People love to whine. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Without whining, vital human advances, such as the remote control, would not exist. Every time someone needed to change the channel — a task I completed via remote control roughly 30,000 times during Sunday’s simultaneous airings of the Packers and Vikings games — they would still be making that laborious trip from couch to television and back, all because nobody was courageous enough to step up and complain.

So whining plays a crucial role in advancement. There is no denying that. The problem with the art of complaint is it is relied upon so religiously by some that they no longer use logic to back their gripes.

Scenario 1: The University of Minnesota builds a stadium in your neighborhood to replace that off-campus dungeon with the aesthetic appeal of a nuclear power plant in which their football team used to play.

Logical reaction from area residents: Question the financial cost of the construction, but also recognize the vast improvement in athletic facilities and the revenue it will provide your local university.

Actual reaction from area residents: Complain about the public address system being too loud. You know, the public address system that will operate a few hours a day for six, maybe seven Saturdays annually, totaling 18 or so hours per year of torturous play-by-play you must endure. Immediately alert all available news outlets of this injustice.

Scenario 2: At Camp Randall, you witness Badgers kicker Philip Welch miss a 47-yard field goal early in the second quarter of a game against Fresno State.

Logical reaction: While disappointed by the miss, you recognize the high degree of difficulty of a kick of such length. You acknowledge that Welch was excellent last year, and that one miss will not result in the apocalypse.

Actual reaction of some guy at Camp Randall a few rows behind me: Infuriated at how this idiot kicker could have done something like this to him, immediately start spewing profanities in the presence of children, griping about how Welch “(bleeping) sucked last year too” and should be cut and grumbling that this is Bret Bielema’s fault and he should be immediately fired. Later, remaining silent as Welch nails the 57-yard and game-winning field goals, disappointed by the missed opportunity to start a new incomprehensible rant.

Looking for a non-football related example of baseless, unnecessary complaints? If you are reading this online all you need to do is scroll down. (Note: this should work on nearly every Herald opinion column.) Soon, if not already, you can expect post after post to appear, whining about how much this column sucks and how it is a waste of time and space, and how The Badger Herald has no standards anymore and how it’s no wonder newspapers are going out of business. They will complain with such bitter emotion and disgust toward the article that you can only assume the author personally smothered the posters’ respective pets.

This isn’t to say they don’t have a point. For example, they could rightfully complain about how they had to read about two-thirds of an article’s length in introductory material on whining before reaching my main focus: Thursday’s healthcare riots outside the capitol.

Obviously, healthcare is an important issue; I am not debating that. What I tend to question Mad-as-Hell doctors on is why they are so eager to bleat about one of the more sufficient healthcare systems in the world only to argue it be replaced with a system that has shown in other nations to be borderline adequate in exchange for abominably high tax rates.

Not to mention when the President of Peru contracts a rare chronic illness, his first move is probably to fly to Mayo Clinic, not Arequipa General; the fact that Arequipa is “free” no longer matters.

The result is that universal healthcare isn’t “equal, quality healthcare for all.” It is “somewhat effective healthcare for all, except for the people who have the power and money to get somewhere where they can actually, you know, be cured.”

My point is that both the universal and capitalistic healthcare systems create inequalities. So why complain to a state government in hopes of convincing representatives to complain to the federal government in hopes of convincing Congress to pass a healthcare package that will make little or no positive difference whatsoever? Your chances of success are slim, and even if you succeed, you accomplish nothing.

Not to be confused with activism, it seems protesters are whining for the sake of whining. And, assuming this is the case, I am becoming aggravated by such unnecessary antics.

Consider this my formal complaint.

Todd Jasperson ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in mathematics.