Part 2 of serriously guys... PROGTFO

Ok.  I'm still festering with that small twinge of pain  that comes from knowing we as a community done bad.  Or more accurately failed to do right for the wrong reasons.  This is why we can't have nice things guys.  This is a conflict so old, we refuse to see it clearly anymore.  As I said last time.  This is a conflict of My needs vs the Community's needs.  My power vs the Community's power.  How much do I give up to stay a member of a community?  How much does the community surrender to keep me as a member?

We stopped talking like this, now we talk about rights and freedoms.  I've quoted it before, but heck is a classic.  Historically the right for you to swing your fist stops at my face.  That's the liberal history of common law more or less.  (Ok, that was a way over simplification, but screw you I'm cranky.)  We refuse to surrender autonomy to the whole except out of fear.  The community as a whole refuses to surrender authority except out of desperation.  Security vs Revolution.  We give up privacy and expedience for the feeling of security and protection.  The group gives up authority when it feels threatened with replacement, or extreme conflict.  Not exactly a pattern of behavior capable of solving long term issues.

Rights and Freedoms must be balances with Responsibilities and Duties.  The right for you to burn your waste vs your duty to the health of your neighbors.  In this light even security vs privacy makes a more coherent discussion.  The duty of the community to protect you as a member, versus your rights to be left alone as a member of the community.  Its about balance.  Nothing is absolute.  There is no black and white, only shades of colors.  There is a natural push and pull, but nothing is meant to be a final answer.  Its fluid, changing over time as we change, as where we are change, and as who we are changes.

This really is not a new problem.  It is a problem as older than civilization, and will be with us to our last days.  This is not a problem you solve.  This an equation you constantly rebalance.  This isn't about winners and losers.  Though we really do love that part of the rebalancing.   Its about being honest and flexible. 

This is hard to admit.  That as a member of a group I have responsibilities and duties to the group is not a fun idea for a nation of individualists.  Yet we are quick to accept the group has duties to us.  This is not a one way equation.  We all have duties to each other, if only in the simplest terms, to stop our fists at other people's faces.

I wish I had more energy for trying to pull these discussions out of people.  Because the most I have learned about an idea I thought I was certain on was through exploring this balance.  Understanding were the give and take was.  Trying to find my comfort of were to balance the scales.  Getting people to see the issue in this framework is not easy.  Most take the idea of their Rights and Freedoms  very seriously, which is fine.  They however take the ideas of responsibility and duties for those rights lightly, or not at all.

I had a point somewhere, but I lost it.  Sorry.  Next time maybe I will tell a funny story, or just link a cat video from youtube or something.  /end rant(s)