Insisting on your rights without acknowledging your responsibilities is not freedom-it's adolescence

[kpete]

Letter of the day in today's LA Times:

"To the editor: This is what I want to tell the protesters.

No one likes the economic shutdown, but I am sorry that whoever raised you made you believe that the world revolves around you, because (spoiler alert) it does not.

Your "right" to go to the movies, the beach or the nail salon takes a backseat to everyone else's right to be protected against a new, highly contagious and deadly virus. No one is trying to take your rights away; rather, state and local officials are just trying to do their best to keep most of us alive.

This is not about you. We must all look outside the narrow prism of our own little lives to see how our individual actions might affect everyone else. Insisting on your rights without acknowledging your responsibilities is not freedom, it is adolescence.

So please, try to be a grown-up for now. This is not going to last forever.

Penelope Burley, Santa Rosa Valley, Calif."

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/5/6/1942990/-This-is-the-letter-all-of-us-wanted-to-write?utm_campaign=trending

[Laelth]

1. Well said. k&r n/t

-Laelth

[Newest Reality]

2. That's an important point.

Freedom comes with responsibilities or you can't have freedom. Adolescents act like that is not the case, but they are young and rebellious and that comes with the territory.

When adults act like that, it is really a matter of ignorance and they don't seem to understand what the freedom they demand is really about in a society. A lot could be said about why freedom comes with responsibilities, but reciprocity is probably a good basis. If you want to be free, than you have to treat others as you would be treated, to put it simply. Otherwise, your freedom is just a personal form of egotism and tyranny for others; an exclusive expectation based on nothing but hubris.

[dhill926]

3. K & R....

[MineralMan]

4. Insisting on your rights by violating someone else's rights is obscene.

[2naSalit]

5. K&R

[Sentath]

6. K&R and thank the writer for taking the fight to them.

But, also, I wish that they had lead with the 3rd paragraph, maybe even 3rd sentence first?

To the editor: This is what I want to tell the protesters.

Insisting on your rights without acknowledging your responsibilities is not freedom, it is adolescence. This is not about you. We must all look outside the narrow prism of our own little lives to see how our individual actions might affect everyone else.

No one likes the economic shutdown, but I am sorry that whoever raised you made you believe that the world revolves around you, because (spoiler alert) it does not.

Your "right" to go to the movies, the beach or the nail salon takes a backseat to everyone else's right to be protected against a new, highly contagious and deadly virus. No one is trying to take your rights away; rather, state and local officials are just trying to do their best to keep most of us alive.

So please, try to be a grown-up for now. This is not going to last forever.

Penelope Burley, Santa Rosa Valley, Calif.

[SWBTATTReg]

7. Sure it doesn't make sense, my rights this, my rights that, etc., but this is how the ...

republican party works today. They can't come up w/ truly logical and rational arguments against stuff, so they nickel and dime every fine tuned detail of what's been established by long established state policies, some of which were established by republican administrations, and seize what seems to be the hot button issue of the day.

So, all of this posturing, etc. by republicans is simply a sign that rump and his administration is coming to an end soon (not soon enough for me) and they (the republicans) are trying to divert attention from the awful fact that their leader TRUMP has truly screwed the US badly by his failures and will inflict more pain and death on the US to get his economic numbers up in time for his so called reelection in Nov. 2020 (which of course will never happen).

Can't hide the failures.

[smirkymonkey]

8. Excellent LTTE!

[superpatriotman]

9. The Founders didn't write a Bill of Responsibilities

Maybe they should have.

[The Magistrate]

10. On The Difference Between 'Liberty' And 'License', Sir, They Waxed Eloquent

Our country's right-wing cretins have long confused the latter with the former.

[bucolic_frolic]

11. Protestors are aiding and abetting the proliferation of the enemy

Lock them up.

[flying rabbit]

12. True.