To Question With Boldness... or Die

I've been away from blogging a long while. School tends to knock you down several pegs and take away your motivation to write anything when you have two massive papers to write. But some things have prompted me to write an entry. A lot of it is centered about things people have told me, a lot of them I found negative, even if done in a joking or helpful tone. And some of it is just plain strange.

I learned one thing in spending over a year in the grad school program I attend: I am a very rare person. I don't think like any of my peers or my professors. In fact, I have found absolutely no one who thinks like I do. And I'm not sure why. Most of the people in my school lean left. They all tend to favor a couple of things: political correctness, conformity, and a nice stepping in line. When I wasn't impressed with President Obama's inauguration, I was told "this is history!" during a viewing event inside of my school. I said, "yeah, I suppose it is, but this is just a ceremony. The real history is to be made down the road." There is something impressive about being the first African-American president ever. I'm not taking that away from him. However, I think that the stimulus package, the health care reform plan, the bailouts, the wars, are infinitely more important issues than some symbolic milestone, don't you?

But there's a constant pressure in society to conform, even though we say the opposite. In class one day about two months ago, we examined a student's paper. During that class, most people gave negative comments. I wanted to say something positive, and I said a comment akin to "I know this paper's bad, but I liked the way he knows his topic very well." One of my friends (who's probably reading this right now and knows who he is) promptly after class told me I have no filter. At first I was like, "yeah, okay, whatever" but it started eating at me. I don't tend to take insults very well because as a kid, I was heavily made fun of. I still struggle with it at times, even when it's completely in a joking manner. A few weeks later when we were hanging out, he brought it up again. I was having a good time and relaxing up until that point, but when he said it, it flipped a switch. I stopped having fun. I didn't want to be there. I found it almost frustrating someone would say something I took offense to. I guess I can be placed at fault for not saying anything about it, but I did vow if he brought it up again (he'd only said it twice) that I would put a stop to it. He never did, but I use this example to make a point: it's all about staying within the lines in our society. There's no way you can step outside of them, or whether jokingly or not, someone will take a shot at you.

But it doesn't stop with just staying in line. It's also about never questioning. I have changed jobs and I work for a state agency now. I was assigned a project and during the initial project meeting, we were told the project we were working on was to look up business addresses for a project that originally an entirely different agency had jurisdiction on. When they asked for questions, no one asked anything about how or why we are working on this. So, I put up my hand and asked why the other agency didn't have what we were about to work on. One of the staffers in the room chuckled and another provided a very politically correct response. I walked back somewhat amused at the time, now mortified.

I had the same feeling when I was in a class and was being lectured to by a member of a federal agency that will go unnamed. During this class, he was telling us the agency's strategy regarding a specific issue. I proceeded to call him out on what I thought was a major whole in his strategy... and got more wishy washy B.S. Since I was not in a public policy class and was in another department, I wasn't going to press the policy problem and just listened to the rest. But it was one of those moments where logic breaks down, and when questioned, the speaker stepped back. To be clear,

In one final example, I challenged my school on a speaker who is coming to my graduate program to talk to students about career opportunities in national intelligence. They set an informal dinner with him in which the student paid his own food expense. Fine on the expenses, but one major problem: they set it during the second year students' class time at 6 PM (class starts at 5:30). I challenged this and was told by both my student government president and the second in command at my program that "he graciously offered this time and we aren't changing it." Well, if the situation was explained to him, and he is as gracious as they say, wouldn't it be worth considering moving it a few hours back to make more students, particularly the ones about to graduate in six months, available to him? I don't know why, but no one agreed with me. I doubt anyone's going to, to be honest. I will say as a counterpoint, he may be leaving to go somewhere else. The man coming is a retired vice admiral and is likely moving on tonight or tomorrow. But even if the school provided that as justification, that would've been better than the "he just donated this time" statement.

I lied when I said that was the last one. This final one really, really gets to me. I currently serve my local community and my student population by serving on a city government commission that meets in the evenings. I consider this a very important position, one I do with great pride and I think I've helped change a lot of minds about certain issues. However, my school places classes during my meetings, forcing me into a conundrum: do I serve, or do I go to class? These meetings are once a month, but very important. Tonight, we have an issue on the table I consider highly important and the effects of my absence could hurt the local area. To which am I more appropriately bound: my service, or my class? Saying I go to a school that is dedicated to service, I find the fact that they will not accommidate my service hypocritical. Some would argue I haven't placed any options on the table, so they have nothing to work with. I asked the school if there's something we could come up with. I got an answer of "we aren't moving the classes, I see no other option, and I'm sorry that's not the answer you are looking for." All I know is they will either respect my service, or they will soon be listening to it from someone higher up. My school's motto is "inspiring citizenship, developing leadership." I'll leave you to insert some witty remark here.

Maybe I'm crazy for thinking everyone just wants you to step in line and shut up. Maybe this is all a paradigm I've made so that I've got something to always fight against. I don't believe it is, though. I'm refusing to sit down and simply be counted. It's way too easy to do that. It's much harder to speak what's on your mind. It's even harder to act against the current. But I will do both. I don't plan to retreat. Glenn Beck has a saying, which is "question with boldness." I am going to do just that. I'd rather be dead than forcibly stand in line.

And if you think I've taken this too far, or that I'm fighting a losing war, then fine. You think that. Have fun. Meanwhile, I'm going to make this world better than the way it was when I was born. You can either stand up and follow me, or you can stay in line. Your call.