This is the first post in our annual series of final words by graduating seniors of the Penn State College Democrats.

I will begin this post by mounting a defense of what has come to be one of the dirtiest words in America today. This word carries the meaning of a driving force that turns people off from the political process and, as some claim, points to the reason that our society today is not functioning at the highest level it could. That word is partisanship.

Contrary, however, to today’s popular belief that partisanship is a dirty practice that is striking at America’s ability to function, partisanship is a good thing. It is the basis of the democratic system that our country finds its roots in. It is the ability to come to an informed decision based upon facts and defend your position against others. It is an emotional allegiance to what a person finds to be true of their side of an argument. It is the bedrock of debate itself.

Yet, today it is a buzz word spewed about by television personalities, journalists, and politicians to indicate the reason compromise has become endangered in America. I, however, stand against this claim. Partisanship is at the core of American values. This country was founded by reasonable men and women who took reasoned stances and debated and defended them. That debate is at the core of our political system, and can be found in the institutions our government is based around.

Why is partisanship now a dirty word? Because our two main political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, are engaged in hard fought political battles over what the two sides believe are the foundations of American freedom. That is where we come in.

The Penn State College Democrats are not simply a club on campus. We are not just a Registered Student Organization collecting dues and holding meetings. We are the youth wing of the Democratic Party. We are the volunteers, the organizers, the door-knockers, the debaters. We are the heart of this Party.

As Robert Kennedy put it

“This world demands the qualities of youth; not a time of life but state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. It is a revolutionary world we live in, and thus, as I have said in Latin America and Asia, in Europe and in the United States, it is young people who must take the lead. Thus you, and your young compatriots everywhere, have had thrust upon you a greater burden of responsibility than any generation that has ever lived”

We are not simply young people. We are a driving force in the change that has made this country the greatest in the world. We are behind civil rights, labor rights, healthcare reform, unemployment benefits, and voting rights. For every step forward America has taken, the youth have been there, exercising their opinions and working towards progress.

The Penn State College Democrats are a driving force in that process. We represent the tens of thousands of students on this campus who stand behind the Democratic Party. We work to ensure that the foundations that this country was built on are upheld. We work to ensure that progress continues.

We as a group are the engaged. We are the knowledgeable young citizens who stand up for democratic ideals. By voting, making phone calls, knocking doors, organizing, putting up yard signs, and hosting candidates, we are performing our civic duty. However, in comparative size with the rest of our student body, we are a small group of civically engaged students.

Civic engagement, however, is not a right, nor a privilege, nor a hobby. It is a duty, one that we have taken up with great vigor and enthusiasm to make sure that we and our fellow students are knowledgeable and informed about those people in whose hands we place power. There has never been a more crucial time for us to make sure our fellow youth realize what our opponents stand for.

We stand at an important time, not only in our state’s history, but in the history of our nation. Republicans are currently waging war on women, workers, and education. Republicans have proposed cutting women’s health care centers that provide crucial benefits and care to millions of women across the country. Republicans have attacked a worker’s right to organize and bargain for working conditions that stand up to today’s economy. Republicans have proposed the largest cut to education in Pennsylvania’s history, drastically endangering the ability of a student to get an education in a time where Pennsylvania is facing a brain drain. Republicans have chosen sides in our state and around the country.

We, as the youth, the civically engaged, and the driving force behind this party have an obligation to stand up against the Republicans who are waging these wars. We need to hold their party accountable for jeopardizing the strides we have taken to ensure that the poorest among us are taken care of. We need to ensure that we, and our fellow youth, do not stand idly by while the Republicans gamble with the world that we want to live in.

As students, we must take quick action against the proposed cuts to education. We have been abandoned. Our educations have been jeopardized by the cuts that Governor Corbett has proposed. At a crucial time for our country and our economy, when Pennsylvania and America need talented and educated people in order to compete in an increasingly crowded world market, the Governor has decided to fund Pennsylvania’s budget by cutting the place we need money the most. Our colleges cannot be expected to continue to turn out talented individuals ready to compete when the money they desperately count on is taken away. In one of the greatest examples of a counterintuitive move, Governor Corbett has cut education when we need education the most.

Students across campus, while taking the time to worry about where their next tuition payment will come from, do not know what to do or where to turn. They do not know how they can push back against the strangling decisions of Governor Corbett. We, however, do know. We must redouble our efforts to organize, unite, and fight back to ensure that Governor Corbett and Republicans know that we will not stand idly by while they jeopardize the future we are trying to build, a future where the equality and opportunity this country was built upon can be realized by all, no matter who their parents are.

We will be called names for thinking that we can establish a truly equal country. One of the favorites seems to be idealists, who do not understand how this country, this government, and this world work. We will be called idealists who will soon find out that the world we believe we can live in is a pipe dream.

I urge you all, never apologize for being idealists. Instead, forgive others for forgetting, and even denying, that America can be a country where equality can be a reality. Forgive others for forgetting that we can and will be the country we were founded to be, where anyone can achieve the American Dream. Forgive others for abandoning the lofty ideals our country was built upon in order to take the easy way out. Forgive others for forgetting that we can build the world we want to live in, that we must live in. And especially forgive others for not trying.

We are not a club. We are not uninformed. We are not silly. We are not untrustworthy.

We are a group, no matter how small, of idealists who know that we are absolutely correct in our ideals. We are a driving force on our campus and in our county. We are a driving force that is united with the youth across this country struggling to build, and not cut. We are not going to sit back while the promise we and those who came before us have worked for is taken away. We are not going to “wait our turn”.

Never believe that others do not care, or that our group is too small to effect change. Our group of talented, educated, like minded youth is part of a larger movement dedicated to ensuring that everyone who needs to be is taken care of.

Once, again, Robert Kennedy put it best when he said

“Idealism, high aspirations, and deep convictions are not incompatible with the most practical and efficient of programs - that there is no basic inconsistency between ideals and realistic possibilities, no separation between the deepest desires of heart and of mind and the rational application of human effort to human problems. It is not realistic or hardheaded to solve problems and take action unguided by ultimate moral aims and values, although we all know some who claim that it is so. In my judgment, it is thoughtless folly. For it ignores the realities of human faith and of passion and of belief - forces ultimately more powerful than all of the calculations of our economists or of our generals. Of course to adhere to standards, to idealism, to vision in the face of immediate dangers takes great courage and takes self-confidence. But we also know that only those who dare to fail greatly, can ever achieve greatly.”

- Rob Ghormoz