Rights: Just A Thought

What If “Rights” Are Only Something To Be Given To Others?

What If “Rights” Are Only Something To Be Given To Others?

There’s a lot of talk about rights these says.

But let me throw an unpopular idea in the mix.

What if we are meant to fight for the rights of others not expecting our own rights to be upheld?

I know it’s a crazy notion that makes some pounce and others scratch their head saying “What is up with Rick Dancer anyway?”

I hear people fighting for the rights of others and admire the action.

But what I also find is people fighting for the rights of others often are fighting because they want those same rights for themselves. So is it really about others or is it about you?

Does it matter?

I’m a guy who has interviewed thousands and thousands of people.

Those who truly sought no justice for themselves seemed to have more pure motivation and in that purity fewer strings, if any, attached to the issues.

On the other hand, those who told me over and over this wasn’t about them, usually couldn’t see that it really was which left something hollow on my true justice meter.

I get it. I fight for people’s right to be heard. It stems from not being listened to as a child and that “personal justice” sometimes gets in the way on my purity scale and while things get done, there’s something a little off in the end. In all honestly I’m probably not coming from a place of purity.

Some will ask “Why does it matter Rick, if good is being done and justice served, who cares?”

I get that but the older I grow, the more I see, the more it does matter….to me.

The world is tipping this way and that.

It flips from left to right, from message to message and if we’re not careful foundations crumble and personal goals drowned pure motivation.

We find ourselves to be so “right” that we push and trample some of the very people we profess to want to help.

I will continue to make mistakes in this area and unless you are a close friend “calling me out” is not advised as we move forward. I will make errors and I get to choose who, like you, earns the right to confront me. Tiptoe into my garden without permission you may not like my response.

Here’s the deal: With all the uproar over the recent Supreme Court decisions to talk of turning tides and changing times, we will need to fight for each other.

Remember what the pledge of allegiance says at the end: “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

I believe if you seek justice for others, justice will find you.

But if “your” justice becomes the goal the outcome will not be the same.