BYUSA Broke Up the Beatles
In case you didn't catch last year's rant, I'm not very fond of BYUSA. In fact, I quite loathe it. Not that it doesn't fulfill some important functions--I'm sure planning parties and concerts, giving out free hot dogs, and shutting down which ever BYUSA organ is most popular that year are all necessary parts of university life. It gives students a chance to serve one another. And I suppose it's a good place for students to practice their "leadership skills." (I'm not quite sure I agree with the conventional definition of the phrase, but that's a whole different post. I'll write something about it after I read Nibley's article on leaders versus managers.)
No, my major gripe about BYUSA is that it pretends to be something that it's not, that is, a student government. And while it irks me slightly that BYU doesn't have a student government, I understand why this is so. At a Church-operated university, it's quite difficult for people to wrap their heads around the idea that debate and inspired leadership can operate simultaneously. But that's okay--I'm not particularly put out at the lack of grass-roots influence at BYU. I'm willing to trust the administrators to make good decisions. That's what they're hired/called to do.
But what I cannot/will not tolerate is the continued placating of the student body with the semblance of representation. Why pretend that BYUSA is a student government when it is clearly not? And why inflict the horrors of the electoral process on a student body that knows the results of the election make no difference? In what sense is it an election when the higher ups choose who is allowed to run and have the power to overturn the elections? If BYUSA-style elections took place in any third-world country, we'd be crying rigged elections to high heaven. But no one really cares about the unfairness of BYUSA elections because we all know the results don't particularly matter. Let's see, which annoying business major is going to get the scholarship this year?
But the worst part of it all is the campaign tactics. They are tolerable at best when you know the issues are important, but absolutely unbearable in a puppet election. Throwing fliers in your face, blasting music, wearing atrociously bad colors, not to mention the ukuleles . . . . I swear, the next orange- or yellow-covered individual who approaches me on the way to the JFSB with false promises about changing hours at the weigh room (which I don't care about anyway) is going to be faced with the full force of my anti-BYUSA wrath.
In an attempt to direct this fury in a more productive, or at least humorous, direction, some of the tutors at the Writing Center spent the vast majority of this morning creating a line of anti-campaign campaign buttons. Who would dare approach you to remind you to cast your ineffectual vote when you're wearing a sticker that says "BYUSA stuffed me in a locker" or "BYUSA wears combat boots"? I mean, I would think twice about it. Seriously, these things are the best thing I've done in a long time, and we're making t-shirts tomorrow. I really like the idea of combating absurdity with even greater absurdity.
Some of my favorite slogans:
- BYUSA killed Dumbledore
- BYUSA eats babies
- BYUSA stole my girlfriend
- BYUSA can't tell a good hollandaise sauce
- BYUSA broke up the Beatles
- BYUSA shot Ghandi
- BYUSA slept through church
- BYUSA stole my lunch money
- BYUSA will blog about you later
- BYUSA called me a girl
- BYUSA is for Death Eaters
- BYUSA doesn't like your scrapbook
- BYUSA sunk the Titanic
- BYUSA ate the last piece of pizza
- BYUSA: because we hate democracy
- BYUSA is a secret combination
