Re: Voluntary Governments?

[rah@shipwright.com (Robert Hettinga)]

At  3:14 PM 8/23/94 -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
>Russell Nelson says:
>>    In our high school we had a student government.  We had no prisons
>>    and no guns.
>>
>> Then you were a club.
>
>Indeed.
[snip]
>(I once was part of a
>debate held by Columbia University's Philolexian Society on the topic
>"Resolved: Student Government is Amazingly Lame", in which I noted
>that the low probability of a student government coup d'etat complete
>with tanks rolling about the campus, and of the following student
>government dictatorship run by a student military junta, demonstrated
>that the student "government" wasn't a government but a weak way to
>keep students placated, devoid even of the mild entertainment the
>occassional revolt could bring.)

Alas. How true.

One of my friends got elected student government president at the
University of Missouri by standing outside polling places in a clown suit
bribing people to vote for him with play money.

Later that year, I authored a student senate declaration of war against the
University of Wisconsin. They had originated the concept of snickerocracy,
or rule by clowns, and as potential competition for scarce laughs had to be
destroyed. The declaration passed unanimously.  We passed the hat in the
bars for our defense budget (to be spent by the sacred Council of War, COW
for short), and sent four determined and somewhat inebriated agriculture
majors to Wisconsin's dairy barns to collect one ton of bullshit and
deposit it on their student union steps at 3 am.

In their defense, I must say that the administration generously let us (the
senate) vote on the allocation of about $1.3 million of the university's
money (somewhat less than 1% of the total, I believe), which made for a lot
of sand in the old sandbox. And, I got to meet both Timothy Leary and Ralph
Nader out of the deal.  I have trouble telling them apart to this day...

Ah, Yout'!

Adulthood is terminal,
Bob Hettinga

-----------------
Robert Hettinga  (rah@shipwright.com) "There is no difference between someone
Shipwright Development Corporation     who eats too little and sees Heaven and
44 Farquhar Street                       someone who drinks too much and sees
Boston, MA 02331 USA                       snakes." -- Bertrand Russell
(617) 323-7923