Dillon Doyle, Stephanie Soechtig, Jim Wilfong and all the others who signed the Sustainability Council’s petition to ban the purchase or distribution of water bottles on campus ought to be ashamed of themselves.

I know that in this “Green Revolution” trend that is currently making waves, it is customary and admirable practice to urge others to be conservative in the natural resources that they use and heartily support that. 

But to use coercive measures, such as petitioning a controlling officer or organization to demand certain behavior is really quite antisocial. 

Further, everywhere one goes on campus, there is never a recycling bin so far away that one cannot do their part to reduce waste and contribute to recycling.

Truly, should this measure succeed, it would be a success of the tyranny of the majority, which is something that ought to be opposed on a unified front by both liberals and conservatives. 

Liberals, since they claim to support an individual’s freedom to do as they will without impugning on anyone else. 

Conservatives, since they claim that the free market is the most efficient and, therefore, if bottled water truly was a problem, people would speaking to such things with their dollars.

Should any of these 500 some-odd people identify themselves to this, I recommend that they retract their names from this position and support individual’s rights to make decisions for themselves and to fight coercion and restriction with tooth and nail.

Sincerely,

Jeremy T. Jackson

Undergraduate Student

Economics Major