Pay attention to your government

Baby-boomers accuse our generation of being lazy, apathetic, and entitled narcissists. We could not agree more.

If you need proof of this claim, just look back to the fruitless uproar a few weeks ago.

The Student Senate allocated $16,000 of your money to fund a trip for themselves.

Your money, Millennials. YOUR MONEY.

We reported it, and plenty of students voiced complaints. One student was even brave enough to write a letter to the editor.

But for all the rabble-rousing, no one from the student body has shown the initiative to actually confront the senate and hold them accountable.

Just like Occupy, Kony 2012, and other brands of “slacktivism” engaged in by generation Y, this too was confined to the narrow spaces of a facebook confessions page.

In the weeks following the allocation, senate has quietly entertained an audience of themselves.

They are no longer to blame.

We are all here to get a degree, go out into the “real world,” get a job, pay taxes, etc., but what is your tax money worth if it’s not being spent to benefit you directly? Your money is being spent to benefit your “leaders,” a self-entitled body that are only following the shining example of self-service set by the U.S. Congress.

True leaders are not supposed to serve themselves; they are elected to represent their people. Our leaders ought to be servants to their followers, to their constituents, and to the student body at-large.

The student government is not a secret society, and they are not making the decisions to spend your money in private. They hold public meetings, and we report on these meetings so that you can read The Eagle and be informed.

But what are you supposed to do with this information? They need your feedback to effectively govern, so schedule time to contact your representative or better yet, attend the meeting in person.

Next week, at 5 p.m. in the Scottsbluff room of the Student Center, the senate will discuss the proposed by-laws that will determine how student activities, clubs, and campus organizations receive their yearly budgets from student activity fees.

Democracy only works if you participate, and these by-laws establish precedents for all future allocations from student activity fees. We urge you to attend the senate meeting and discuss this matter in an open forum, or if you are too busy, contact your student senator to find out more details.

A directory for all student senators can be found at the following URL:

http://www.csc.edu/studentsenate/senators.csc