Posted on 08/30/2021 8:12:50 AM PDT by Jacquerie
A nation of individuals recognizing no responsibilities towards others is on its way to collapse.
The politicization of coronavirus vaccines and mask-wearing has been a depressing reminder of the downside of American individualism. The successful functioning of a free republic depends on people taking personal responsibility for their actions.
Too often now that translates into a disregard for the rights of others, coupled with an insistence that our own opinions, even if they are founded on the shifting sands of rumor, must be given as much respect as any expert’s.
Anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers (usually but not always the same people) could choose to stay home so as not to endanger others by their choices, and perhaps some do. But many claim a right to go where they please, be served in whatever businesses they wish to frequent and send their children unmasked to schools that they insist must be open.
COVID-19 is not the only example of the damage that ensues when a large segment of society elevates the rights of individuals over obligations to society. Second Amendment absolutism has led to the peculiar result that the right to own a gun is valued more highly in law than the right not to be killed by one.
I would argue that the refusal on the part of a vocal minority to even acknowledge climate change and the role of humans in causing it similarly has its roots in American individualism. To concede we are in a crisis is to accept the need for action to counter the rise in atmospheric CO2.
Though the collective benefits of action are enormous (extending even to the ability of our civilization to endure), some individual sacrifice has to happen in the short term. Yet for some people, individual sacrifice in the service of the greater good is unthinkable. What’s in it for them?
It may feel impossible to have a serious conversation about rights and responsibilities when our public sphere is so contaminated by falsehoods, mistrust and conspiracy theories. But we still have to try, because the ability of our society to navigate the many challenges ahead of us depends on a consensus about what we owe to one another.
Successfully tackling the big issues – both familiar ones like the economy, racial and wealth inequality, and threats from abroad, and emerging threats like cyberterrorism, climate chaos, plastic pollution and looming ecological collapse — requires collective action.
A nation of individuals all fiercely guarding their individual rights and recognizing no responsibilities towards others is on its way to collapse.
This one sentence -- in complete conflict with America's founding principles -- is why our Republic is in potentially mortal danger from the breathtakingly ignorant and unspeakably unwise enemy within ... and the author of this diatribe is indeed an enemy of the American Republic and to the principle of Liberty.
I think we owe it to ourselves and each other to eliminate anyone who commits voter fraud.

Antifa is all for masking, David. Where were you then?!
>>If they believe that the masks and vaccines work, why are they worried about the rest of us?<<
Answers itself, doesn’t it?
The same authoritarians who 40 years ago were poli sci majors who drove battered rusted out Volvos and VW Beetles held together with QUESTION AUTHORITY bumper stickers. I was on to their hypocrisy back then.
When the leftists say “obligations to society” what they mean is “becoming slaves to the new master race”.
Drivel. Devoid of logic.
“What do we owe to each other?”
For starters, how about the truth. Then maybe, just maybe, we can work our way toward some honor and integrity.
That was a long winded soliloquy of cow poop.
Like Ivy, the vast majority of today’s authoritarians have law degrees.
“A nation of individuals recognizing no responsibilities towards others is on its way to collapse.”
Pure BS!
Free individuals naturally recognize the benefits of treating well others that deserve to be treated well. It’s in their self interest.
Treating others the way you would want to be treated, ie the golden rule, is really all about self interest and the overwhelming majority naturally behave that way without some central command enforcing that rule.
Ivy is a Marxist. Nothing more.
Yes, pure BS.
Ivy Main would take society to a pre-Enlightenment time when everyone knew his hierarchal place under a monarch.
The American experience proved Enlightenment discoveries that individuals pursuing their desires, looking out for themselves in a Christian society improve the social order.
David?
But yeah, I love how convenient it is that the masks Anti-American groups like Antifa and BLM ALWAYS wear are now SANCTIONED specifically by their enablers.
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