Entitlement

THERE WAS A TIME when the word "entitlement" actually had a positive cannotation, as in official, important, legally sanctioned god given rights. Then too, there was once a time, say, back in the nineteen fifties and sixties, when wealthy americans were generally respected and admired.

Those were different times, though. Now the number of wealthy and the number of entitlements has grown greatly, the treasury is bankrupt, the wealthy are increasingly despised, as are those receiving something for nothing.

The wealthy feel entitled to keep their money, and those receiving help believe themselves entitled to receive it. American culture is a culture of entitlement for the rich and the poor, with the middle class shrinking, ever less a part of the mainstream culture.

The eventual consequences of having more wealthy people contributing less to society and more poor people receiving more from society, and a smaller middle class, can be roughly calculated rather quickly.

WE feel entitled to work as hard as we want, make as much money as we want, own as much land as we want, and collect as many mateiral possessions as we want. Cooperation and self sacrifice have meaning only in extreme circumstances.

Nature does not entitle us to exist and survive, but only to attempt to.

Is the modern dream of egalitarian democracy, based on cooperation and caring for others, breaking back down into oligarchical, plutocratic feudalism? Will the surface of the erath once again be owned by an elite
aristocracy, supported by a vast agricultural and industrial peasantry?

Maybe one day soon the united states will be ruled by a right wing fundamentalist christian dictator, proclaiming the status quo the will of god.