You Don’t Represent Me
Alec Weisman, Editor-in Chief
After spending the last two weeks reading Hobbes Leviathan for class, I spent this weekend to study for my midterm yesterday, I mulled over what I had read. Hobbes described the sovereign of the commonwealth as the voice of the people, and said that the people cannot dissent, an attitude which struck me as wrong. The granting of this form of temporal authority which denied liberty to the subject seemed at odds with the notion of a free society, in which respectful dissent and individuality is argued to be one of our greatest virtues.
As I thought about the negative consequences of Hobbes words, I was struck by the fact that the UCSD Associated Students and the UC Student Association view themselves as the “voice” of the students. I don’t understand how they can argue that “The University of California Student Association is the official voice of over 200,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students from the eleven UC campuses. It is our mission to advocate on behalf of current and future students for the accessibility, affordability, and quality of the UC system.” If UCSA was actually “a student-run, membership-based organization, with a Board of Directors made up entirely of students and a full-time staff led by an Executive Director,” then students should have the right to opt in or out of the system should they disagree with it.
Sadly however, this is not the case, and for the UCSA, their top priority is to pass the California DREAM Act. Members of the UCSD AS have over the past few months shown their support for the DREAM Act, proving once again that partisan politics is alive and well on the council. Apparently AS is scheduled to vote on a resolution to support the DREAM Act, according to an email sent out over the weekend.
Knowing our student government at UCSD, this resolution will likely passed, but students at UCSD should wonder why our student government has to pass resolutions on political issues. You can think that you have the authority to represent me, but when I don’t have a real choice to opt into or out of your coercive system, then your “representation” is no representation at all.
AS Watch: Part 2 – Make Your Own Decisions
AS will also be considering a fee referendum for University Centers. I find it funny that University Centers operates just as inefficiently as Transportation and Parking Services and therefore it needs to beg students to impose fee hikes on themselves.
Finally, CalPIRG is coming to AS to ask them to endorse their “Energy Service Corps” campaign.
Read Rousseau, you might like it more.
Part 1: I’d go so far to say that the Associated Students should be considered in violation of their responsibilities as “representatives”, and by passing a meaningless resolution that is in fact nothing more than a promotion of a political campaign, I’d also say they should be forced to refund the fees paid by all students.
Part 2: It should be noted that part of the proposed fee would go to the Che Cafe, a building that should be leveled rather than subsidized by students who don’t agree with its radical, genocidal message. Also, it’s amazing that the University Center can provide space to biased left-wing groups like the Sustainability Resource Center, SPACES, the so-called Cultural Center, SAAC, and the Native American Student Association – rather than fill those spots with businesses that would pay a much higher rent, yet will turn around and cry for more money from students.
Basically, the new fee is going to help subsidize massive amounts of office space for extreme liberal programs and organizations, while other student groups are shoved two to four at a time in tiny little rooms. Fair? Not at all. Especially considering all students PAY for this via fees, and yet the privileged and entitled are treated disproportionately better.
Try to get a big Liberty Resource Center started on campus, with university staff and a ton of office space – see how far that gets you. But, please please please vote to increase the fees you pay so the race-baiters and eco-fascists have plenty of room to lounge around comfortably on your dime.
The very same Price Center people that brought you all those useless flatscreen TVs (that show nothing but…announcements about themselves) are back begging for more. Check out their budget for the Price Centers and you’ll see that 630k is devoted to “marketing/programming.” Of course, rather than cut this, they want to cut down on simply opening the building. Typical bureaucratic tactic. I also hear they’re wasting time and $$ on trying to get a hair salon rather than another profitable business because of something AS mandated.
Rather than throwing out the co-ops in the old student center who contribute next to nothing to campus life and bringing in something profitable, we’re going to have to endure more years of Marxist bookstores. Zoom’s also right about Che Cafe, although I believe there is a separate referendum that guarantees some level of funding for that. What we really need to do is mandate that all referendum need 50% participation or non-voting should count as a no vote. That will stop the pernicious alliance between the administration and various interest groups who run roughshod over the rest of the student population.
It’s quite likely that I confused two different referenda – well, I think I just assumed they were the same one when I heard about them. Also, I completely overlooked the Student Center, and most notably the co-ops, in my assessment of the University Centers fee. I agree, it’s utterly outrageous that such Marxist endeavors as the co-ops are subsidized by student fees, even more so that these are the ONLY type of endeavors that really are to any notable degree.
Of course, as Clausewitz’s correctly notes, this is a “typical bureaucratic tactic” we are witnessing here – one repeated by government bodies across the nation in growing trends: rather than cut their scared cows (and often CASH cows), the bureaucrats and elected officials will threaten basic services first (hours of operation, police, fire, etc.) if taxes/fees are not increased – all the while still funneling all kinds of money to their favorite programs and their overpaid administrative staffs.
As far as I’m concerned, SAAC, NASA, the SRC, all the co-ops, the Cross Cultural Center and the Che Cafe should be ejected from University Centers, unless willing to pay the same rent any privately owned business would. The vacated spaces should then be rented out to money-making enterprises – like a hair salon, IF they’re able to pay a reasonable amount of rent a month. I have no idea if a hair salon would or would not be a profitable business in the Price Center, but I’d be willing to let one give it a shot (and possibly fail), if they think they can make a buck here – at least when the alternative is socialist rabbit food and a communist bookstore.
And, even if not rented out, give the co-op and “center” spaces to other student organizations that aren’t under the same radical leftist umbrella. Why should SAAC and the co-op people get multiple rooms when all other orgs are multiple groups in one room? If the University Centers want more money, they need to prove they can streamline, and assign space more fairly and efficiently.
Guardian has an article on the proposed fee:
http://www.ucsdguardian.org/news/university-fee-may-increase-by-5/
Mentions that the Che needs $722,000 in maintenance over the next 10 years. That would be money WELL spent.