Opinion
Stealing on campus is not a new trend
April 6, 2007
As most of you know, one troubled UW-River Falls student felt the need to cover up a stupid mistake by making an even more stupid mistake of burning hundreds of copies of this newspaper.
I am not rehashing all of this to shame the student any more, but to point out a trend on our campus that is becoming a sad truth - it seems people are finding theft as a reasonable solution to problems.
Remember Jenna Lee’s lack of a music column a few weeks back when she could not write one because someone had stolen her iPod out of her dorm room?
I thought you were supposed to have a sense of camaraderie with people in your dorm, not steal from them.
Now Mr. Ethics felt the need to cover up his underage drinking debauchery by burning all the newspapers he could get his hands on. Brilliant move; that really did great things for his personal credibility as well as the organizations he is involved with.
What I am finding so frustrating about all this is the growing lack of conscience among our campus population.
While my own personal example of this is not at all the same level of severity as Mr. Ethics or Lee’s iPod caper, the principle of it is just sad.
Honest to God, when I was reading the paper-burning article on the front page of last week’s Student Voice on Friday, I was eating lunch and left my half-finished cheeseburger and sugar cookie to get a drink of water.
When I came back, some idiot had made off with the rest of my lunch. Isn’t that sad.
If someone was so hungry they had to steal a half-eaten cheeseburger and nibbled on sugar cookie, ask for some help.
Seriously, if I was approached by someone believably in need of food, I would have bought them a lunch.
In all truth, if someone would have asked me for the rest of my lunch that day, I would have given it to them.
The fact that my lunch was actually stolen is not what is bothering me so much. More importantly, it is the meaning behind it. What happened to being a good person?
These incidents have raised questions for me about the future of this campus. What is next?
Will students still take the easy or stupid way out to get something that they want or will these thieving people continue to act like children instead of the adults they supposedly are?
In the words of Jeffery Lebowski, “Get a job, sir.” If you are that hard up for money that stealing is your only option and you have no job, it is your own fault.
If you are working and still need to steal, manage your money better.
But please, all of you thieves lurking around campus, grow up and get it together.