Celebrity political approval only start

Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, acclaimed rapper, hip-hop mogul and star of his own reality show, has spent the past two months mobilizing his "Vote or Die" campaign.

P. Diddy, who has recently dubbed himself Citizen Combs, has organized his program in collaboration with MTV's "Rock the Vote," hoping to draw 20 million voters between 18 and 24 to the booths.

He has organized concert events promoting the campaign, paid for commercial air time to inspire Generation Y and manned voter registration booths around the country. Recording artists such as Jay-Z and Eminem have rallied behind his cause.

Big ups, P. Diddy. Registering is a crucial part of exercising our most basic democratic right. The worst thing you can do in a society where we can criticize our leaders, protest injustice and even burn our own flag is to silence your own voice.

But he and the celebrities who have stood up in support of get-out-the-vote campaigns haven't gone far enough. A voter card doesn't transform someone into a good democratic citizen - and fame doesn't make you a political figure. But that's not really celebrities' job.

It isn't P. Diddy's, Drew Barrymore's, Andre 3000's or any celebrity's responsibility to educate voters about the political issues that will affect them. Citizens should care enough to go out and research the issues themselves.

While P. Diddy helps youths take that all-important first step, he abandons them at the gate. That's where we have to be brave enough to move forward on our own. We should care enough to cast our lot and hope for the best, as insignificant as one vote seems.

If you don't, you're dangerous. An uninformed voter is like a blind guy with keys to a new car. If he even finds the ignition, he isn't going to know where he's going.

This new voter has the ability to exercise his most basic democratic freedom but doesn't understand tax brackets and couldn't explain how the trickle-down effect really works. (Actually, that isn't fair. President Bush couldn't explain how the trickle-down effect works.)

And the new voter doesn't need to know those things. He just needs to know enough to understand why he is voting for George W. Bush or John Kerry or bloody Ralph Nader. Please, please, do not vote for Ralph Nader. A new voter and a five-term senator hold the exact same sway once that curtain closes - that's the beauty of the system.

This celebrity-driven registration push is a grand, symbolic idea, with the soul of democracy at its core. We need to take that momentum and ride it into the voting booths.

But without passion and some intelligent insight, the process is like a massive connect-the-dots puzzle that has all the numbers left out. You guess at where connecting lines belong, speculating about parallels. The end result is a confusing mess, with no suggestion as to what the big picture really is.

When you step into that voting booth, you are engaging in a social contract with every other U.S. citizen. The Constitution gives you the right to vote, but it's your obligation to know how you are voting.

I commend P. Diddy and his ilk for using their visibility and popularity to affect a positive change in American politics. If you aren't registered, you can't vote, and you have silenced yourself.

But without some follow-up, without some vehicle for ensuring that the people will vote for what they believe in, all the registration drives and concerts and free T-shirts mean nothing.

President John F. Kennedy said in a speech at Vanderbilt University in 1963 that "the ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all."

If you don't yet know why you're voting, find out. Do the research, read about the issues, care. Vote - and do it with passion.

Vote or Die, thug. Vote or Die.

Contact Nick Parker, a senior journalism and English major, at panic@email.unc.edu.