Perhaps one of the most outrageous news stories this week comes from the campus of New York University. As you will read in the article following, an NYU journalism class polled the undergrads only to find that their most important freedom does come at a cost--an Apple iTouch, or a free MetroCard, or a million dollars.
Read on.
What's makes this story even more outrageous is that it comes a week after many students had off for Veteran's Day. If you'd trade your right to vote for a piece of technology, then what were our veterans fighting for in the first place? What a big kick in the balls this is to every American that fought--and to every American who died--to give us this most invaluable right. Sure there is a level of humor in this piece (I bet most students polled were joking around), but at the very heart it's shocking and pathetic--how we take such a freedom for granted. However, I do wonder about the breakdown. Were there women that said they'd give up a right their sex fought tirelessly to win and only received 87 years ago? How about African-Americans? Moreover, a lot of these students polled are within the same age group, who in 1971 won the right to vote, with the passing of the 26th Amendment.[Taken from AllHeadlineNews.com: http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7009168741]
Poll: Students Will Exchange Votes For IPods
November 15, 2007 11:03 a.m. EST
Ed Sutherland - AHN Editor
New York, NY (AHN) - A new survey found
college students willing to hand over their vote for a new iPod. More than half of NYU students said they would give up voting for life in exchange for $1 million dollars. The poll of 20 percent of NYU undergraduates would exchange their vote for an Apple Touch iPod. About 66 percent of students polled by the school's journalism program said they'd sell their vote for a free ride to campus.
However, half of the 3,000 students asked, said they would turn over
their right to vote for life for $1 million.
Despite the results, 90 percent of those students willing to sell their vote view voting as "very important" or "somewhat important."
The poll was conducted between Oct. 24 and Oct. 26 by NYU's "Foundations of Journalism" class.
This is the state our country is living in, and it's nothing new. After all, how many of us went to our local polling place two weeks ago? Oh yeah, there was an election, wasn't there. Or hadn't you noticed your town legislature is still run by the same morons as before?
We should be happy we have this great right to elect who we want. And, if this is all because of who is running the country, well, come on; he'll be out of the office soon enough (Jan 20, 2009 to be exact). And, if all the candidates running are duds, then move to Nevada, where you'll at least be able to vote for "none of the above."
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Further reading:
Politico.com - Most at NYU say their vote has a price
Nevada's "None of the Above" statute
