Entitlements

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  • jeffbr
    jeffbr Seattle Posts: 7,177
    dmitry wrote:
    Rights do not impose obligations on other people, except for the obligation to respect other's rights.

    Rights keep people from doing things to you, they don't obligate others to do things for you.

    Entitlements make other people do things for you whether they want to or not.

    Most enlightened post of this thread.
    "I'll use the magic word - let's just shut the fuck up, please." EV, 04/13/08
  • gue_barium
    gue_barium Posts: 5,515
    jeffbr wrote:
    Most enlightened post of this thread.

    So...you don't think you're entitled to clean air to breathe, or clean water to drink? By the reasoning you are agreeing with, there is no obligation by the state, or anyone else to ensure that you should get these entitlements.
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  • gue_barium
    gue_barium Posts: 5,515
    gue_barium wrote:
    So...you don't think you're entitled to clean air to breathe, or clean water to drink? By the reasoning you are agreeing with, there is no obligation by the state, or anyone else to ensure that you should get these entitlements.

    They've already got most of us buying water at the supermarket. That was nearly unheard of 20 years ago. Where does it end?
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  • gue_barium
    gue_barium Posts: 5,515
    Truthmonger wrote:
    Dude, you'd have to live outside the U.S. for context and some idea of what I'm referring to. Or, at least that would help. Lets go back 40 years when Cdn. Prime Minister Lester B. pearson met LBJ. The president took it for granted that Canada would just accept American missile installations on Cdn. soil. But pearson didn't, and publicly said so. When Pearson met LBJ in Texas, the prez grabbed him and supposedly said " don't come here and piss on my carpet". Nice diplomacy, huh ? So much for the decisions of a sovereign nation.

    LBJ went on to Vietnam infamy, while Pearson went on to win the Nobel peace prize.

    Fast forward 40 years where Pat Buchanan gets on Cdn. TV and states that Canada had better allow American installations for space missiles. In fact, he said, "its already been decided upon in Washington". That was news to Canadians. And Pat Buchanan has always been one of the more true Conservatives - esp. as it relates to America's foreign involvement !

    Enter the whole Iraq issue and canada's non-involvement there. This lead blowhards like Bill O'Reilly to start threats vis-a-vis economic repercussions. "Canada is getting close to some real pain" (if it doesn't smarten up and join in the war). Canada never joined.

    But this is trivial shit compared to the weekly drivel coming from Americans about the Middle East. If you're Trent Lott or Tom Tancredo or Donald Rumsfeld or John Ashcroft or one of the many other Americans who constantly make ridiculous statements, apparently its OK to go apeshit on the Middle East. The lastest reprise of "draining the swamp" refers to clearing out the middle east, and not just some of it. When Rumsfeld said, "Go massive, sweep it all up...things related or not", he wasn't fucking kidding. But this is the american mentality - that it is ENTITLED - that it has some god-given right - to do whatver it wants around the world. Fuck the collateral damage, and fuck the dissenters, b/c they don't matter. Fuck the 10 million who marched around the world in Feb./2003 in the biggest protests EVER in history. LBJ didn't give a fuck, and neither does GWB. Its arrogance and a perverse, obscene sense entitlement, pure and simple.

    I could literally find some asinine statement coming from the U.S. on this topic EVERY WEEK. It'll be something along the line of Trent Lott's "If we have to, we just mow the whole place down, see what happens."

    Now, tell me why tens of millions of Americans vote in favour of shit like this - not just once, but again and again ???

    You went to all the trouble to write this post, and when I didn't give it it's due, you tried to insult me.
    I've re-read it, and given it some thought.

    Carry on.
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  • gue_barium
    gue_barium Posts: 5,515
    Getting back to the topic of entitlement. It seems to me, if you look back at the last century, or even two, in America, entitlement comes down to...
    quality of life.
    Not "the pursuit of happiness". What a fucked up line for a Constitution.


    It seems, in America, entitlement(s) have to be fought for amongst ourselves because there will always be those that think less of life than for what it is. Sometimes it's honest ignorance. Sometimes it's flat out self-hatred.
    In any case, the quality of life balance is always sought. It's human nature. It's the human desire.
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