Guest Column
by Joel Marchese
Contrary to popular belief, we still have lots to be thankful for this Thanksgiving Holiday. We still live in a free society. We still maintain the right to vote, the right to free speech and freedom of religion. And, we still have countless other rights and privileges not enjoyed in other countries and by many cultures around the world. We are truly and literally blessed.
This is why the elections of 2014 matter!
Young people, especially, have a ton of stuff for which they can be thankful: Community colleges with affordable rates and excellent instructors, internet cafes, social media, and the ability to drive at age 16, vote at age 18, and drink alcohol at age 21 (some states may vary on this one).
Let me clarify now, I’m not advocating for any kind of vice for our young people. Please don’t send me comments or letters saying that I encouraged you to start drinking!
Seriously though, young people have a great deal to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, or any time of year for that matter. America is a great place to be young!
This being the case, it is the young among us who must not take for granted the blessings of a free and open society like the United States. It is the young person who has the most to lose by electing politicians who care nothing about your freedoms and care only about their ideology and maintaining power and control. The control they seek is over YOU! It is YOU over whom they most desire control, for without you they can no longer hold on to power, control your healthcare, dictate what kind of car you drive, or what type of food you can consume. It is the young voter who risks all by stepping into the voting booth. This generation, like no other before, holds their destiny at their finger tips. Cast a vote for the wrong agenda, and your future will be screwed!
This is not advice from some old guy trying to make you think or live like we did in the 1980s. Although I will say that many of us young people back then did some pretty stupid things, listened to strange-sounding music, and wore clothes that our parents thought were cool. Needless to say, we were far from perfect. On the political spectrum, we tended to be more conservative. After all, we were beneficiaries of the Reagan era and real prosperity.
The word Prosperity (and I’m capitalizing it here to point out its importance) is something that young people today are truly in danger of losing. That is to say, it is slipping away from your grasp. Prosperity only happens when you embrace the fact that being poor is not a permanent state of being. You will shed the shackles of poverty when you realize that acting upon your dreams leads to results, which opens doors of opportunity, which ultimately leads to prosperity. Simply put, getting up off the couch and embracing the concept of hard work pays off, big time.
So you say, “I don’t care about being rich.” But, you do care about poverty, feeding the poor, and helping the sick and helpless. You’ve said this over and over at the polls. The big question is, do you want to help those people or become one of them? And, once you become one of them, you must realize that you will no longer be able to help them, because you are too poor to do so.
The Democrat Party has built it’s success off the backs of young people and poor people who think that simply saying you care for the poor and helpless makes you a good person, a better person. It does not. What makes you a better person is that you care enough to first make a success with your own life, so that you will have the cash and means to help others who truly cannot take after themselves. That is the definition of compassion. That is what conservatives not only believe, but practice.
Happy Thanksgiving!
# # #
Marchese is a candidate for Congress in the 53rd District.