It seems to me that this word/concept "rights" gets mixed up and confused with words like "obligations", and "responsibilities." and just as often we have trouble determining what form of of government we really have, as in "republic vs democracy.
Unless one is a student of government You don't care much: when life, as you experience it, is good and things are going your way, for the most part.
It's when we have high unemployment, houses selling for a fraction of their cost and interest is at 4% and you can't afford to buy in the buyer's market, when gas prices rise to a level 1/2 or less the price in other developed countries, and obesity is the biggest health problem in the country, and healthcare costs are shooting over the moon, that we look somewhere to point the finger of blame and voice our displeasure.
... Hey, why not the government, the system? Yeah, it's a systems problem; let's change the system. Or, let's send a message by doing nothing and then "they'll" see that "they" have to change things. You see "they" don't have rights, "they" only have obligations. We have rights.
The problem here is that, by your way of thinking, rights has the upper hand over obligation.
Is that not a good thing? Individuals rights first? Rights, like most things in nature, have to be exercised in order to be maintained. The use it or lose it principle comes to the fore here. Sure you can sit on your butt and do nothing, it's your right afterall. You have the right to smoke, to overeat and become obese and burden your fellow citizens to care for you when you suffer the backlash of your indulging your rights.
Yes you have the right, under our democratic republic to burden your neighbors, your community, your fellow citizens, and to threaten, by so doing, their rights. Realize that, when threatened, a retaliatory response is usually forth-coming. In this case: they'll take away your right to burden them.
Having lived all my life in this flawed but democratic country and not being black or female, I can not adequately describe for you what it might be like to live in a country where the populace doesn't have the right to vote. There are still countries in this world where the right to NOT vote is not only encouraged but enforced. Go live in one of those countries as one of the oppressed class without the right to vote for a year or ten. If you get out alive, come back and tell us how not voting worked for you.
Unless one is a student of government You don't care much: when life, as you experience it, is good and things are going your way, for the most part.
It's when we have high unemployment, houses selling for a fraction of their cost and interest is at 4% and you can't afford to buy in the buyer's market, when gas prices rise to a level 1/2 or less the price in other developed countries, and obesity is the biggest health problem in the country, and healthcare costs are shooting over the moon, that we look somewhere to point the finger of blame and voice our displeasure.
... Hey, why not the government, the system? Yeah, it's a systems problem; let's change the system. Or, let's send a message by doing nothing and then "they'll" see that "they" have to change things. You see "they" don't have rights, "they" only have obligations. We have rights.
The problem here is that, by your way of thinking, rights has the upper hand over obligation.
Is that not a good thing? Individuals rights first? Rights, like most things in nature, have to be exercised in order to be maintained. The use it or lose it principle comes to the fore here. Sure you can sit on your butt and do nothing, it's your right afterall. You have the right to smoke, to overeat and become obese and burden your fellow citizens to care for you when you suffer the backlash of your indulging your rights.
Yes you have the right, under our democratic republic to burden your neighbors, your community, your fellow citizens, and to threaten, by so doing, their rights. Realize that, when threatened, a retaliatory response is usually forth-coming. In this case: they'll take away your right to burden them.
Having lived all my life in this flawed but democratic country and not being black or female, I can not adequately describe for you what it might be like to live in a country where the populace doesn't have the right to vote. There are still countries in this world where the right to NOT vote is not only encouraged but enforced. Go live in one of those countries as one of the oppressed class without the right to vote for a year or ten. If you get out alive, come back and tell us how not voting worked for you.
posted by rel at 5:30 PM
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