by Sari Krosinsky
Daily Lobo columnist
It appears my column last week requires some explanation. So here it is: I was being sarcastic.
That being said, I'm glad people who took that column literally were angry. You should be angry. Not just because some schmuck is telling you to follow the leader, but because that is what the purpose of government actually is.
The purpose of government is to have a select person or group of people that makes the decisions for everyone else. I'm not saying this because I like it; I'm saying it because it is.
In dictatorships, monarchies and other governmental forms of the like, this state of things is pretty much acknowledged fact. The trouble with representative democracy is that it gives the illusion of control. We elect our representatives, so we do have a say, don't we?
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Well, not really. Voters decide by majority who gets into office. The people in office can then listen to us or ignore us as they see fit. Yes, people can put pressure on the government to try to make them listen to a particular viewpoint, but individual people have no direct control over the decisions the government makes.
Now, what about those people in government? Not all of them -- maybe even not most of them -- are particularly bad. Some of them, at least, actually seek public office in order to serve people. Yet even those people are deciding for us what our best interest is. Do you really want somebody else telling you what's good for you?
Let's say you're one of those people who thoroughly researches candidates before you vote. You watch the debates, read the platforms, read the voter guides, even look up their voting records, if they've been in office before. Do you find yourself agreeing with the candidate you choose on every single issue? Or do you only agree with them on a majority of issues, or on just a few issues of particular importance to you?
Do you, in fact, find that the best candidate only represents part of what you want, that no one can truly represent you but yourself?
And what happens when those people we elect -- be they the best candidate or otherwise -- get into office? Even if some or all of them whole-heartedly want to accomplish the things that motivated people to vote for them, those things aren't necessarily going to be the same things. The next step, after the game of campaigning, is the game of compromise.
Let me give you an example of this game. While I was working for it, the Student Association of the State University of New York was lobbying for an increase in the amount of tuition that the state's grant program would cover. We lobbied for two years to get an increase from 90 percent of tuition to 100 percent. The Democratic Assembly majority supported the issue, but the Republican Senate majority opposed it, so the bill failed both years.
The third year, we added another item to our legislative agenda. In addition to the original demand, we lobbied for an increase in the cut-off income for the grant -- specifically, an increase from about $50,000 to about $80,000. The Assembly majority was opposed to this demand, but the Senate majority loved it. So the two houses ended up compromising by conceding to both of our demands.
This is the game by which our government makes laws and allocates funding. The terms are not always so pleasant. More often, the compromise results in something that is good ending up less good and something bad ending up less bad, but still bad.
Either way, this game has nothing to do with you.
So do I really think that we should all just throw our hands up and accept whatever the government throws at us? Of course not. I'm an anarchist, silly. What I'm saying is that the government, though it does manage to do a good thing from time to time, is inherently not for the people or by the people. It's up to us to figure out a way of doing things that is.
That being said, it was said in a column, so it doesn't count. E-mail Sari Krosinsky at michal_kro@hotmail.com.
