In Which I Post A Response To A Comment
Specifically to this comment on a Nick Hudson post a few down.
To say this is not our profession and that we are just students is to say that those who represent us in congress are just citizens.
You say that as if the statement is false. The congresscritters are just citizens: duly elected citizens who should be busy doing the will of the electorate. Not that a Constitutional Republic is going to become Libertopia in this day and age, but once long-ago such a thing was possible. They no longer fear the citizenry, or perhaps they fear us too much and are thusly protective of their own power, but I digress.
I say our profession because some of us take sudden government seriously.
I also take sudden government seriously, it’s likely to be even more insidious and freedom-killing than slowly-developed government. Student government, on the other hand, is a farce of epic proportions.
We should be professional when it concerns student government because we deal with other peoples money. In fact we allocate millions of dollars of other peoples money. This is minor league politics and student government is serious business.
That’s right, you do spend millions of dollars of other people’s money, and on what? Mostly things none of those other people want or care about. Be honenest with yourself for a minute, do you think that the average UO student actually cares if the MCC gets an extra $1000 to buy pizza for some ridiculous event? Does the typical student get anything out of the childcare subsidy? No. Like all government the ASUO is beholden to the special interest goups that elect its members. You want to save students money? Stop. Doing. Stupid. Shit. Don’t use student dollars for retreats to Sun River, don’t moronically place solar panels on the EMU, and sure as hell don’t actually pay yourselves to do it. Care about taking other people’s money, eh? Feel good to be a pickpocket?
Yes, the OC gets incidental fee funding (in the neighborhood of $15,000 a year), but guess what? Not a single person on staff gets paid. Not one. Every cent goes directly into publishing a student magazine read by UO students. The website is paid for privately. Other student groups can’t say the same thing: every ASUO position, ASUO interns, the MCC, the damn Insurgent has stipends! The Insurgent. Think about that for a second. Think about every cent that benefits no-one but its direct receiver, and remember that every last penny you put into the pocket of some bubbly Suite 4 intern was stolen from some other student who, quite frankly, probably had plans for it. You people go on about lowering the cost of education, and yet you insist on raising the Incidental Fee every year: the only part of education costs over which you have direct control keeps going up. Actions are what people care about, and the ASUO has proven time and again that it is absolutely not serious about serving the true interests of students. And yet you wonder why we don’t take you seriously?
I’m sorry Anthony thinks this is a big joke, student leaders spend long hours advocating for students who don’t even know they exist. To say this is not our profession and that we are just students is to say that those who represent us in congress are just citizens.
Cry me a river. You ASUO clowns act like it’s so bloody difficult to waste time and money. “Wow, we like, totally went to Salem and like talked about issues”. Please. “Oh no, don’t sell Westmoreland!” Whatever. Get it through your head: You’re just students. Just. Students. You have to earn respect like everyone else, and the ASUO has an abysmal record. Nobody cares because there’s no reason to: regardless, the incidental fee will go up, the Student Senate will approve virtually every special request that comes to it, and OSPIRG will get their money. I spent four years and as many Executives watching the ASUO, and I’ll tell you something: nothing ever changes. We can go ’round and ’round about exactly why that is, but thus it is and ever shall be. When we defunded OSPRIG fair-and-square, MUNGER got a special initiative organized to give their money back. How’s that for serving the will of the students?
Or, a more recent example, the Conduct Code. The ASUO takes on-face that there should be such a thing. The rest is a matter of degree. Further, it doesn’t matter what the student opinion is, Frohnmeyer and his army of zombies will do what they please anyway. Case-and-point: dry frats.
Nick Hudson is a very passionate person, and in being so he issued a very passionate resignation. This is not “hilarious”. Student politics will not be taken seriously as long as students don’t take them seriously. We are in college, grow up.
What’s more adult: hopelessly clinging to a deluded image of the noble public servant doing his/her best for everyone, or realizing that the whole exercise is hopelessly broken and learning to deal with it?
