Student club: ‘Vote for the right reasons’
The Students for Liberty, formerly the College Libertarians, gather for their weekly meeting. The club is composed of students who do not want to vote in this election.
Barry Belmont, John Russell and Alyssa Cowan, members of the University of Nevada, Reno Students for Liberty, began setting up their campaign table while Barack Obama supporters shot glared at them while manning their own table a few feet away.
The last time they tried this, the students representing the Obama campaign engaged the Students for Liberty in an argument that quickly digressed to a shouting match heard across Hilliard Plaza.
The Students for Liberty, formerly the College Libertarians, are advocating against uneducated voting. The three leaders of the club disagree with the candidates running in this year’s presidential election, and rather than vote for the lesser evil among the group, they have chosen not to vote at all.
“We’re not necessarily saying ‘Don’t vote,’ just ‘Vote for the right reasons,’ ” Belmont said. “Too many people are voting because the Obama table gave them a cookie or MTV ran a commercial telling them it’s cool.”
This draws a stark contrast between the Students for Liberty and other political groups on campus. These other groups are encouraging voting for their supported candidate and many others are encouraging students to just vote, no matter who they vote for.
Soon after the Students for Liberty brought out their campaign material, they began to draw interest from people walking by. The material consisted of signs touting an imaginary candidate, Nobody, with slogans like “Nobody ’08 will fix America.”
The UNR Students for Liberty have received glares since they started the Nobody ’08 campaign earlier this month.
In addition to encounters when their campaign table is set up, the group has had a hard time keeping people from tearing down posters on bulletin boards around campus. The group even chalked 20 logical reasons not to vote on the sidewalk outside the Joe Crowley Student Union late Wednesday night, only to find it erased by 9 a.m. Thursday.
“It might be pissing people off, but in a good way,” Abigal Partyka, a 23-year-old information system major and member of the Students for Liberty, said. “It gets them thinking.”
At their weekly meeting on Thursday, Belmont, Russell and Cowan explained the goals and ideas behind the Nobody ’08 campaign to the rest of the club.
During the meeting, supporters of the campaign gave reasons ranging from absolute disapproval of voting in general to disagreement with current candidates. Members opposing the idea said it advocated anarchy and was counterproductive to the club’s goals for change.
While many different reasons to support or oppose the campaign were raised, the general consensus was the program should force people to think about what they were about to vote for. The club decided to use the angry reactions the campaign prompted to its advantage.
“Most people are so closed minded; making them mad is maybe the only way to get them to pay attention,” Mike Fasano, an 18-year-old speech communications major, said.
Fasano was opposed to the campaign at the beginning of the meeting, saying it promoted anarchy, something many in the group did not seem to feel was such a bad thing. As the meeting went on, however, Fasano said he realized the potential the idea had to force critical thinking.
“We’re not for politics, but policies,” Russel said of the club. “We don’t agree with any of the candidates so we aren’t voting. We believe our philosophy’s worth having, so that makes it worth supporting.”
Jay Balagna can be reached at jbalagna@editor@nevadasagebrush.com.
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October 28th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Pretty cool article written by a pretty cool guy about a pretty cool club.
:)
Thanks Jay for your excellent work.
October 30th, 2008 at 8:02 am
If Obama wins, I’m voting with my feet . There’s been far too many chilling examples of how Obama’s supporters harshly deal with their opposition. If Obama and his supporters get into power, who knows how far out of hand it will get?
November 9th, 2008 at 7:14 am
This is an outrage. There was never any shouting match between the Barack Vols and these guys. NEVER. Also, this article implies that we erased their chalking. They probably didn’t have permission or never even did it at all. Knowing some of the people in the “club,” they might just be saying that to get attention.
November 10th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Hate to burst a couple of those bubbles of yours, Christopher, but there were several screaming matches that the Obamabots held with us. Observe just one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxioXZWBc84
That’s the funny thing about saying something never happened, you’ve only got to be wrong once to be wrong.
Also, if the article seems to imply that the chalking was erased by you (the Barack Vols) then I believe it arises merely out of an intense desire for your hermeneutics to fit a preconceived notion that the Students for Liberty were out to get you. They weren’t. (Oh and they DID have permission to chalk where they chalked, but the person who works for the JCSU doing the cleaning didn’t bother to ask and simply powerwashed it all away…’who could say “don’t vote” and still follow the rules?’)…and to imply that they would lie about doing it…pfft…grow up. And while you’re at it check http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTPzkyGeOng
and http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4SDQR2fsyaA/SQFa-iNAheI/AAAAAAAABW8/TbyJowzl2B4/s1600-h/CIMG2191.JPG
So Christopher, you couldn’t be more wrong if your name was Wrong-y McWrongenstein. But in the end we both won. You’re candidate got elected thanks to your lowball, grassroots, follow-the-rules-when-they-suit-your-purpose campaign that you guys all seem so unwarrantedly self-righteous about. We won because we got to mock you guys, inform those who wanted to be informed, left those alone who wanted to be left alone, spread the message of critical thinking, and because when this is all over and we’re all older and we have dead-end jobs and mid-life crises and mortgages and kids what we’ll all remember is those crazy Students for Liberty and their plea not to vote. And every election from here on out, those who heard about us will ask themselves if its worth voting, they will ask if voting is legitimate, they will ask if they want to be part of this process. Because we got them to ask and because I believe they will continue to question, because they will remember us and what we have done and will forget the Obamabots (figuring they’ve all probably become bureaucrats at this point), because we didn’t need to shout from the rooftops because we were whispering in the halls,
we have won, and will continue to win even when we all turn back toward apathy and our studies and our lives.
November 11th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Awwwww… Does anybody else find the striking resemblance between this club and the emo kids from South Park? “In order to be a non-conformist, you just have to dress, act and talk like us.” :)))
November 11th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
yea they kinda remind me of that…if i was dumb. …which you and i are.
November 12th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Grigory, please defend your position between the southpark episode of conformity and what has been mentioned thus far.
The Students for Liberty consist of free thinkers that range in different viewpoints and backgrounds, challenging all forms of groupthink and tyranny over the mind in order to find and promote the principles of liberty.
November 12th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Russell, here are a few reasons off the top of my head:
1. “The group did not seem to feel [anarchy] was such a bad thing.” If there is one thing more laughable than conforming non-conformists, it’s 18-year-old anarchists who use the system with its meeting rooms and club funding in order to spread their message of anarchy. It would be ironic if it weren’t so sad.
1a. Regarding the anarchy - google 1923 Victorian Police strike.
2. “The Students for Liberty, formerly the College Libertarians” - what’s the matter? Didn’t the Libertarian Party have its own candidate - Bob Barr? Why the sudden switch from being a genuine voice of the opposition to, well, whatever it is you are now?
3. It’s one thing to “disagree with the candidates running in this year’s presidential election” but when you form a club and start a movement to promote your views, it’s also paramount to “a commercial telling them it’s cool.” I respect your views, even though I disagree with them, but you ought to admit that when others join you down the road, some of them will do so just because they want to belong and, well, conform - not because they came to the same conclusion as you did through, presumably, a long and complex evaluation of the current electoral system.
…sorry for the run-on sentence there - old habits die hard. Looking forward to our discussion.
Oh, and “dumb” - anonymity is the last refuge of a coward.
November 13th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Grigory
Let me start by thanking you for taking the time to step off your pedestal and address those who are clearly inferior to you in their critical thought processes. If only we had heard what you had to say before we started…we could have saved ourselves a lot of pointless efforts toward thinking for ourselves.
1. Most of the group is not anarchist in their thinking. In fact, off the top of my head, I’d say there is only one member who flirts with the anarchist position. And though he is often times outspoken on the subject, he does not represent anyone’s ideals but his own. If there are things more laughable than conforming non-conformists, it’s fart jokes and cream pies, not someone who has seriously considered the implications of anarchy
1a. I don’t see your point. This is not anarchy. Google Murray Rothbard if you are actually interested in the opinion of what the anarchist in the club thinks. You know, rather than make childish asides and innuendo.
2. We’re lowercase-l libertarians. It was never about the party (in fact we have nothing to do with the Libertarian Party), rather it was about the concepts of liberty and freedom that we were and still are interested in. And if touting the party line is genuine and upholding the ideals of liberty is somehow disingenuous…well then…I’ve just been assbackward this entire time.
3. You don’t respect our views and I find it despicable that you would pretend to. Judging from your comments, it appears that you get nothing but amusement and contempt from this club. You have, it seems to me, merely tried to smear something which you clearly don’t understand in the slightest. By comparing our club to a commercial saying something is cool is asinine and speaks to your lack of knowledge on the subject. And I’m sorry but I don’t see what “conforming” has to do with anything beside being a taboo-sort-of word in our day and age where independence and individuality are held in such high regard. We’re not anti-conformity, at least not that I know of. In fact, it would probably be considerably easier to just have everyone believe the same thing we did and joined our club and volunteered and hung out and was cool. But if I’m not mistaken, I’m pretty sure that’s one of the points of forming a club. So don’t try to assembly this strawman of what you think this club is…I would think up on that pedestal of yours it would be beneath you.
November 13th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Barry - before we go any further, let’s clarify the L-word issue. The article mentions - not once, but twice - that Students for Liberty were “formerly the College Libertarians.” Capital L. Twice. Was the Sagebrush wrong on this one? I was rather involved with ASUN back in the day and from what I recall, it was Libertarian with a capital L. And if you’re saying to me in all seriousness that College Libertarians had “nothing to do with the Libertarian Party” - well, that changes everything. We’ll have to reevaluate all of our assumptions. Are Young Democrats, in fact, democrats? and College republicans - just how republican are they? Everything we know is wrong! :)
November 13th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Go away Grigory. Get a life…go away.
November 20th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
I commend the Sagebrush on covering Students for Liberty. Great job!
November 26th, 2008 at 5:52 am
We all know that the Students for Liberty doesn’t care about their message other than for it’s shock value.