A short while ago, I listened to MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon speak of the things we all need to think about as members of the university community. She focused on something we habitually put on the back burner — a burner that in many cases has been turned off. This focus was on a very simple word: responsibility.
During recent years, the cry for “rights” has reached monumental proportions. We see criminals demanding to be exonerated after they have killed and mutilated their victims on videotape because in the turmoil of the murders and the seizing of the culprit someone forgot to read the proper Miranda rights.
We see the American Civil Liberties Union defending young children who want to attend R- and X-rated movies without an adult because they have rights. Because of religious rights, horrible creatures are allowed to violate the funerals of fallen military men and women.
Never is the word responsibility mentioned. “I have a right!” seems to be on the tongues of everyone, from the characters who burn sofas for fun, to the idiots who run stop signs and stoplights simply because they think they have a right to violate the law.
Simon’s words echoed in my mind during the Notre Dame game weekend. How wonderful it is that we have to put up with the dregs of the earth who either invade campus to spread as much havoc as they can or our own students who wouldn’t know a football if it hit them in the head.
It’s all about drinking for many who arrive and force the real fans to endure vomit, public urination and obscenities. It is estimated that a percentage of the 30,000-plus individuals descend upon MSU to do nothing more than get drunk. But please remember each of those characters has a “right” to that activity.
One might think he or she has a right to a lot of things, but your rights definitely are not comparable to the rights of the guy who just dropped his pants in front of your 5-year-old daughter. And don’t bother to complain to someone in authority because they have many more individuals and groups to contend with. A little nudity and defecation is the least of their worries.
It all boils down to that one simple word again: responsibility! Simon hit the nail right on the head. She said we have many responsibilities in our lives.
They range from simply being watchful of those around us and being there when we are needed to thinking about what our behavior does to our university and us.
With that, I would like to propose something for the next football game, something that might focus the attention of the entire population on the issue of rights and responsibilities. I would like the cleanup crews that rush onto campus Sunday morning to stay home and leave MSU looking like it does on game day.
I would like to have the privilege of driving over and stepping in broken glass and human waste. I would like to trudge through heaps of garbage and trip over mounds of beer cans.
None of the individuals who normally collect all the cans would be allowed to pick them up. I would apologize to them, but they just seem to help the culprits who feel it is OK to leave debris anywhere. I also would like to see absolutely no building on campus cleaned after these invaders have shown up and done whatever they felt like doing.
I would like to see the attitude of the 10,000-odd employees and the 45,000 students on campus when they discover someone has urinated on their doors. What a joy on a Monday morning. Let’s just leave it as it is! MSU the beautiful! And it’s beautiful because we are a land-grant university with the rights of all in our minds.
Well, if we didn’t clean up the mess from Saturday, it wouldn’t be just in our minds, it clearly would be visible to see and smell.
Now that’s a real right.
Craig Gunn is a State News guest columnist. Reach him at gunnd@egr.msu.edu.
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