People who stand on their rights are seldom much concerned with the rights of others. There is no logical reason why this should be so, but it is a fact of human psychology. ‘It’s my right!’ is a call not of freedom, but of egotism.Extreme selfishness is what motivates most people today wrapped in the guise of 'my rights' and it is something learned predominantly (in my opinion as a parent & a teacher) through the school system.
I remember after having lived in this country for a short time and my children attending an independent school (which we thought had better ethics than most!) my son declaring, after he had been disciplined for some misdemeanour, that I could not follow the course of action that I chose because he (my son) had 'rights'. I was flabbergasted to hear such ideological claptrap from a little fellow of about 8 or 9.
We know he had learned this at school because our lives were fairly narrowly circumscribed at the time.
Over the years since we have fought similar ideological battles with both older children (the youngest is home schooled) over 'human rights' issues.
I do not dispute the need for a humane and free environment for all people including children but as Dalrymple has articulated, as currently defined the issue of 'rights' is not one of freedom but of selfishness.
A classic deception to the biblical adage of surrendering/giving up ones personal 'rights' in order to be truly free with the end result of such 'human' conferred 'gifts' being greater pain and heartache...:
This expansion of rights has led to both a paralysis of the public service and to a rapid and terrible deterioration in the character of the population — not of everyone, of course, but of substantial numbers of people.
It is easy to see why. Once something is declared or believed to be a right, it carries with it a metaphysical connotation of inalienability. This again is a matter of psychology rather than of philosophy or logic, but it is so and likely to remain so. Thus, by definition in the minds of many, a right imposes not duties, for if it did, it would not be a right. Rights are unconditional; and even if they were granted by Parliament they cannot be abrogated.
The idea of rights to tangible benefits sets up a deeply unattractive and psychologically damaging dialectic between ingratitude on the one hand and grievance and resentment on the other. If you receive what you believe yourself entitled to, you are not grateful, precisely because you were entitled to it in the first place. If, on the other hand, you do not receive what you believe yourself entitled to, you are doubly aggrieved, first at not receiving what you want, and second at the violation of your supposed right to it....and ultimately greater control over you by those who sole mission is the Nietzchean impulse:
Moreover, it is quite clear that the extension of rights has the effect, and no doubt the intention, of turning the population into a rabble of dependants and petitioners. It extends the power of bureaucrats, adjudicators of rights and lawyers over the rest of society. If you believe yourself entitled by rights to something that you do not receive, what do you do? You spend your time and energy seeking redress from the very people who have failed you in the first place, rather than seeking a constructive solution for yourself. Your independence is sapped, which is precisely what a state dominated by lawyers and administrators wants. And so you are enticed into the administrative labyrinth, from which you will never emerge.
Considerations of rights, which are deemed by much of the population to be inalienable, unconditional and metaphysically unassailable, drive out considerations of kindness, decency, tolerance, mutual obligation and so forth: all the considerations, in fact, that make civilised or dignified existence in a crowded society possible. Everyone becomes an atom of an inert gas in a vacuum, whose rights act as physical forces to prevent him from combining sociably with other such atoms
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