First I must let you know how painful it is for me to use the word "Right", but I'm giving humanity the benefit of the doubt (not that we've earned it) in saying we all have the "right" to live (really just to not be killed).
But that's ALL I'm giving you. The rest you must EARN. I don't care about the fact that you were lucky enough to be born into a society (yes, I was lucky in that sense also), it's not my 'right' and it's not yours.
This is a great privilege that has been bestowed upon us, and with great privileges comes great responsibility. HA! Gotcha! As amazing as it may seem, this great privilege comes at very little cost. In fact, all you have to do is (**) not interfere with others' Right, or the privileges they have earned based on the responsibilities they have undertaken (**). However, if you want to eat, or avoid being outside in the cold, I must suggest you take on a few responsibilities that will earn you the privilege of having access to food & shelter.
I don't even mind if you are able to coerce someone else into taking on enough responsibilities to cover you, but my second suggestion is to not even attempt trying to coerce ME. I promise you I will not budge!
Ah, but therein lies the trickery... I see a man take hundreds of the 'privileges' I earn every week, then turn around and give it to you. I'll refer back to my earlier statement **, and accuse you of interfering with the privileges I have earned via the responsibilities I have undertaken. You couldn't even follow the most fundamental of all responsibilities.
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Nate, I'm worried about you. You need to stop holding everything inside. Let us know how you feel about the real issues.
Come here. We can hug it out.
And then I'll tell you about the day I've had.
But if I let loose I'm afraid I won't be able to stop!
Hmmm...
I think you receive many many benefits you don't earn.
We don't survive as individuals; we live in cooperative societies. How long would any of us survive on our own? Out in the country? A few miserable hours!
Hey, Nate! Sweeten up!
I am uncomfortable using the word "rights" at all. I am not sure that we have any "rights." Of course there are certain things that the state tells us are our "rights" and other things that various groups clamour about, getting various "rights," but honestly I don't know what it means. If you mean that we deserve certain things just for being alive, I would have to ask you why you think we deserve them?
I need to think about this a bit!
Sorry for the over use of quotation marks. I am sure meg is going to be all over that little paragraph!
Torq: As I said, I am hesitant to say we have any rights, that's why I use the word "privilege"
Kevin Holsapple: One of the first things I mention is how I, as well as others, am incredibly lucky to have been born into this society... Remember my "HAH! Gotcha!"?
You have both inadvertantly furthered my argument... Perhaps it is not me that needs to lighten up, but rather it is YOU who needs to accept that you may hold the same dismal beliefs as myself.
Torq: The quotes are OK if you intended to use them as air quotes to further your snarky point. That means that if you were speaking out loud, you would curl your fingers next to your face to indicate your intellectual superiority.
If you included them for the journalistic purpose of ass-covering, I think it was a bit overdone.
Since I suspect that your intentions were closer to the first description, I approve of the way you used the quotation marks.
I have to ask: what's the significance of the new screenname?
Oh, I just decided that I am probably going to be posting crap that I wouldn't want my employer to be able to find easily. Keeping my name off the title helps a little. I have just been hearing stories about people who have gotten into trouble at interviews and such like.
Nate: I wasn't disagreeing with you. I was actually agreeing. Lets see if I ever leap to YOUR defense again!
Torq, This is exactly what we have been warning your sister about!
I've taken a few precautions so that won't happen:
1) I never use my last name anywhere on the blog.
2) I never use the name of my community on the blog. I went back and put asterisks in a couple of community names in old posts, so they won't show up either.
3) I set my blog to private, so it doesn't show up in Blogger or Google searches (at least that's what Blogger says). I can show you how to do this, if you want. You can only get to my blog through a link from a friend's blog or by typing the URL in -- you can't just stumble across it.
4) I never write about work issues. For example, you will not find my musings about the Societies Act on my blog (or, come to think of it, anywhere else).
5) I work for an employer that understands its powers and limitations. They also understand that employees have reasonable freedom to state their opinions in a public forum about things that don't directly affect their jobs.
The person who used to have my job was the spokesperson for our local Amnesty International group at the same time he had my job.
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