(no subject)

[bzarcher]

Okay, I know I pissed someone off with this today, but I feel like I need to make something clear so I avoid it in the future.

Life is not fair, and I do not feel anyone is entitled to it being so. Most people who are reading this have been fortunate that through force of arms or force of law, we have been given many privileges and freedoms. But that does not mean that those rights did not have to be earned by someone, be it Colonial Soldiers 200 years ago, the NAACP/SCLC/SNCC, U.S. troops, or international laws and conventions based on English Common Law and the solicitors and barristers who worked to form them.

There is no such thing as a right to anything. Human beings are 'entitled' to exactly one thing: death. If you have been given the gift of life and your mother chose to bring you to term, you will eventually get a free death at some point, regardless of who you are and what you have or have not done. Everything else is going to be earned through hard work.

In some cases, people will help you. (In many cases, in fact.) But that does not mean we can claim that we deserve things, that we should be given things, or that we have a right to things and automatically expect to recieve. All too often you're going to have to fight for it, and you're going to have to fight hard.

Does this mean we should give up searching for things like equality, fair treatment, or various benefits and comforts? Absolutely not. They are good things to have, and in many cases our society could stand to be a bit more permissive, a bit more ecumenical. A level playing field is not a bad thing. But it is not easy, it often doesn't happen, and if a lot of the things people currently agitate for happen in my lifetime, I will be surprised.

I don't want you to feel I don't care. I do. But the above is who I am, and I tend to apply that to a lot of things that you and I will probably disagree about frequently, and if that pisses you off, I really am sorry. I don't like pissing my friends off. But it's gonna happen now and then.

Comments

Re:

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Where I disagree is that I don't feel the current government holds up their end of that social contract, partially because the social contract of the constitution is at best idealistic and at worst unrealistic. If we are guaranteed rights to liberty, why do so many rail against the government for injustices they feel it commits against them, which they feel must be corrected? Why do so many object to the persons in power, but we cannot apparently remove those persons, or at best replace them with someone who may or may not be worse?

How can a right to pursue happiness possibly be guaranteed or enforced? How can a right to fair representation for the citizen be maintained in an age where corporations and lobbies carry far more weight than nearly any single voter?

How is a right to free speech or freedom of religion upheld when we have things like 'Free Speech Zones' and FBI/Homeland security tracking persons due to their ethnic or religious backgrounds as potential threats to national security?

I won't deny the basis of democracy, but I would argue that it is not an effective one, for the most part. The social contract exists, but it does not function as you insist it should, to my mind.

Re:

[purplemanatee.livejournal.com]

That we can definitely agree on. :) That is no reason to discount it completely, however. Or else the slow slide toward the goose-step would become an all-out tumble into fascism.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Why would you assume this is a slide to fascism?

Personally, I think it's more and more a statement of why a revolution might be neccesary.

[purplemanatee.livejournal.com]

It is obvious that we are on a slippery-slope toward fascism. A famous man, who, I forget, once said that there government is simply a sliding scale, with anarchy at one side and fascism at the other. Mussolini was the original fascist, and he defined his system of governance as the union of corporate and government power. Sound familiar? :)

Re:

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Sounds oddly like most of the campaign ads I heard in 2000... ;D