Slime Time

It's law school election season again. And the ridiculousness of this charade is more apparent this year than perhaps any year previously. Personally, I'm just glad that, compared with whatever attenuated capacity I have been involved in the past, there is absolutely no compulsion on or interference with my normal life this time around. I suspect that's why it strikes me as being more of a charade this year. There's an ugly sense of self-importance that accompanies every election and, last year in particular, the disguising of personal ambition behind perhaps the most superficially socialist election agendas was, from my openly biased perspective, really pathetic.

My reasons for voting for who I did in the last four years (and only once, in first year, did I get both right and only one other time, last year, did I get even one right) were simple: the President and Vice-President of the National Law School's student body can't really do anything. Indeed, to my mind, if the office holders can do so much as to make sure all Committees work well and achieve success, that'll honestly be their best achievement. (Every year, I've been told that I'm wrong and that there is scope for doing a lot more in office, so if you disagree, I've heard it before and I'm not saying you're wrong.) However, in the exceedingly exceptional circumstance that the office bearers have the opportunity to do something that affects my life directly or if I need to employ their services/goodwill in case of an entanglement with the powers that be, I'd like them to be friends of mine or, in cases where this is impossible, reasonably intelligent people I feel comfortable speaking to freely.

As narrow-minded as I've been (and demonstrated above) about elections, I can't help thinking that half the fun with elections is in recognising or legitimising real characters in law school. Unfortunately, if my sources of goss are correct (and they usually are), I don't see too many characters standing for elections. And that's a shame.