On Monday Nov. 10, American politician and current Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, made an appearance at Keene State College in the Flag Room of the L.P. Young Student Center. The republican politician spoke for about half an hour to a crowd of roughly one hundred people then opened the discussion up to a question and answer session.
Although the nature of a question and answer session is meant to be interactive, The Equinox felt this one seemed to be cut short. Roughly five questions were answered by the politician before he hurriedly rushed out the door.
Philip Bergeron / Graphic Design Editor
In total, the talk lasted under an hour. Jokingly, Perry announced that although he agreed to answer questions, if he was asked any inappropriate questions he would pass them over to KSC Student Body President Bobby Graham. While this was a light-hearted joke and many audience members chuckled, we believe it spoke volumes about how politicians answer our questions — they don’t.
The day before Perry came to KSC, he spoke at Dartmouth College where he was asked some sexually-explicit questions. One student asked Perry if he would have anal sex in exchange for $102 million in campaign contributions. The Equinox does not support asking these types of inappropriate questions but instead, we believe that students should be taking advantage of getting the chance to speak with politicians and ask them serious and even tough questions about what can be done to make necessary changes in the world today. Although we understand that many Dartmouth students disagree with Perry and some of his moral beliefs, we do not believe that asking these types of questions is going help make any changes. We argue that they should have focused solely on asking policy-driven questions to really get their concerns heard, instead of asking highly inappropriate questions that insulted many.
The Equinox does not agree with how some politicians act with the general public in press conference environments. We especially would like to emphasize how most address college-aged students. Politicians are constantly arguing that we as college students are the future of this nation and we need to be as well-equipped and as educated as possible to create a better life for ourselves in the years to come.
However, we believe that they do not give us the proper chance to interact with them and let our concerns be heard. Many times, student journalists have scheduled interviews with politicians when they come to speak at their schools but when the time comes to do the interview, the politician will often bail without reason. An Equinox staff writer was promised an interview succeeding the Rick Perry event, but was never actually given the chance to do so. It could be that Rick Perry himself wasn’t informed about the interview, but whoever was in charge of making sure this interview took place neglected to properly handle the situation.
The Equinox would like to clarify that Rick Perry is not the only politician who has done this. In fact, we would argue that most politicians do not give us a fair chance to question them and suggest our ideas and policy changes. They act as though they are interested in what we have to say, but they never seem to actually implement changes in our favor.
In addition to this, The Equinox would like to mention it seems nearly all politics are played out; it is more of a performance than anything else. Politics have become part of pop culture in our society and politicians are public figures that most people know and recognize.
Unfortunately, we believe politics have become less about helping the common good and more about satisfying whatever political party you identify with.
Many times politicians push their moral values aside while upholding the overall view of their party affiliation. We are not arguing that only one specific party is more guilty of this but rather are saying that it comes from both ends. Overall, The Equinox would greatly appreciate politicians truly hearing us out and listening to our concerns and suggestions when they come to our college campuses.
We would appreciate if they saw us as human beings, concerned for our futures, rather than just more potential votes the next time they are up for election. We ask that politics becomes less of a theatrical production and more of a interactive effort between the general population and those who are in power bring about necessary changes that we need.
