You know what N.C. State University needs right now — a good ole fashion lynching. Excuse me, I meant to say impeachment. And when the University is in dire needs of getting something done, who does it turn to — the Student Senate.

As reported by Haley Huie and Zachary Moser-Katz in today’s Technician, a band of merry student senators are calling for The Pirate Captain’s head. Remember learning about the pirate Blackbeard’s death in N.C. history class? Robert Maynard, commander of the HMS Pearl, led the naval forces that destroyed Edward Teach’s (Blackbeard’s real name) armada and took Blackbeard’s head as a souvenir. Are the impeachment’s sponsors, Sens. Barnes, Fabricius, Godfrey, Heath, Hutcherson, Griggs, Gula, Hoy, Sawrey and Walton on a similar jihad? I am afraid so.

What did The Pirate Captain (a.k.a. mechanical engineering student Whil Piavis) do to draw the ire of these crusaders? To be honest with you, I have no idea. Even some of the sponsoring senators don’t really know why. I read the ream of charges levied against Piavis and I still can’t point to an impeachable offense. To read the impeachment resolution, gallop over to the Student Government Web site at http://students.ncsu.edu. The real reason why The Pirate Captain is under attack is he is not a SG geek. He came to office in an unorthodox manner and he has conducted himself in a similar fashion. The SG dorks don’t like it. That’s the motive behind this impeachment — bottom line. They don’t like the fact The Pirate Captain is popular among the student body, alumni, faculty, administrators and most importantly the Board of Trustees.

I have been involved with SG longer than anyone else on this campus and can attest first hand to Piavis’s struggle. Piavis may not be the best student body president NCSU has ever seen but he has the one thing that any student leader needs — a passion to serve the student body; to leave this place just a little bit better than when we got here.

You want to know what is impeachable — a group of students who think they are above the shared values of the student body. No one is perfect. I am not perfect and made MANY mistakes as a student leader. But I always treated my fellow students with respect even if I disagreed with their viewpoints or tactics. This is a foreign concept to many SG officials, especially the Senate. How many things has the Senate screwed up this year? Appropriations to student organizations, online ticketing, tailgate restrictions; the list goes on and on. Just look at the Judicial Board debacle.

The Senate thought it could do as it pleased with respect to the Student Code of Conduct and remove the Judicial Board from SG. The glorified debate club eventually lost when Tom Stafford, vice chancellor for student affairs, stepped in and put the Senate in its place.

Unfortunately, the good things SG is doing, including the projects of many hard-working individual senators, will come to a grinding halt. Not only is the student body fed up with the Senate’s antics but so is the administration. As a vocal critic of the administration, I can attest their patience has worn thin.

Now a message for the Senate and to some extent SG as a whole — if you continue down this ridiculous path, the administration will disband student government and reorganize it. Don’t think it can happen? Don’t think the administration has the authority to do so? I’ll just provide a little quote from the Code of the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina, the law of the land at N.C. State.

“Under such policies as may be prescribed by the BOG and the board of trustees, the chancellor shall be responsible for the regulation and approval of organized, institutionally-recognized student activities, the definition of roles and functions of any institutionally-recognized system of student self-government and student participation in the governance of any aspect of the institutional programs and services.”

The chancellor doesn’t want to dissolve SG. But certain times call for extreme measures. And with the support of student leaders outside of SG, the administration will have no problem cleaning house. And I’ll support them 100 percent.

My warning to any senator, especially those running for a student body office, who sponsors or votes for Piavis’ impeachment is that you will lose. Mark my word — arrrrrrrrr.

E-mail Andrew at viewpoint@technicianonline.com