The title pretty much says it all. Any Libertarian minded reader probably knows what I’m going to write about here. How the youth are stupid and mess the election process up by visiting the polls. Sure there is much truth behind this. We all know that when you’re young and don’t pay taxes (therefore not yet really living in the real horrible world the rest of us live in) you tend to lean left speaking loudly about policies to solve problems we all know later in life are unsolvable by policies. It’s easy to desire higher taxes when you haven’t worked yet and are heavily exposed to the views of tenured professors (who also don’t live in the real world). I remember once Johnny Ramone of the Ramones once said (not an exact quote) that as we get older we tend to lean more right because we realize how the real world really works.

So when Bill Clinton was desperately (and rather somewhat successfully) trying to appeal to the youth by being cool with his saxophone (there’s nothing cooler than a white guy with a saxophone) on MTV, he knew what he was doing. He was right to do it too. The youth will lean left because it is cooler. It is more romantic to protest and fight against global warming. It is more romantic to view life from a socialist point of view. It is no doubt more romantic but unrealistic. Taxes aren’t romantic nor are they interesting. Taxes are a boring subject along with all other economic-based subjects. But they are the most real issues affecting your life. Reality is most of the time unromantic. It’s just the way it is. All of us who have been in long-term relationships know that after the initial two weeks to a month that the romantic fire starts to dim. Sure there is still much romance and splendor but not as much as there was in the courting process. We now start to see flaws as they reveal themselves. If these flaws are not too pressing and we can learn to live with or love them then we can hold on to the romance longer. This is the same with real life. Once you’re finished with school and have the pressing realities of life pushed onto you things change. Suddenly all these liberal ideologies seem to not be as of much importance as paying your bills on time, even if you’re fortunate enough to have a job in the career you studied and paid so much for.

So revving up the youth to vote for policies and leaders that raise taxes and advocate socialist ideals is a scary thing for the rest of us who have to live in the real economy (reality). Now don’t get me wrong, there are many romantic wonderful things about the real world. It just would be nice to be able to seek these wonderful things without the weighing pressures of a bad economy on our minds. (more…)