Column:

Not that much of a stretch?

By Dan Friesen

Published April 10, 2007

Children, we've long known that a stench of cronyism and secrecy has pervaded this school's student government. Never have we seen a less transparent administration. It's clear that something is being covered up, but just how bad things are no one is willing to say, or even speculate on, except me.

I know that campus is abuzz with talk of what our present mess could be, and I wish I could say I knew for sure. But I have a hunch, call it a nightmare scenario, which I'd like to share with you.

Imagine a world in which a man enjoyed a position in student government of such influence that he was virtually untouchable and without genuine oversight. Let's imagine that he had worked himself all the way to being the head of a nonsense student organization that presides over all the trivial, yet high-in-dollar value, university expenses. Let's call it the Department of Shady Accountancy, or DSA for short.

Now, let's imagine that a maverick, straight-shooting columnist for the campus paper got aspirations to run for student body president, the only position in which he could break through the hazy fog of lies and subterfuge to rid the government of thieves and crooks, wherever they might hide.

Let's further imagine that the head of DSA was one of these crooks. He would have reason not to want the valiant, courageous columnist (let's call him Dan Freedom) to ever make it to the ballot, where a flood of support from the fed-up masses surely would propel him to victory, would he not?

Let's go on to imagine that this head of DSA had a close relation (a cousin, or, I don't know, a girlfriend) who headed the group that oversaw the student government elections process, the Board of Elections Chicanery, or BEC. Would it be so hard to imagine that the head of BEC, in the interest of protecting her crooked close relation in DSA, might attempt to dissuade the intrepid columnist from running by threatening to fully prosecute all infractions of the rules, whose mere existence violated the bold candidate's freedom of speech and was little more than institutionalized censorship.

Now imagine the heroic columnist wouldn't take that bullshit and decided to use his column as an outlet to express his righteous indignation with an establishment whose time was up. Imagine the student body heavily supporting the renegade columnist's struggle and a full-blown revolution breaking out on campus. Imagine free speech champions 2 Live Crew sympathizing with the columnist's noble crusade and volunteering to headline a rally to support the columnist and his fight against censorship.

Things would be getting hot in the kitchen, and in these circumstances, it wouldn't be hard to imagine the nefarious head of DSA taking matters into his own hands and creating the greatest diversion imaginable: Getting BEC to kick the minority candidates out of the presidential election.

It's perfect: The student body surely would prioritize. Campus is mostly comprised of good liberals, and they can always be counted on to put people calling for sweeping, much-needed reform on the back burner when there's a minority that's been screwed by "the man" to rally behind. The campus would be galvanized behind a different issue, and the true threat of Freedom's rise to power would be eliminated. And they almost would have gotten away with it.

Or maybe not. Maybe, the head of DSA just stole thousands of dollars from the university so he and his friends could go down to Austin, Texas, get drunk and take pictures of themselves meeting a confused-looking Elijah Wood. Either way, it's high time we unseat this yahoo and bring decency back to student government.

You know what this means: I gotta put on another rally. I think I have the 69 Boyz number around here somewhere.