Political apathy of generations X,Y leads to many unfounded opinions

Do you remember when young people went against the status quo? If not, have you ever seen footage of a sit-in protest or heard about an anti-Vietnam War rally from your mom or dad? Whatever happened to rebellious youth? When did the revolution end?

Our parents’ generation fought for civil rights, equality for women and peace in Vietnam.

Our grandparents, Tom Brokaw’s “greatest generation,” sacrificed their comfortable lifestyles and their lives to fight the forces of oppression and hatred in Europe. What have we done?

The generation that came of age in the 1990s was labeled “Generation X” by the media because they lacked a unifying identity. Unlike past generations, this group had no great war to fight or social cause to get behind. Our generation is much the same. One odd trend I see, however, is the move towards a more conservative, fundamentalist ideology.

Especially in the South, the Republican Party dominates the political landscape and influences the population’s notions of right and wrong. Unlike our revolutionary forbears, we as young people are overwhelmingly opposed to abortion and in favor of the death penalty (I’m not going to touch that double standard), against big government and for small business.

What disturbs me about the dominance of these opinions are not the beliefs themselves, but rather the sense that young people simply inherit their political beliefs from their parents. At election time, everyone votes the way his father votes. I’m no different; in November 2000, I voted Democrat just like my dad.

But whatever happened to questioning our parents’ views?

It has been said that liberalism is the last luxury of youth. Are we simply too lazy, too uninspired to be idealists? I say it’s high time we started taking responsibility for our own viewpoints, be they conservative, liberal, or somewhere in between.

It’s up to us to get the facts on an issue before we decide how we feel about it. It’s our duty to stand by our beliefs without relying on the beliefs of anyone else, not even our parents. We must become well informed and motivated before our generation can ever be considered great.