“You are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts.” — Daniel Patrick Moynihan
“You are entitled to rights, but you are not entitled to privileges.” — TheBigHenry
Image via WikipediaRelated source » Converting Mamet
A playwright’s progress
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
“[Mamet] saw he was Talking Left and Living Right, a condition common among American liberals, particularly the wealthy among them, who can, for instance, want to impose diversity requirements on private companies while living in monochromatic neighborhoods, or vote against school vouchers while sending their kids to prep school, or shelter their income while advocating higher tax rates. The widening gap between liberal politics and liberal life became real to him when, paradoxically enough, he decided at last to write a political play, or rather a play about politics. […] “But I saw the liberals hated George Bush. It was vicious. And I thought about it, and I didn’t get it. He was no worse than the others, was he? And I’d ask my liberal friends, ‘Well, why do you hate him?’ They’d all say: ‘He lied about WMD.’ Okay. You love Kennedy. Kennedy didn’t write Profiles in Courage—he lied about that. ‘Bush is in bed with the Saudis!’ Okay, Kennedy was in bed with the mafia.” […] How did the happiest, freest, and most prosperous country in history sprout from the Hobbesian jungle? “I realized it was because of this thing, this miracle, this U.S. Constitution.” The separation of powers, the guarantee of property, the freedoms of speech and religion meant that self-interested citizens had a system in which they could hammer out their differences without killing each other. Everyone who wanted to could get ahead. The Founders had accepted the tragic view of life and, as it were, made it pay. It’s a happy paradox: The gloomier one’s view of human nature—and Mamet’s was gloomy—the deeper one’s appreciation of the American miracle. […] “They were risking not only their own jobs but the jobs of everyone who had nothing to gain from the [screenwriters’ strike of 2007-08]—the drivers and scene painters and people who are on set 14 hours a day working their asses off. These working people were driven out of work by the writers—10,000 people losing their jobs at Christmastime. It was the goddamnedest thing I ever saw in my life. And for what? They didn’t know what they were striking for—just another inchoate liberal dream. The question occurs to me quite a lot: What do liberals do when their plans have failed? What did the writers do when their plans led to unemployment, their own and other people’s? One thing they can’t do is admit they failed. Why? To admit failure would endanger their position in the herd.” […] Finley is rabbi at Ohr HaTorah in Los Angeles, where Mamet attends services with his wife, the actress Rebecca Pidgeon, who converted to Judaism after their marriage in 1991. Mamet’s religious practice, along with his sensitivity to Israel, has deepened since he moved to Southern California and joined Ohr HaTorah. In 2006, he published a scorching book of essays, The Wicked Son, rebuking secular Jews for their (alleged) self-loathing and reluctance to defend Israel. The Wicked Son is dedicated to Finley. He is a creature who is not supposed to exist in nature: the Republican rabbi of a liberal congregation packed with show people. “For most of my congregants, I’m the only Republican they know,” he said.”
— MAY 23, 2011, VOL. 16, NO. 34 • BY ANDREW FERGUSON (weeklystandard.com)
Most people have an opinion on any given subject; most Jewish people have more than one [joke!]. This is as it should be, for freedom of thought (unlike freedom of speech) is unrestricted in any enforcible way. This is why people may fantasize at will, so long as they do not insist that their own fantasies are indistinguishable from facts. Facts are things that are indisputably the cases under consideration, at least in theory. Although in practice there is often dispute about what is or isn't a fact, such disputes can be adjudicated in a court of law. This is why our nation of laws is such a great country.
Rights, such as our right to free speech must be restricted to some extent, if only to prevent the ensuing mayhem caused by a false cry of "Fire!" in the proverbial crowded theater. We all cherish the rights vouchsafed by our Constitution, even as we acknowledge the accompanying restrictions necessitated by the sharing of those rights by a large population living in close proximity.
Privileges, however, are not the same as rights or entitlements. In most cases they must be earned by compliance with prescribed rules or regulations. The United States exists as a nation of laws. Privileges may be granted to individuals or groups of individuals in accordance with prescribed legal procedures. But they are not guaranteed in the manner of our Constitutional rights.
Why all this hemming and hawing about legalistic distinctions that we all learned from our parents, teachers and sensei? Because people tend to conflate opinions with facts and rights with privileges. If I had to guess, I would guesstimate that the vast majority of disputes, arguments and flame-wars erupt when one or both parties subsume fact with opinion and/or confuse privilege with right or entitlement. And once such conflation occurs, tempers flare, f-bombs explode, feelings are hurt, and rage rages on, most likely into the night and the following day.
Post 1,631 Opinions, Facts, Rights, and Privileges
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