2008 Woodie Awards
Changing mind not a bad thing
Issue date: 10/5/07 Section: Rocket Letters
To the editor:
I am writing in response to the letter to the editor titled "SGA lacks leadership" that was published in The Rocket last week. In the article the author says: "it seems that the cowards in the Senate (student government) could not hide and instead sided with what was popular over what they actually believed."
I will mention now that I have no affiliation with the SGA, nor do my views on the actual vote hold any relevance over my feeling toward this piece. I will also mention that I am not a political science major, but I also never fell asleep in civics class in the eighth grade.
I do have an understanding of a republic, which I hypothesize is what our current student government is loosely based on. A representative voting on the side of popular opinion, as unheard of as it may seem nowadays, is in fact the ideal situation. That's how it is supposed to work.
The last guy I knew who decided to press on with his personal beliefs which flew in the face of popular opinion happens to be the guy with the worst public approval rating in a generation and is, for the most part, already considered a lame duck. I'll leave it to you to figure out who I am talking about.
Perhaps the freshman class of last year decided that last year's vote wasn't the right decision, and since this year they are the sophomore class, they now have the voting power to do something about it.
Don't castigate someone for changing his or her mind. They are, after all, human. If you ask me the problem we have now in politics is that no one is ever willing to admit they have made a mistake. They would rather go down in a blaze of glory in order to save political face.
Samuel L. Piel
Senior
Environmental Studies
I am writing in response to the letter to the editor titled "SGA lacks leadership" that was published in The Rocket last week. In the article the author says: "it seems that the cowards in the Senate (student government) could not hide and instead sided with what was popular over what they actually believed."
I will mention now that I have no affiliation with the SGA, nor do my views on the actual vote hold any relevance over my feeling toward this piece. I will also mention that I am not a political science major, but I also never fell asleep in civics class in the eighth grade.
I do have an understanding of a republic, which I hypothesize is what our current student government is loosely based on. A representative voting on the side of popular opinion, as unheard of as it may seem nowadays, is in fact the ideal situation. That's how it is supposed to work.
The last guy I knew who decided to press on with his personal beliefs which flew in the face of popular opinion happens to be the guy with the worst public approval rating in a generation and is, for the most part, already considered a lame duck. I'll leave it to you to figure out who I am talking about.
Perhaps the freshman class of last year decided that last year's vote wasn't the right decision, and since this year they are the sophomore class, they now have the voting power to do something about it.
Don't castigate someone for changing his or her mind. They are, after all, human. If you ask me the problem we have now in politics is that no one is ever willing to admit they have made a mistake. They would rather go down in a blaze of glory in order to save political face.
Samuel L. Piel
Senior
Environmental Studies
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