UNR Students for Liberty » Stupid Government

A Government Won’t Update from IE6?

Barry Belmont — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 17:18:58 +0000

Despite the fact that it’s slow, cumbersome, and protects users as much as tissue paper, government officials in the good ol’ UK have decided to keep Internet Explorer 6. Government, after all, likes to take it slow, be cumbersome, and protect its users as much as tissue paper. Next you’ll be saying that governments are against net neutrality…oh wait…

But for those of us who like freedom, security, and productivity…

…It’s called Chrome.

National Debt by Country

Barry Belmont — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 05:50:34 +0000

Nobody ’10

Barry Belmont — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 04:50:51 +0000

On the Ninth Day Before Christmas…

John Russell — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 07:00:43 +0000

… nine funding caps compelled me …

When I was referred once again to another edition of the CK brah’s literary masterpiece from the VisLupis kiddies, I was ecstatic and dumfounded. Ecstatic in the fact that the inherent problems of ASUN are being illustrated through our newest campaign of showing people how terrible it is, and dumfounded in the fact that the same people who criticized us when we tried illuminating the problems through the START campaign are now suddenly agreeing with the fundamentals of our platform.

But, as mentioned earlier, this is the season of giving. Below you will find my five page report I gave to the club commission when my duty as club commissioner was completed. Included in this document you will find my concerns that the CK-tards have brought up just recently: the system is inherently broken and the policies the commission seek only make matters worse. No other commissioner, to my knowledge, submitted anything when I wrote this last year. I was never contacted when this year’s funding policies were drafted even though I requested to be in attendance.

So, as I gobble down catered meals on the backs of students like myself who are forced into an inherently flawed system, I feel justified by illustrating the inherit, unrepairable problems with “their” student government, the institution of government itself, and with the hopes that future students may be spared hundreds of dollars: that one day, a flawed system can be ended.

I hope you enjoy this more than the trash can did in the ASUN offices. I also hope this shows all the critics who constantly bombard myself and the members of the UNR Students for Liberty that, yes, we have tried to give constructive criticism and solutions to your own problems, and no, you guys don’t give two cents so quit pretending like you do by inviting us to your meetings to patronize us and waste our time.

But I think I should be very clear: this is not a failure of the individuals in government , but it is a problem with government and democracy in and of itself. Hayek sums it up best when he states: “This does not mean that the majority of people have low moral standards it merely means that the largest group of people whose values are very similar are the people with low standards. It is, as it were, the lowest common denominator which unites the largest number of people.” A democratic system is bound to produce sub-par results, because these results are the only things a large majority of people can agree upon.

Have a Merry Christmas! (If you have limited time, start reading page 3)

Political and Social Involvement Coalition –

On the Tenth Day Before Christmas…

Barry Belmont — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 07:12:07 +0000

…ten brosefs chest bumped me…

You know you’re doing something right when the VisLupiKids and the CoffinAndKeyR-Tards are saying you’re doing something wrong.

Recently, both groups highlighted the fact that funding from the ASUN is ridiculous.The CaKDudes agreed with Patrick Delaplain, Director of Clubs Stuff,when he referred to “our current club funding policies a ‘club un-support’ system,” then went on to show that particular groups got particularly dumb funding and that this should be stopped. Among the most notable mentions was our club:

“UNR Students for Liberty – $5,516 across a variety of
tiers for catering, plane tickets, a speaker etc. It doesn’t
seem like UNR Students for Liberty practice the ‘sound
money’ that they preach.”

The VisLupiKids, never far behind, jumped on board and said Yeah! You go CaKBros! You get those UNR Students for Liberty! They even went so far as to jab right at us, “you can’t assert you do not acknowledge the legitimacy of government while at the same time suckling from the government’s tit.”

Not only can we do that, but we needed to do that. We needed to do it to get people like you and the CaKBrosefs to even notice that the funding policies have been flawed for years. We needed to do it to get people like the director of Clubs’n'Such, the senate, the commissioners, the ASUN to recognize the inherent inadequacies of their policies. We’ve tried the diplomatic, “legitimate” approach. It didn’t work. We even tried talking to our senators:

There’s no point. We’ve tried, God knows we’ve tried to reform the student government. But there’s no point. It’s a flawed system, in and of itself. The policies, the positions, the participants: broken and unfixable, all of it.

So what have we done this time? We’ve said outright that we are exploiting ASUN. We are biting the hand that feeds us so that hopefully that hand’s owner will know better than to feed all the things that come up to it. We’re the monsters your system has created: a club that relies solely on the ASUN for funding, with no intentions of stopping, and no intentions of seeking outside funding. We aren’t hiding behind the ploy of “bettering the campus.” We’re not even trying to better ourselves.

We’re just a $5,000+ mirror for an unworkable system.

But…but we have a heart over here at the Students for Liberty. And in the spirit of the season, we’ll be giving back. We’re not so selfish. It’s not always about us. That’s why we’ll be posting 10 gifts from here until Christmas. Please do enjoy.

AS(sholes)UN: $64,000 Extra = $64,000 Spent

Barry Belmont — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:21:55 +0000

For those interested in such manners (I’m looking at you VisLupiEstGrex), the ASUN Senate allocated an extra $64,000 in student funds yesterday. Why they didn’t just give $5 back to every student is beyond me. How are they to know that students wouldn’t rather get a Big Mac or pick around the Wal-Mart DVD bin? More importantly, who are they to decide how to spend student funds?

There were about 1,500 votes cast in last years ASUN elections. No single senator got even 200 votes, with the average being something like 75, let’s call it 100. The President got something like 850. However, there are 12,000+ undergraduates paying fees to the ASUN. Any justification the ASUN should make for itself, remember those numbers. This roughly translates to someone appointed by 1/15 of 1/8 of the student body claiming they have a right to spend mine and everyone else’s money.

How did they reallocate funds?

The Executive Board Account got $11,874.67
The Elections Account got $2,097.17
The Programming Board got $9,142.23
The ASUN Office Expenses Account got $23,729.66
The ASUN Sound/Light Account got $2,180.14
The Inkblot Promotions Account got $3,188.24
The ASUN Legal Services Account got $680.94
The Clubs & Orgs (US!) got $23,222.61
The Homecoming Board got $4,203.92

Not included in this list is the actual notably decent things of Wolf Pack Radio and the Brushfire and such, each of which got more money than was planned.

Oh, yea, also, Professional Salaries, Professional & Classified expenses, Club Support, the Programming Board, Diversity Initiatives, the Professional Salaries for ASUN advertising, the wages and fringe of the Senate, and the Homecoming account all increased.

Definition – Irony: the Fiscal Board has not only the smallest forward budget ($10!?) but it was the only account to be reduced.

Oh, Hookers.

Travis Hagen — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:10:13 +0000

In the comments Mary’s article ‘Oh, Nevada‘ there is an epic discussion about prostitution and the morality of legalizing something that leads to drug addiction, sexual abuse, and human trafficking. While I found no hard studies on these side effects of prostitution, let’s just assume them to be true. Clearly, it is impossible to support an activity that leads to such terrible consequences, right? Wrong! Libertarians support legalized (and unregulated) prostitution not because we are horrible people who want to see people throw their lives down the shitter, but because we recognize that it is their life to throw away. Nobody has the authority to tell anybody else what they can or cannot do with his or her own body.

The case was brought up about women who voluntarily enter prostitution, but then get hooked on drugs by their pimp and are “dependent on the pimp monetarily and for illegal substances and is unable to ‘quit any time she wants to.’” (from a comment by Jacob K). Let us assume this too is also true, and still the case does not change. The prostitute is working to feed an addiction, she could leave, but she doesn’t want to, she would prefer to satisfy her need for drugs, shelter, and whatever else the pimp provides. This is a classic trade for mutual benefit, the pimp gets money for his protection and drug procuring, and the prostitute gets drugs and business for her body. They both find this trade acceptable, it happens, and they continue doing business. Neither I, nor anybody else has a right to interfere with this trade.

Of course, in the case of someone kidnapped and forced into sexual servitude, this is definitely not the case. Here, someone is forcibly taken, against his or her will, and made to perform certain acts. Yet, despite this abhorrent situation, the crime is still not prostitution. The exceptional evil here is kidnapping and slavery. Granted, prevalent prostitution leads to a greater market for sexual slaves, but trying to outlaw a legal, voluntary action to prevent a separate crime is as ridiculous as it is stupid. If it were not, there would have to be laws against trade, property, and of course, all human interaction. While these laws would drastically cut crime, they are obviously ludicrous. While more drastic than a law prohibiting prostitution, the same principle is tested. People need to be free to make mistakes, to follow their own paths, and not have bumpers on life. There is no grand social responsibility to save people’s lives from self-destruction.

In fact, the only way for prostitution to become anything but voluntary is for another, non-consensual act to take place. The prostitute must be beaten, forcibly addicted to drugs, or coerced in some other fashion, and that is the crime. Prostitution is defined as “offering sexual intercourse for pay,” and this act alone is always voluntary (see, it says ‘offering’). Getting addicted to drugs, becoming dependent on a pimp, and not making tons of money is not the responsibly of the government to stop. Even though life as a prostitute is dangerous, with exceptional risk, it should still be legal and open. It’s about freedom dammit.

Government, GTFO of Gambling

Travis Hagen — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 07:52:02 +0000

Is it just me, or is there no good reason to make gambling illegal? At least drugs have physical addictions and prostitution can spread disease. There are cons to those actions, reasons not to allow such things, but gambling? As far as I can see, gambling is no more addictive than stealing bubble gum from the local Kwik-E-Mart, and disease is certainly not terrible, no worse than any other public place. So what rational reason is cited for banning gambling? I could not actually find the reasoning behind this, especially since many state government hold sanction their own form of gambling in the way of lotteries. Maybe it’s because the government is mad they can’t easily tax un-centralized gambling.

Maybe that is why on June 9, the Federal Government froze 30 million dollars of over 27,000 different people’s money. Of course, there was no warrant or anything, because that is ridiculous. Instead, the assistant US attorney for the Southern District of New York, Arlo Devlin-Brown just faxed over a notice to the bank telling them to seize the funds. He said, “The FBI has authority to seize proceeds of specified unlawful activity without a warrant under exigent circumstances.” This makes sense of course, because people spending their money on things they want to do is clearly an exigent circumstance.

This leaves only one plausible explanation that I can think of, online gambling funds terrorists. That, or it’s all bullshit and the government just needs to leave people alone when it comes to their leisurely activities.

The Red Should Probably be A LOT Bigger

Barry Belmont — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:26:00 +0000

3 Reasons to Pay Your Taxes

Travis Hagen — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:18:00 +0000

Hey guys, I hope you all got your tax returns filled today, if not here is some motivation to get them in promptly from Reason.tv.

Also check out “W-2 WTF?!?!: Tax Facts to Make Your Head Explode!“