote. i think as citizens we have the responsibility to vote.
A lot of people have died for your right say what you said and to have your own opinion you can freely express. That is a careless attitude to have and the right to vote shouldn't be taken for granted. You need to take a walk through Arlington Cemetery and think about all the soldiers who died for this country so we can all have our different opinions. I don't care who you vote for republican, democrat, libertarian, or green party as long as you exercise your right to vote. There are a lot of soldiers out there who wish they could still vote including one of your class chums Casey Zylman. Don't let these guys die in vain with such a nonchalant attitude.
And have more respect for your country.
I read all of these, and carefully thought about how I want to say this. I realized, though, I should not feel the need to tip toe around this, though, since no one else bothered.
Is voting a right? Yes. A responsibility? Subjective. To anyone else, maybe, yes, a responsibility. I don't feel that.
Upon receiving my American citizenship, I was never once served with papers, explaining my job as an American, so in absence of that, I fully believe that as long as I stick within the law, the rest is up to me.
As far as the comment about Arlington, I'll have you know first off, DC is one of my favorite places in the country, because of the the historical values, and places like Arlington.
I don't see me not voting having people die in vain. None of those people were forced into the military, they made a choice. They made a choice to fight for my freedom to not vote. My choice for my future career is to use my talent with languages to protect American citizens through one of our fine government agencies. It's all about choice.
I don't publicly shun anyone for voting, I think it's an inappropriate forum to do so.
I think something worse than not voting is probably an uninformed voter. Am I uninformed? Yes. Do I choose that? Oh, you bet.
I realize this probably comes off as disrespectful, and for that, I apologize to my parents, because they definitely didn't raise me to be so forward in this manner.
However, to anyone else, I feel provoked. I posted what to me, was a light-hearted parody of a current issue. I don't think the attacks were necessary.
me and my grapevine tactics....
they're not attacks. the american dream is possible because of people like casey zylman. people put their lives on the line for us to remain a free country. the beauty of a democracy is that "we the people" have a say in what goes on. when this passion is lost, when 200 million 18+ year olds decide that it's too boring to pay attention to what goes on...that they'd rather have other people do their thinking for them, is when we fall into a bureaucracy in which our opinions don't matter. the framers worked too hard on our constitution, the soldiers spilled too much blood, the people have done too much work, to let it all go because people find it "boring" to care about what happens with the free world.
i don't see it as an attack either. maybe a discussion with raised voices?!
i freely admit i don't follow politics. i can't even tell you who the governor of pa is for goodness sakes.
but voting is a responsibility. if nothing more to show respect for those who died to guarantee that right for us. and today we do have an all volunteer army but that it hasn't always been that way. i remember the numbers being drawn to determine who was going to vietnam. lots of the guys that went didn't volunteer but went because their country asked them to. we will never be able to repay them back for what they did.
tho i am not a political junkie i will vote this fall because that is my responsibility written down or not.
and just because we don't disagree with you doesn't mean we don't want to hear your opinion. it keeps us all on our toes. i may even do a search to see who my governer is!
I've never once said politics were boring.
John, you need to keep in mind that I was once on the same track you are now.
My problem with politics is I believe in unity. And as much as anyone wants to stay that the US stands united, look around as you drive, walk, or bike anywhere right now. There's no unity.
People who can't handle others having a different point of view, I think is what I don't like about politics. I can (and have) sit down with someone, and have a civilized conversation about any of my beliefs without telling someone they're wrong.
If that was possible with politics, I'd be way more into it. However, that's incredibly rare. So often, with politics and people who are into it, there's no gray area, no fuzzy lines. That's not life, and definitely not politics. No one person is going to change the country.
As far as the people who have died (yes, including Casey), I respect their decision to fight. I understand in the past there have been drafts, however, not in my lifetime, therefore, not so much an issue that directly affects me. Again, though, they have fought for my freedom, and that includes my freedom to not vote.
As far as the attacks. I was mainly talking about the "And have more respect for your country" comment, because I feel that was made incredibly blindly, without really knowing much about my beliefs or views on anything. And also, as much as people may not want to believe it, I am an adult, have been doing quite well on my own for a few years now, and will not be lectured.
Either way, I'll probably be closing comments on this particular blog after this, because in the end, this made me not want to vote even more than before. There's no unity on this. I have a right to not vote, just as I have a right to vote. I understand that no one else agrees with this, and that's fine. However, I do think it's wrong to tell me that I'm not fulfilling a responsibility, when that is totally subjective, and depends on the individual. I'm not telling anyone why they shouldn't vote. I'm telling you all why I don't vote.
What I probably would have taken more seriously was why you vote, and not why I should.
Whether we're calling some of these comments attacks or parts of a discussion, I think that some things need to eb said in addition to them:
To me, there's nothing worse than people voting because they think they "have" to. Isn't the freedom of choice what America is about? I think people in the military (whether they chose to join or not) fight because they want to preserve that ideal--that we all decide what's best for our country. When members of our armed forces die they do not die to preserve our right to VOTE. They preserve our right to FREEDOM.
So why can't we be free to abstain from the voting process?
I feel, sometimes, like having respect for my country means that I should do what's best for it. Why should I, if I'm uninformed, toss my vote in? I may choose to be uninformed but that's also my right, isn't it?
I'll freely admit that I'm not sure if I'm voting this year. I like Obama and I think he's got some good ideas, but what if I didn't? What if I couldn't find a single candidate that I could back in good conscience? I don't want to vote for the lesser of two evils, which is why I didn't vote last time around. I sure as hell wasn't going to vote for Bush but I didn't feel good about voting for any of the other candidates, either. I want to vote for someone that I believe in. If I don't believe in any of the candidates, I have the freedom to choose to not vote.
i guess i feel like the right of freedom comes with responsibility.
sometimes voting is choosing between the lesser of two evils and i don't like it either.
back to michael's last comment up there...part of america is the push-pull system that's in place. the entire congress can't be in this fake sense of "unity". there have to be contradictions or this country would be in a terrible place.
not everybody agrees on everything, it's how things go. but the power of persuasion is a hot button quality. our greatest leaders in the past 40 years (Reagan, Kennedy) have been extremely fluent in the language of people persuasion.
and i agree with aunt carrie 100%, a big part of being free is the responsibility of a free american. the government can't push you along from birth to death. your responsibility as an american citizen is to make this country a better place then when you received it. how do you do that? pay attention to what's going on in the world. watch the news for 10 minutes a day...read a newspaper article, get on youtube - something. we are who we are because of the framers of the Constitution, because of the Military, because of the people that have worked so hard to keep this a free and sovereign nation.
we can't let that go to waste just because people find that they have "no interest" in their own way of life. i think that if you asked anyone living in Iraq, China, or Georgia, they'd tell you that they'd sure as hell rather read a newspaper once a day then fall in line to some regime that dictates their lives.
seems like a pretty easy choice to me, too.
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