Is It A Right?
Watch out, there is something in the water at my house. It seems like every thing that I say or do offends some one. And if I’m not the one doing the offending, then I’m the one being offended. I have been wearing my skin thin lately. Sorry if this post is a little jumpy.
Do we have the right to be offended? I say yes we do, but we don’t always have the right to offend back. Meaning, if someone says something that we don’t agree with, we have the right to be offended. But we don’t have the right to make them listen to our counter argument and explanation on why we where offended. Example the racist has a right to assemble and speak. Someone if walking by and hear the racist propaganda have the right to be offended by it (I would be), but they don’t have the right to stop the racist from saying offensive material. We don’t have the right to take away others freedoms.
I recently was talking to someone that they made a very rude comment and then piggybacked on the comment, no offence. Well I was offended, and they had the right to say what they said. I didn’t say anything or even comment on my being offended.
That got me thinking, if I had acted what would I have said. Would it have been on the lines like, “please don’t say things like that around me?” That would have been a small action on my part, but an action rooted on infringing on the rights of the person that I was talking to. It would have been me trying to limit her freedom of speech.
So then we have the right to many freedoms in the constitution, and I believe that includes the right to be offended, but we don’t have the right to act on our offendedness if the actions attempt or take away the rights of others. If this is true then how is conflict resolved? How do we show that in our addressing the situation that we have no intentions of taking away the rights/freedoms of others? I know that in part of this was always have the right to ignore, like I ignored the rude comment from person that I was talking with or how people ignore the people outside of shopping malls trying to get you to sign their petitions. If one ignores, and then explodes that isn’t healthy.
Are we too worried about not offending others that we are willing to give up our freedoms?
Do we have the right to be offended? I say yes we do, but we don’t always have the right to offend back. Meaning, if someone says something that we don’t agree with, we have the right to be offended. But we don’t have the right to make them listen to our counter argument and explanation on why we where offended. Example the racist has a right to assemble and speak. Someone if walking by and hear the racist propaganda have the right to be offended by it (I would be), but they don’t have the right to stop the racist from saying offensive material. We don’t have the right to take away others freedoms.
I recently was talking to someone that they made a very rude comment and then piggybacked on the comment, no offence. Well I was offended, and they had the right to say what they said. I didn’t say anything or even comment on my being offended.
That got me thinking, if I had acted what would I have said. Would it have been on the lines like, “please don’t say things like that around me?” That would have been a small action on my part, but an action rooted on infringing on the rights of the person that I was talking to. It would have been me trying to limit her freedom of speech.
So then we have the right to many freedoms in the constitution, and I believe that includes the right to be offended, but we don’t have the right to act on our offendedness if the actions attempt or take away the rights of others. If this is true then how is conflict resolved? How do we show that in our addressing the situation that we have no intentions of taking away the rights/freedoms of others? I know that in part of this was always have the right to ignore, like I ignored the rude comment from person that I was talking with or how people ignore the people outside of shopping malls trying to get you to sign their petitions. If one ignores, and then explodes that isn’t healthy.
Are we too worried about not offending others that we are willing to give up our freedoms?
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