Artwork by Michael DiMilo
By Geoff Carter
We hear a lot about rights in this country. After all, the concept of inalienable personal rights is woven into the very fabric of our democracy and is explicitly delineated in the Constitution. The right to enjoy a free press, to peacefully assemble, to practice free speech, to bear arms, and many others are—if we preserve our democracy—guaranteed to each and every American. The less specific right to the pursuit of happiness, along with the more specific promises for life and liberty, are also articulated in our Declaration of Independence. The establishment of these rights is the cornerstone of our American versions of representative democracy, capitalism, and individualism.
Also woven into the fabric of our society is the implied existence of the social contract, which according to the website, Ethics Unwrapped, of the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas, states, “Social contract theory says that people live together in society in accordance with an agreement that establishes moral and political rules of behavior.” Some agreements in this contract, like laws, are explicit, while others, like moral codes and social norms, are not. Behaviors like waiting in line, giving up a seat to an elderly person, or giving to the less fortunate are examples of fulfilling our half of the social contract.
I don’t believe that personal rights and our obligations to fulfill the social contract are necessarily antithetical—or that they were ever intended to be—but in our present political climate, (and in the ideological universe of our two-party system) they somehow seem to have been put at odds with each other.
On one hand, a number of politicians, mostly Republicans, love to talk about rights—their rights. They complain constantly about infringements of these freedoms, including their right to bear arms (especially the sale of semi-automatic weapons and extended ammunition magazines), their right to pursue happiness—read money, (saying that they pay too much in income taxes), or their right to privacy, (insisting that they should not be forced to immunize themselves against COVID for the greater good). And this is just the tip of the iceberg. They also like to complain that they should not be expected to support entitlements for others.
Some of these Republicans supported—many with their silence—the rights of members of their own party to assemble—though not peacefully—to execute an insurrection against their own government, even as they complained about the ultraviolent BLM (read Antifa) protests. They have praised and championed a young man who shot and killed—exercising his Second Amendment Rights—two protestors during a BLM rally in Kenosha; several Republican lawmakers have even offered the young man an internship in their offices.
These Republicans have also been very focused on voter rights—their own; they are so intent on having their voices heard that they have been hell-bent on taking that same right from others. They have initiated—and passed—legislation limiting voting rights for young and minority voters, citizens who usually vote Democratic. It seems as if this group would like to have their cake—take their cake—and eat it, too.
On the other hand, when Democrats talk about rights, they generally seem to put approach the subject with a broader, more inclusive perspective. They don’t seem as absorbed with asserting their individual rights but are instead focused on guaranteeing personal rights for all.
For instance, Joe Biden’s pending “Build Back Better” bill contains provisions for family leave, Medicare expansion, childcare, and other humanitarian programs for those not able to afford decent housing or health care—the right to life. The Voting Rights Act Bill—sponsored by Democrats—seeks to protect voting rights for all Americans, while recent Republican legislation has been focused on purging voter rolls, curtailing mail-in ballots, and closing early voting windows.
While it may seem that Democrats might be more mindful of the more compassionate and charitable aspects of the social contract, it is foolish, and even dangerous, to pigeonhole party standing with selfishness or with altruism—to label one party as takers and the other as givers.
The truth is that there are opportunists and humanitarians in both parties, but that greedy and grasping aspect of human nature, the need to assert my rights or my needs or my wants and the unwillingness to share, to engage in one of the most basic aspect in the social contract—the one we should have learned in kindergarten—seems to have subsumed the regard and concern for all fellow citizens that is implicit in the social contract.
This is not just apparent in our political system. Common human decency is ebbing in our society. Incidents of passengers attacking flight attendants, customers insulting servers, and road rage incidents have become almost ubiquitous. In the face of overwhelming scientific evidence, some citizens still refuse to get their vaccines, citing their right to personal freedom. I doubt if the founding fathers would include the right to endanger others in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.
While we might find self-serving representatives from all political stripes, many of these selfish attitudes have been explicitly encoded into many Republican ideologies and policies. Lower taxes, less government regulation, minimized social services, and privatizing education have been part of the Republican agenda for decades. Add to that the perks and privileges handed to the ultra-rich by Mitch McConnell and his ilk, creating the unholy one percent—a small group of oligarchs with enough wealth to start their own space programs, and you cannot deny that Republicans are masters of grasping and grabbing. They take for themselves and their friends. They pride themselves on how well they do it. They belittle those from whom they take.
Asserting our rights is a positive thing, but to do so at the expense or the detriment of others—even though it seems to have become a social norm—is distinctly un-American. We can be a charitable people, a generous people, and a welcoming people. Traditionally, we help our neighbors in times of trouble, we send help in the wake of natural disasters, and we volunteer for those less fortunate.
Especially now, in the wake of the pandemic and its aftereffects, we need to return to these values that have been such an integral part of our character. We need to review and renew the vows in our social contract. We need more give than take.