Awkward Utopia

With the distribution of the latest and greatest UES t-shirts, the UF University Economics Society decided to take another class picture. As before, in Spring 2006, when we wore our new t-shirts, I am putting the class picture on-line along with political affiliations and explanations.

The officers are scattered in this picture. The President, Mike Redondo, features prominently sitting in the front with glasses, a watch, and a smile everyone can love. The VP, Flynn Vickers, is the guy in the blue shirt who is dwarfed for the first time in his life by Luis next to him. The Treasurer, Vake Raj, is the cunning gentleman furthest left in the photo (your perspective). The Secretary, Amanda Brameister is the young woman with flowing naturally colored auburn tresses, lower right. The Historian, Joshua Neiderriter, kneels in the front. The other notables are President Emeritus Bob Lotfinia to Flynn’s left (your perspective), former President Christian Waugh in front of him, and former VP Matt Masten to Waugh’s right (your perspective).

In UES, we have plenty of political diversity, although the majority of loudmouths tend to be one group. The reds are the Communists / Socialists / Democrats. The greens are the moderates and unknown affiliations. The light blues are the out and out libertarians or classical liberals, the ones who are generally very distrustful of government. The dark blues are the conservatives who may be a lot like libertarians on most issues, except they have a tendency to be socially conservative or support crazy things like stemming immigration. I’d like to apologize to Frank: I accidentally made him a Communist, but these days he’s likely a dark blue.

The light blues and dark blues are usually allied for most UES discussions, while the greens and reds may often have to ally just to have some semblance of a debate against them. Considering the radical anarcho-capitalists of UES, however, it is not rare for the blue alliance to dissolve.