BYUSA Elections! Power to the People

On Friday, March 23, 2007 Ashley Sanders and I held a mock BYUSA ralley in Brigham Square. I was wearing a suit! We had a mega-phone and threw hnor code indugences out to the crowd of about 100 screaming fans! It was great fun! In this picture i am handing out induglences to our loyal supporters.

(Ashley)

"Fellow Cougars,

Thank you for gathering to support Jase and I in our run for BYUSA presidency! Would that it were a happier, more peaceful time, but alas, it is not. We gather here today at a time of great peril. Even as I speak there are many people on parts of this campus who are plotting to destroy our way of life. These people hate honor. They hate our freedom to obey. I do not need to remind you Cougars that you are inheritors of a divinely inspired document. I am speaking of the Honor Code, a rule book written by godly and inspired authors who possessed a radical vision for a new world: a world where people would not live in fear of ambiguity and relativity, a world where the length of your dress would say something about your level of spiritual commitment. And now there are those who want to destroy this document and introduce a wanton secularism into our midst. Brainwashed by a tradition of liberal thinking and human rights movements, these infidels call for free speech, facial hair, and even women's liberation. Everything is coming to pass as Ernest Wilkinson prophesied. Beatniks, buzzards, and surfers are infesting this campus and spreading godless ideals and lascivious American rock music. We have tried to make our enemies easy to distinguish by imposing rigorous dress standards and curfews on ourselves. But this is a new type of world and it it will require a new type of warfare. We must hunt down these enemies of honor and all who house them! As with all wars, this will require a great deal of money and a lapse in personal standards. Desperate times call for desperate measures. To raise that money, we must fight honor with honor! We will lower our principles in order to raise theirs. And so, following a long line of religious innovators, we present to you the most compelling of BYUSA platforms: the sale of honor code indulgences! For those of you not familiar with this spectacular idea, indulgences allow you to pay for sins in order to fund a noble cause. So run, don't walk!

We have here some of our favorite prototypes, free to the first voters:

1. Form-fitting clothing freebie! $40 tomorrow, the cost of a vote today!
2. One use of the bathroom at the house of the opposite sex, not as decorum and taste dictate!
3. One facial hair liberation card, going, going, gone!
4. 45 minutes past curfew at a house of your choice!
5. Turn in two minor transgressors, get one serious transgression free! And finally,
6. Switch to the Democratic Party, no questions asked!

Buy them for your friends, give them to your lovers! Selling these indulgences will not only help fund the war on honor terror, it will also shorten confession lines at the Honor Code Office. And for those who still aren't sold on the idea, we assure you it comes tried and tested. BYU Athletics has been experimenting with Honor Code indulgences for years, and the money keeps on pouring in! And for those who think that a mere student service organization can't handle this type of responsibility, you're right! We will be handing this operation over to administration the first chance we get. We want this to succeed. After all, Jase and I, share something in common with Martin Luther King: A dream! That one day men and women will be judged, not by the content of their character, but by the length of their sideburns and skirts! Your money will not go to waste, and that's a promise. In fact, if you elect us, we have what it takes to shut down these opponents of honor! Why don't I have my running mate Jase tell you what we're gonna do!

(Jason B)
Hello, Cougars! Let's hear it for honor! Okay, check it out. The funds we raise from these indulgences are invaluable to our empire and the spread of its ideals. Let's start with the basics. As with any free and just government, we will need a prison. First and foremost, then, your money will go to build Wilkonamo Bay! Modeled after Gauntanamo and named for our man Ernest, this prison will serve as a corrections facility for enemies of honor and any person who looks mildly liberal. We will also need to beef up campus security and honor compliance, and so part of these funds will go to create the House of Un-Mormon Activities. Patterned after successful witch-hunting organizations of the past, HUMA will act as a link between the administration and the Student Honor Association to guarantee free nachos to anyone who will turn in their friends. To ensure 100 percent honor compliance, we will enlist the services of our underworked campus police who will rigorously enforce a corporate aesthetic. And finally, to maintain order, we will reinstate student spy rings and implement a surge in private student contractors who will ferret out the enemies of honor and bring them to justice. Buying and carrying indulgence slips is not only honorable; much like a yellow ribbon on a suburban bumper, it will be vital to proving what side you are on! In this war, you are either with us or you are against us! We stand at the threshold of a new era, an era in which we will cry from the housetops until our mantra sounds in every ear:

"LET HONOR RING!" Let me hear you say it!

After this, we dispursed as fast as we could, and nothing was spoken of it again.