A dangerous kind of apathy

My faith in my age group has once again been shaken. Yesterday I asked a girl in my class who she was voting for now that she was eighteen, and she replied ‘I dunno, whoever my dad tells me to vote for.’ Raising my eyebrows I asked her which party that was. She replied ‘oh…erm, the Conservatives, I think.’ When I told her I was thinking of voting for the Liberal Democrats she said that her dad had told her that party was for weak people; fence sitters who don’t go either way. I replied that in that case her dad knows about as much about politics as I do about making shoes. I also told her that voting for someone you know nothing about is highly irresponsible. She looked at me as if I was weird.