Rights and Entitlements, vs. Responsibility

Yesterday I was reading a story about an author (A J Jacobs) that spent a year living according to the Bible. I can't find the link now, but the article referred to two types of individuals: Those who life as their rights and entitlements, and those who view life as a responsibility.

My wife refers to this as "service to self" vs. "service to others".

I have always viewed this as some sort of continuum where everyone falls somewhere between the extremes, and while I am still confident this is true, I have noticed (as have others) that everything seems more polar now. It is part of the "with us or against us" mentality. I think everyone sees it on DU, at least time to time. Loyalty to a Representative, Senator, or even party seem to go only as far as their most recent vote or comment about an issue.

The problem I see in the polarization of the rights and entitlements vs responsibility arena is that it causes people to test their limits. Several major items of discussion in GD recently have demonstrated this polarity, and other discussions have noticeably demonstrated rights vs responsibility in the past.

Showing your receipt at Circuit City, the Southwest Airlines dress issue, wearing of a circuit board on your shirt at an airport, and one of my old favorites, ordering a sausage pizza in your workplace where the owners have expressly forbidden pork on the premises, are all about people testing the limits... either intentionally or unintentionally.

In each of these cases, there seems to be a law that governs the behavior. That, in my view, is the crux of the problem. Laws can be changed.

I think it can be fairly well determined by the postings that blowing past the receipt checkers at Circuit City or even Costco and Sam's is legal. People who do so are not doing me any favors. They are not standing up for, or preserving my right to do this, since I seemingly already have it. They are drawing attention to that right, and in some respect could well be endangering it. It is a STATE law, or a LOCAL law that seemingly forbids the stores from stopping us when we do it. To me, that means that a STATE law, or LOCAL law could be changed if the behavior becomes a big problem. After all, a state could (and maybe some have) enact laws where it is legal for the receipt checker to detain you. I suspect that if everyone suddenly started blowing past these people exiting the store, that such laws would be enacted.

The lady who made the stink about Southwest Airline's lack of a dress code is perhaps the start of things to come. The reporter that called and informed everyone that SWA said she could fly in a bikini did me no favors (long term, I admit it might be an interesting month to fly). That means, that I could fly in just a Speedo, and let me assure you, no one would look at that as a favor, long term or short term. It is a matter of time before some "patriot" tries, and I suspect that SWA will develop a dress code as a result.

It is not just these individuals. The SWA flight attendant wanted to inject his "right" of demanding that she leave the plane, where clearly a simple adjustment of her garments was an equitable solution for the airline was testing as well. The Circuit City store manager wanted to assert his right to detain a suspected thief. It takes two to tango. In a polarized society, it seems we will be seeing that dance quite often in the future.

I suppose we have the right, and entitlement to drive within a quarter inch of the dividing line on a two-lane highway. I think we have the responsibility not to.

Common sense should enter into the equation. Things are not always what they seem to be, and just because something seems right doesn't mean that it will happen. I don't think pot should be illegal, but it be foolish to light up in public. Same with the "circuitry art" that the student wore. It seems quite foolish to me.

You may have been reacting to the headline, and not the point of my post.

The second amendment gives you the right to bear arms. Do you think that you have the responsibility to bear arms, or the ability to bear arms, but only responsibly?

Do you feel that you will lose the right if you don't assert it often?

I am asking for clarification of your statement, not trying to be belligerent.

People don't need excuses to create rules for other people to follow. Some people, as a matter of fact, thrive on the practice. We're continually being hemmed in by more and more rules, regulations, and laws--many of which are, at best, pointless, and at worst, downright evil.

My social anxiety makes it so I'm almost bound to follow such rules, though I resent the hell out of them a majority of the time even while I'm obeying them. And I particularly dislike people who immediately respond to a social problem of one sort or another with "there ought to be a law."

No, probably not.

I think the powers-that-be WANT us to grow comfortable with the rules hemming us in from all sides, to get used to thinking that everyone with any more authority than us in some respect or another are meant to be obeyed, and entirely too many people don't even stop to think about it. I stop to think about it, at the very least, and, though it can be a struggle, will go out of my way on occasion to blatantly ignore such a rule because it just pisses me off.

There are rules that are good and necessary for society. Many of THESE rules, however, are not. They're there, in my opinion, to teach us to be obedient to authority and THAT is something we should not tolerate.

BUT we should always question authority

There is a difference between simply having a boundary that responsible people steer clear of, and having a fence with armies aligned on both sides waiting for the slightest encroachment of the other side.

I view the actions of these people as foolish and counterproductive

our "rights" trampled on that we no longer know who we are. We are told what to wear and when to wear it. We are told we are unpatriotic if we do not support our pResident in the war in Iraq. The standoff between the airline steward and the passenger has become big news instead of the petty incident it really is. We are bombarded with news about O.J., Britney, Lindsey Lohan, Barry Bonds, etc. We have become a nation of finger-pointers and us against them. I am not interested in what those celebrities do--I am worried about the state of our nation. If, somehow, we do not come together and stop this nonstop bickering we will cease to have a country. I know it helps our media make the big bucks, but in reality that is not their job. Their job is to keep us informed--bad or good--about what is going on in our country. I can't reiterate enough what I have said before--the last 6 years have been the worst in my 75 years on earth. After having been a Republican for 40 years until I woke up and switched to the Democratic party it has been an eye-opening experience. No administration in my time has been so hell-bent on destroying the greatest nation on earth. I become angry that certain laws are not being legitimized, but I am not going to say the Democrats "caved." They didn't cave--they were hogtied. When the Republican party works for the Republican president it most certainly makes things difficult. The Republicans have committed treason by their very actions. And a man who says he will veto health insurance for American children has no right to be president of the U.S. He may be a "decider" but most surely is not a leader. I urge all of you to watch Ken Burns "The War" tonight on PBS, I lived through that war and believe me we were all patriots then.

I remember my nephew playing a little game once where he would walk up and stick his finger within a quarter inch of your arm, and taunt "I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you!". Annoying little shit.

The "real" lesson of 9/11 to me was that people of the US *can* be brought together, and even the majority of peoples in the world, but that such a cohesion can easily be destroyed by an idiot leader who put his own self-interests and those of his party over his responsibility to *all* of the citizens of the US, and the world.

In terms of civility and respect for those we disagree with we are definitely at Defcon 3 or Defcon 2 right now.

A uniter, not a divider. That was the biggest lie.

we still have an unintelligent, lying, moronic embicile still in office as our leader.

a notion that is not in his way of thinking/vocabulary. Instead his god is the vulgar form of neo-liberalism----flexibility (no unions in DHS), Choise (healh care determined by pharm), etc etc.

"I suppose we have the right, and entitlement to drive within a quarter inch of the dividing line on a two-lane highway. I think we have the responsibility not to."

What a horrible mangled trainwreck of the concepts "right" and "responsibility."

When somneone, even correctly, pushes their rights to the point where others think it has infringed on their rights sufficiently to create a conflict? It is how I viewed the Circuit City matter. The SWA matter wasn't intentional, but mark my words, the day of the bikini test and Speedo are coming.

How far can I go beligerantly filibustering at the mic at a political rally before they intervene? Can I get them to cross the line and taser me?

We live in a world where people seem to increasingly drive a quarter inch from the line.