> You should have the right to call your teacher, your principal, your school board president whatever you want among your peers on a home computer.
Even given the very public nature of computers? It’s not like the Internet is private.
I guess there also remains the question of whether juveniles should have respect for adults by default — particularly those who are in positions of authority, like teachers, like police, like parents. My answer would be “yes” — and I would certainly expect that from my children.
Juveniles are not equals with Adults. That is why they are Juveniles. Adults deserve a modicum of Respect merely by dint of the fact that they are Adults.
Respect costs nothing, and everybody is entitled to Respect at least on some level. Everybody, and I don’t care who. Even Pelosi, even Obama. That doesn’t mean we have to like them, it certainly doesn’t mean we have to defer to them or bow down to them or do as they say. But it does mean that labels like “douche-bag” are probably out-of-line.
It is still quite possible — easy in fact — to use our good manners and still thoroughly dislike and abominate and hold in abject contempt our enemies. Liberals never use their good manners; Conservatives ought to at all times.
(I don’t always, but I should).
No disrespect intended, but your philosophy goes to the very heart of the debate over abortion, IMO. Infants in the womb are not adults therefore have no equal protection right under the law? I fully realize that minors are not adults when it comes to certain privileges (driving, alcohol, tobacco) and are treated differently under courts of law (in most but not all cases as persons as young as 15 have been tried as adults in some states) but they certainly would seem to be treated with the same standards of law when it comes to rights.
I profoundly disagree. Respect is quite costly. To pay respect is to efface oneself, even if only in a marginal manner. Exercising respect is a discipline. No discipline is ever truly cost-free, IMO.
How are you this fine day, FRiend?