There is no reason why I should even be writing this. Seriously. According to The Gallop Corporation, you don’t matter. Not only do you not matter, you might as well not even exist. Sure, you might an unintelligible utterance every once in a while; something about the WTO, the IMF, maybe even about a little conflict in desert two oceans away. But why should I care? You don’t matter to me.

That is, unless you want to matter.

Fewer than 30% of young people 18-24 vote. So why should anyone care about you? You’re statistically irrelevant.

But that’s a load of shit; you know that and so do I.

The same people who don’t vote are some of the people most affected by the political process. The vast majority of the 12,000 casualties of the War on Terror are under the age of thirty. In the event of a national emergency, we are going to be asked to defend this nation, since all young men in this country are eligible to be drafted into the military.

The same people who don’t vote are going to be paying down the federal deficit.Currently it stands at 7.418 trillion dollars, which translates into about $25,200 per person. Why should you care? You should care because the only way this can be paid for is by raising taxes (like your tuition) or by cutting services (schools, public health services, funding to local artists). Unless you vote to change this, the government will continue to take your money.

But why even vote?

One vote has never made the difference in any election in our history. Even if the difference was 537 votes in Florida in 2000 or 16 million in 1984, your vote wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the election.

There are many reasons to vote. Some will cite civic duty, but that is only a good answer if one actually understands the issues. Others will say one should vote because we have the right too. However, that argument is also flawed because we also have the right not to vote.

You should vote because you care about yourself. You should care about your country because you live here. In all likelihood you will work here, pay taxes here, and, know at least one man or woman who has gone off to war to honor the sacrifices of those who fell before them. Your kids will go to school here and eventually you’ll get social security checks from the government.

If you don’t care about any of that, stop reading. But if you do have an interest in that, make sure you protect it. Ultimately it’s not how much money you have, who you know, or what you did: all that matters in the end is who has the most votes.

If you surrender your voice because you don’t see the relevance, then you will cede control of your destiny to someone who, truly, has no reason to care about you.