Rights

Rights-worship fetish ruining our society

By MICHAEL COREN




When British police arrested a highly dangerous terrorist suspect last month, they acted with professionalism and, considering the circumstances, extreme courtesy. "Mohammed," they shouted, "Take your clothes off! Come out with your hands on your head and you will be all right."

He argued with them for some time, demanding to know why he should strip down to his underpants. When he was told the obvious -- that he was thought to be a potential suicide bomber -- he still argued and refused to move.

Eventually the police had to bring the man out by force and he was taken away. But his first response to the police was so deliciously relevant. He shouted it from the balcony. "I have rights," he screamed. "I have rights."

There we have it. Rights. Even for a man who is suspected of trying to murder innocent people and create panic and terror.

The mass of our social difficulties, the majority of our seemingly insoluble problems, arise from the fact that in the Western world (and particularly in Canada) we have engineered a rights-based society rather than a responsibility-based one.

The social contract between the governed and the government, between authority and citizenry, has become degraded and unbalanced. Instead of asking what our duty or responsibility might be in any given situation, we demand to know what are our privileges and rights.

At its most obvious there is the usual list of standard demands. The right to marry whomever you want, the right to be ordained a priest when you don't qualify, the right to claim welfare even if it isn't deserved, the right to have sex with anyone and everyone, the right to die, the right to be wrong.

The list goes on: The right to swear, the right to defy righteous authority, the right to be publicly uncouth, the right to insult a cop, the right to hide behind any excuse to escape punishment, the right to never fail, never lose, never have one's self-esteem challenged, the right to be wrong.

Instructional guides

Recently our Supreme Court was called upon to judge a man who on the Internet had been selling instructional guides on how to make bombs, break into houses and commit credit card fraud. The judges decided that he had the "right" to do this because they did not assume he had the "responsibility" to read the contents of the material before he marketed it.

Nor is this fetish of rights-worship in any way consistent. A 14-year-old girl, for example, has the right to be given the contraceptive pill by her family doctor, but that same doctor has no right to inform the parents of the girl.

The concept of responsibility is entirely removed from the equation. Individual rights, even for a child, supercede the role of family and medical responsibility.

The same applies to self-defence. We've all heard stories of people like the corner store owner who grew tired of repeated burglaries at his business, who fights back against the criminals with, say, a baseball bat.

In such cases, chances are it's the owners who will be charged. Too often, the rights of thieves outweigh the rights -- and responsibilities -- of citizens to protect their own property and livelihoods.

A mere symptom

Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms was supposed to liberate the people of this great nation. What was not noticed was that Canadians were already free. Today, the Charter appears a mere symptom of a deeper dysfunction.

To paraphrase former U.S. president John F. Kennedy, ask not what are your rights in Canada but what are your responsibilities to Canada. And ask now, before the cloud of "rights" chokes us into oblivion.