Letters to the Editor

As I read the Oct. 11 edition of the (Indiana Daily Student), I couldn’t help but find Nick Jacobs’ piece, “Do something about it,” utterly ridiculous.

Jacobs, apparently without irony, draws an analogy between a Tunisian man who burned himself to death in protest against a tyrannical dictatorship and an unemployed American college graduate with lots of student loan debt. This analogy fails completely and shows just how suffocating the sense of entitlement has become in this country, especially among the young.

Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian man in question, did not choose to live in a country without political freedom. He did not choose to become the victim of routine police brutality.

Our hypothetical college student, on the other hand, knows perfectly well what a student loan entails: Someday, you will need to pay the loan money back.

Ironically suggesting that the Tunisian police and the bank both committed similar wrongs while thinking they were “in the right” is ludicrous. Jacobs’ hypothetical student didn’t have her human rights violated; she was the victim of her own naivete.

More importantly, so are the misguided protesters behind the “Occupy (insert city/street here)” movement. I’m not suggesting that the bank bailout was a good idea; in fact, I opposed it. It’s just that I don’t see why it took the youth of America three years to do the same, and I certainly don’t want a new bailout for student loan signees who thought B.A.s in theater science or interior design would earn them high salaries right out of college. One bad government decision doesn’t necessitate another.

­— Benjamin Jarvis