lets talk politics

I took an online test the other day which told me i was a bleeding heart liberal. Until recently i have never thought about my political stance. Am I meant to care about politics at 19?

I discovered I already do. I care about how much money the government is going to give students. Being anti war, hating racism, sexism and discrimination means I have political views and ideas, which actually match up quite nicely with the liberal way of thinking.

After my online discovery, I had a hot date with my thesaurus and found that liberal is partnered with words like tolerant, free thinking and open minded. I consider myself to be all these things. I told my dad one night over dinner that I was a liberal. "So you're a communist?" he said. Um no dad, but thanks for partnering me up with Mao Zedong.

I'm not a communist, and maybe I'm not even a liberal. To be honest, i know a whole lot of nothing about New Zealand politics, and most of my friends are the same.

Should we take an interest, does it matter if we vote or not? I think it does. Why am I so reluctant to do anything about it?