Alcoholic consumption consumes our minds as voters

One Princeton rite of passage is receiving (but of course not reading) the "Rights, Rules, and Responsibilities" booklet before each year begins. Certainly, that the word "Rights" is placed before "Responsibilities" in the title contrasts strikingly with President Woodrow Wilson's dictum that Princeton belongs "in the Nation's service." We are more interested in our entitlements and opportunities than fulfilling the obligations that go along with them. We probably spend 10 times more effort on preserving our rights than on fulfilling our responsibilities.

Sometimes we even go out of our way to avoid fulfilling responsibilities. The recent campaigns to register student voters in the Borough of Princeton were definitely an absurd effort to assert our rights at the expense of all responsibility.

Several times throughout September and into October, there were voter registration tables outside my dining hall. True, there were also people asking for money for the Red Cross (first for American victims and now for those in Bangladesh) or even taking surveys for psychology classes, but these issues clearly don't resonate as strongly with the student body as does the issue of alcohol.

Indeed, alcohol seemed to be the primary motivation for these campaigns. I searched through the archives of the 'Prince,' and the only time Princeton Borough is ever really mentioned is in reference to the alcohol ordinance. I was dismayed to find that the Borough had actually postponed discussion of the ordinance until after students were not only done with final examinations but back from summer vacations. Why does our only civic activity seem to be all for something as stupid as drinking?

That's what really scared me about these voter campaigns. They were all about alcohol. Quite often, students whine and say it shouldn't be an issue, and my opinion is that the issue with alcohol is that it is an issue. Who really cares? So when college students, who are supposed to be occupied with higher pursuits like truth and beauty (or are they the same?), expend so much of their energy protecting the right to be irresponsible, there is something very wrong.

Here's the part where I expect you to jump in and start talking about your rights. I know you have rights, and I know you know. After all, who cares about the whole in-the-nation's-service nonsense anyway? We have rights; that's what America was built on, right? But how about the rights of everyone else? What a disappointment we are turning out to be.

When I first came to Princeton, I was awed by everyone I met. They had done everything: traveled to Africa for missionary work, conducted genetic research, won international competitions in mathematics and physics and danced at Lincoln Center. These were real accomplishments that indicate seriousness of purpose and character. To hear people like this, people I respect, complain about an alcohol ordinance and to see them expending their energies registering their classmates to vote — not because of a valid social concern but to make sure getting drunk easily and conveniently remains a viable option — is disgusting. There are probably more people registering their peers to vote to keep drinking easy than there are tutoring for free on a regular basis or working on a literary magazine or doing the bonus questions on their problem sets, all of which seem like much more productive and responsible endeavors than campaigns to ensure boozing rights.

Something's wrong with this picture. This isn't our home. We're here for four years, and then we leave. We do love Princeton, and we want it to last forever. Most of us don't think about the Borough as part of our Princeton. Princeton University has enough money to survive anything, and if need be it could probably buy the Borough itself to keep students happy. That's not the solution. Contrary to popular opinion, we don't own the world, and we don't own the Borough — at least not yet. So let's try to respect this place where we are guests and tolerate the terrible imposition on our freedom of being expected to obey the law. Aileen Ann Nielsen is from Upper Black Eddy, Penn. She can be reached at anielsen@princeton.edu.