Obviously, rather than come to our side of the issue of ASUN (that it is hopelessly inefficient and impossible to regulate with anything that could be called responsibility), they urge their senators or some election guy or somebody (aren’t all these bloggers graduated?) to sign three pieces of paper or something and it gets thrown on the books. Easy peasy. (I’m not going to lie to you right now, either, I couldn’t be bothered to actually read what they’re complaining about, it’s just an easy way to get traffic if we tag them…)

Sign three pieces of paper and something becomes law. Hasn’t happened for three years. Is this how you believe you can reform a government? Is this how feel democracy is supposed to work? Thus I pose to the Visl-Pays, either 1) Stop caring (seriously, aren’t you all graduated?) 2) Start hating. If there’s one thing to like about the ASUN, there’s at least twenty things to hate…and you’re little legislation pending after three years is a fine example.

Or — and this is what I suppose you’ll do — completely disregard this argument, spew something about trying to “fix” something, mention the judicial council, site some law no one cares about, possibly refer to the founders, argue semantics over content, and refer to my obviously simplistic point as too radical to take serious.

Maybe after another three years, you’ll come around.

© Barry Belmont for UNR Students for Liberty, 2010.
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I read what you write sometimes. Whether it’s on the Sagebrush website or your failed Senate blog or (more recently) on the VisLupiGang’s blog, I read your stuff. I read your stuff and I am appalled. Appalled sometimes at the grammar and syntactical structure. Appalled sometimes at the use of overly passive aggressive langauge. Appalled at all those idiosyncratic personality quibbles that make you and I unrelatable to one another — I seek to destroy that which you seek to maintain. But lately I am appalled at the utter pointlessness of your remarks.

On the ViLuEsGre blog, in the comments, you said something to the chagrin of:

In talking about diversity, you only talked about race and gender, not other things like socioeconomic status or sexual orientation.

Implying that “diversity” is  not “only” made up of “race and gender” but also “socioeconomic status” and “sexual orientation.” A perfectly reasonable position. When people talk about the concept of “diversity” in regards to “diversity initiatives” in colleges and workplaces they generally mean to include such things as race, gender, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, etc… Nothing wrong with that definition. You then went on to state:

You also didn’t even analyze the races close to what they would have classified themselves [...] Furthermore, you have not listed or analyzed the entire Unity Commission, as three (to my knowledge) are not listed– which consist of two males and a female, all of different ethnicities.

Regarding the “races” of the Unity Commission’s members. And while it’s a mangling of phrasing, your meaning is fairly intuitive: the article you’re commenting on misrepresented the amount of “diversity” (in this case, in the form of “racial diversity”) in the U Commy, a fact that can easily be born out by the the evidence. You hold that there is a fair amount of racial diversity in the U Commy and this is a good thing. You then go on to say something about Republicans and end by saying:

you should probably do a bit more research, before trying to label somebody a specific race–you should probably also take other diversity classifications into account, and then, maybe, you could have an argument.

Now, I don’t see the big, important, F-ing deal with the determination of specific “races” because as a biology major (and born after 1967) I know the term “race” has no real meaning except as a way to put people into arbitrarily different groups, but hey, to each their own. Let those who want to call this person White and this one Black and this one Brown have their way and say so to their hearts’ content.

After you, an anonymous poster, Not Gracie, had this to say to you in response:

In other words, “See, there are brown colored people in the commission. And poor people. And men. And probably some gays, too!”

Honestly, do you realize how incredibly offensive you sound Gracie?

I don’t see myself disagreeing with Not Gracie. I mean, granted Not Gracie put it a little more blatantly than you, but ultimately you were claiming that there were enough shades of skin color on the U Com to be of a satisfactory diversification. Some people might take offense to these kinds of claims, I  mean, after all, why is racial diversity important? Isn’t it just sort of a new form of segregation? Separate but equal? Equal and separate? It is just a way to say You are DIFFERENT from Me in a SIGNIFICANT way.

But ever the responder to That Which It Is Better To Not Respond To, you, Gracie, retorted to Not Gracie with:

Offensive? [...] I’m not taking a stance on whether race, gender, etc define diversity, as I’m fully aware that’s what the Unity Commission is trying to combat. Labels (like sexual orientation, race, gender, etc.) don’t soley [sic] make a person/group “diverse,” by any means.

I urge you to go back and read your words as this is precisely what you did (the first quote, and the bold portion of the third). But as if this wasn’t enough you made the statement regarding the raging debates about “diversity” that prompted this letter to you:

I’m not agreeing with any argument.

You might as well say “Chicken tastes good and I like to eat it because of it” while discussing what color to paint your house. Every statement must be for or against some position if it is to be of any use at all. You either have something of merit to bring to the conversation in which case your opinion will be critiqued or you have nothing to add to an argument and you just shut the hell up. Either you think diversity involves all the things you claim it does or it doesn’t. There is only one right answer on that matter.

So, Gracie, I leave you with three things to think about:

1. Your remarks were offensive as they uphold the notion that there is such a thing as race. The entire notion of racial identity is sickening and antiquated. It promotes bigotry and elitism in equal amounts. It makes of people both criminals and victims. Racism can only exist when there are “races” upon which people can misplace their frustrations and hatred.

2. There exists right and wrong in this world. You and I hold mutually exclusive positions on a great many things. For each of these positions only one of us is right, the other is wrong. I think “diversity” as a concept is pointless and hurtful. If you think anything other than that, then only one of us will be right on this issue. I am not so presumptuous to assume it’s me, but I am aware it is not both of us.

3. Please spend more time thinking about your responses than typing them. Gut reactions are not befitting you. You make careless mistakes, you play yourself as an unknowing victim, you often only respond by saying Well, if you come meet with me or come to the senate meetings (as if many of us gave enough rats’ asses to waste our time with such trivialities), and rather than let any criticism soak in and take to heart, you immediately dismiss it and let it glide off you like rain from a duck’s behind.

Let this mix and marinate with your brain juices for awhile.

Rather insincerely,
Barry Belmont

P.S. Thanks VisLupiGang for the recent kinda-nice post about us.

© Barry Belmont for UNR Students for Liberty, 2010.
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If you get nothing else out of this article, understand this: The middle ground is the refuge of the incompetent. The constant compromise of two mutually exclusive positions produces a monstrously lackluster philosophy which no one in their heart of hearts actually finds satisfying. “I won’t pretend to believe this, if you pretend not to believe that.” There is nothing good in this position.

© Barry Belmont for UNR Students for Liberty, 2009.
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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 –

© John Russell for UNR Students for Liberty, 2009.
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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.

© Barry Belmont for UNR Students for Liberty, 2009.
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What they were complaining about this time is that the personal information of a few College of Liberal Art potential-fillers-of-the-empty-seat students had been blacked out. They called it redacted because it sounded scarier. What information, what crucial, vital, essential pieces of information needed to be shared with the world and whose being blacked out was a violation of LAW and which was done with NO PRECENDENCE!? The students’ addresses, student numbers, telephone numbers, email addresses, and cumulative GPAs.

You know, the stuff one doesn’t generally doesn’t want to see floating around on blogs run by anonymous people who use the word “redacted”.

When a commenter responded to the post by saying, “I dont think you are being fair. Censoring home addresses and phone numbers is perfectly understandable before they are confirmed. Let’s try not to be unreasonable guys” one of the VisLupiEstGrex people retorted:

“This is isn’t about fairness. This is about the plain meaning of the law. The Senate has never before, to our knowledge, redacted such information [...] I do not believe it is unreasonable to make a reasoned argument backed by legal authority. It may be unfair that this is public material, but it is not declared by law to be private.” (emphasis added)

But this couldn’t be more completely wrong. Laws have no authority in and of themselves. Laws derive their only power, their only sway insofar as people are willing to uphold those laws. There are laws against jay walking and speeding, but how many times have you broken these laws even within the past week? Would all the VisLupiEstGrex people be willing to say they never drank underage, never drove over the speed limit, have, in fact, stopped at every “Stop” sign 100% everytime they’ve seen one?

Of course they shouldn’t have to say they’ve done all those things: those things are pointlessly stupid laws in many instances. Dumb laws should be ignored. Bad laws shouldn’t be followed simply because they’re laws. They are first and foremost “bad” which makes whatever it is they advocate lose any sense of “necessity.” Don’t ever be fooled into thinking there is such a thing as a “necessary evil.” There isn’t. Such a ploy is only held up by those too weak to carry meaningful ethical principles.

© Barry Belmont for UNR Students for Liberty, 2009.
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