…eight commissioners once said to me…
So they didn’t listen to John’s suggestions, what did they listen to? Judging by their raising of the funding limits, the addition of a new tier, an extra veneer of murkiness in their rulings (albeit coupled with highly specific additions: “No ammunition”), and the fiscal reserve of a sailor on shore leave, I’d have to say Absolutely No One.
But why should that bother me? Our club managed to get more money, more irresponsibly than ever. We simply had to come forward with our hands outsretched and ask (not even with so much as a Please) for money. We know the rules and we know the funding policies (as indecipherable as they are) and as such were able to completely dance around this new batch of commissioners as if they weren’t there. Heck, if it wasn’t for Patrick, Director of ClubStuff, at least six members of the Students for Liberty would be getting ready to go on a cruise.
And for those of you who don’t know: that’s ridiculous.
There is no reason the student body should be paying for our cruises, for our bullets, for our catering. But neither should they be paying for pizza parties, t-shirts, bounce houses, the burnt out lights and lamps of frat houses, trips to just about anywhere for any reason, or something on the order of a hundred or so pounds a semester for apples to be “popped” rather than eaten or used to keep doctor’s away.
Eight people (and their mom) can’t say they speak for the interests of the students and claim they know how to spend other people’s money. Eight students who have taken this job as a resume booster or because some cute chick is thinking about doing it are not qualified to distribute $100,000+ of money that doesn’t belong to them. They can’t claim benevolence for their actions or decry ours as greedy. We’re doing the same thing from two different sides:
If the Eight want to make their little commission better, they need to first understand basic economic theory. This means knowing why making the process navigable by seasoned pros, making the funds so unaccountable, making the whole procedure a joke rather than a legitimate way to grow the campus community can only be detrimental, can only lead to further exploitation and unjustifiable handouts.
A government is a machine by which good people are immobilized and bad ideas put forth as unalterable fact. It doesn’t have to be this way.
