Readers, I mean this in the nicest way possible, but I hope I’ve upset you this semester.
Whether it’s because of my views, or the reasoning behind my views, I hope I angered you in one way or another. If you’re angry, then it means you have an opinion.
Even if it’s the complete opposite of mine, it’s better than the apathetic alternative.
I never deluded myself into thinking I would convince many of you to share many of my views. While there might be a student organization on campus for my minority religious views, the same cannot be said about my political views.
If more people knew what these views actually were, I probably would have received far more hate mail simply because of those labels. Though I loved reading the attacks against me, I liked how they generally did not devolve into baseless name-calling.
Plus I doubt many of you would have agreed with me on my views had my politics been well known — even if the two were completely unrelated.
Instead, my main goal for this semester was to get people thinking and acknowledging opposing views. Judging from the feedback I received, I think I was fairly successful.
As much as I might detest certain political views, I still find them better than not caring at all or being ignorant of the topic. Having lived here for a year and a half, I see this as one of the biggest problems the U.S. population faces.
Even though we may hate some of our politicians and their political beliefs (and believe me, I certainly do), we as a nation cannot simply ignore them as they work. As I’ve said throughout the semester, political apathy is not the way to solve the current problems with our political system.
If I was able to get just one of you to think more critically about politics, I would consider this semester a personal success.
Beyond this desire to infuriate some of you, I’d like to thank you for putting up with my general ramblings. As a person extremely interested in politics, it has been a pleasure being able to write and comment on the events happening in our country.
Having grown up differently from most Americans, I believe I helped give a perspective that is not terribly common. After being exposed to foreign people, cultures and governments, I believe it gives someone a good sense of how much we are all alike.
While some people may not think so, our country is not terribly different from the rest of the world. Our country is by no means perfect, and to ignore what other countries are doing correctly is a foolish notion.
If I can encourage more international learning and cooperation, I would be extremely happy.
Nonetheless, I encourage all of you to stay aware, get upset and want to do something about it. As cliche as it may sound, this world is ours to change.
Zachary Davis is a 19-year-old history sophomore from Warsaw, Poland. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_zdavis.
 
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Contact Zachary Davis at [email protected]