When Individuals' Rights Erode Civil Society ⋆ Politicrossing
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When Individuals’ Rights Erode Civil Society

Merely because you have a right to express yourself doesn’t mean you should

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Should individuals’ rights be allowed to erode civil society? It’s a tricky question. Some groups in America have been founded on a noble purpose–to preserve the rights of the individual. What happens, however, when preserving the rights of the individual contributes to the erosion of society?

Under the guise of free speech and individual rights, some organizations defend those who keep pushing the envelope of crassness and vulgarity for publicity and profit. What if tens of thousands of budding songwriters begin to emulate the worst of rap videos? What if everyone decides to create horrific, violent, titillating, misogynistic videos?

What if everyone sports tattoos on their arms, backs, and shoulders, or wears nose rings, eyebrow rings, and nipple rings? Such behavior doesn’t clog our roadways, and is a matter of individual choice, so what harm does it cause to society?

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Beyond the Hospital Emergency Room

Apart from the health aspects of body piercings (data indicate a sizable number of participants experience serious infection and hepatitis), they pose problems of safety to both the individual indulging in the behavior and to others nearby. What happens when such rings catch on clothes, switches, buttons, or technological gadgets? As a society, do we accept visitors to hospital emergency rooms on Saturday nights whose body piercings have resulted in serious health conditions?

Since taxpayer dollars fund healthcare services for many, including expensive emergency room visits, the negative health impacts of certain behaviors incur a direct cost to all citizens. Likewise, we pay social costs when crudity is broadcast to us and to our children.

Vulgar public speech and potentially health-damaging body piercings might be permissible free speech, but are they therefore desirable? In our evermore-interconnected existence, individual choices have vast impacts on others.

Do you think that talk show guests discussing topics like leniency for incest and infidelity understand the ramifications of their behavior? What if everyone they know and you know did what they suggest? Would relationships break down? Would families fracture? Within a single generation, would all of society break down?

Impacting One Another

The idea of expanding what we do, and surmising what effect it would have if it were socially pervasive behavior, yields a hands-on realization: What we do and how we behave is important. So is what our neighbors do and how they behave.

Generally, the more densely populated your town, the more vital it is to recognize that your behavior  impacts those around you. If you live in a suburban setting, where farm animals are otherwise few and far between, but choose to house a rooster in your backyard, your choice most definitely impacts people all around you.

Perhaps a neighbor gets off the late shift at 2 a.m. and needs to be sound asleep… while you bird starts crowing at 5:30 a.m. …every morning. The zoning laws of your town might state that it’s legal for you to house a rooster in your backyard. As such, is exercising your right conducive to harmonious relations with your neighbors?

My Opinion, and Welcome to It

Suppose you feel strongly about a political issue and post signs facing the street in your living room window. As you become more vigilant, you place a sign on your porch. Later, you place some signs on your lawn. Perhaps you’ve adorned your car bumper stickers with highly politicized messages.

The above actions likely are within your legal rights. Is your free expression, however, undermining the peace and tranquility in your otherwise quiet neighborhood? Suppose you’re a Democrat and your signs rankle neighborhood Republicans. Suppose the opposite is true. Do you not have other forums in which to express yourself?

What if your neighbor across the street is perturbed by your partisan display and responds in kind with his own set of banners, signs, and bumper stickers? Have the two of you improved the neighborhood? What if everyone in the neighborhood starts up? How long will it be before signs disappear as opposing neighbors start pilfering from each other?

Forethought Abandoned

Merely because you have a right to express yourself, in this manner or in that, doesn’t mean you ought to or that it’s advisable. Free expression, without any regard to context and greater ramifications, can undermine a neighborhood, as it can undermine a society.

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Jeff Davidson is the world's only holder of the title "The Work-Life Balance Expert®" as awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. He is the premier thought leader on work-life balance, integration, and harmony. Jeff speaks to organizations that seek to enhance their overall productivity by improving the effectiveness of their people. He is the author of Breathing Space, Simpler Living, Dial it Down, and Everyday Project Management. Visit www.BreathingSpace.com for more information on Jeff's keynote speeches and seminars, including: Managing the Pace with Grace® * Achieving Work-Life Balance™ * Managing Information and Communication Overload®



 
 
 

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Elections

Election Fraud is Massive and On-Going in America

Across the U.S., the magnitude of voter fraud that occurs year after year, election after election, is staggering.

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Jay DeLancey is founder and president of the North Carolina Voter Integrity Project, and has much to say about voting in America:

Our system begs for transparency at all points along the election process. Who can vote, who did vote, how did they vote, and what was the tally? Today, unfortunately voter fraud is real and of enormous magnitude, as we saw in 2020 and 2022. Nowhere is this more evident than with absentee ballots.

Who, in any voting precinct, literally visits the homes of voters who filed absentee ballots to ensure that they are out of town? Even among those who have a legitimate quest to vote by absentee ballot, who can assure that their vote is counted properly and tallied accurately?

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The absentee ballot initiative started as a viable effort to increase the ability of qualified citizens to vote, but has now become into a primary tool of manipulation. The more we can see, the fairer the elections are likely to be. The less we can see, the greater the likelihood that fraud will occur. Centralized absentee ballot collection is exactly the opposite of local voting in a precinct where there’s a chance that those with whom you register or vote alongside are your neighbors.

Ensuring the Rights of Qualified Voters

The local voting precinct is better positioned to spot perpetrators of voter fraud. Local poll workers on the scene are better able to assess if you are not the person you claim to be. They will tell you to leave, but by law that’s all they can do.

They can’t retain someone and hold them until authorities arrive, even in the case of blatant voter impersonation. Why? Because in the 1960s, to safeguard the voting capability of those who had been disenfranchised, laws were passed to reduce the incidence of intimidation, accusation, and retention.

Those times have long passed, and now we need ways of ensuring that qualified voters’ civil rights are upheld. Every time an unqualified voter is allowed to cast a vote, it demeans and diminishes the rights of all citizens. As such, voter fraud is the civil rights crisis of our time.

Fraud Occurs Year After Year

If you hear from anyone or from any group that voter fraud does not exist, or that it’s minimal and inconsequential, rest assured most of these proponents believe they are in the right. As long as you vote for their candidate, they’re content to ignore the magnitude, of voter fraud that actually occurs, year after year, election after election, across the U.S. They know they are ‘right,’ so why forsake their ironclad view that voter integrity groups are secretly voter suppression groups?

We’re always asked, how do you know that voter fraud exists? We have case histories, anecdotes, cross tabulated data, eyewitness testimony, and more. Voter fraud is real and rampant. Yet, we will routinely encounter some academic, usually from some law school, saying, “The science is settled on this. Voter fraud is a myth.”

Professors will proclaim from on high declaring that few people ever engage in voter fraud. Such professors are people of influence, they teach students, write papers, give lectures, attend symposiums, and spew authoritative misinformation. Cognizant or not, the damage that they do to society is ongoing and significant.

A Mortal Threat to Democracy

“The science was settled” in the early 1500s, that the sun rotated around the earth. Copernicus and other brave souls risked death to proclaim that earth was not the center of the universe as we knew it, or even our solar system.

We swim against the tide of what was launched in the 1960s but today has morphed into a mortal threat to democracy. The challenge we all face is to guarantee transparency in elections so that everyone can see the results and, more importantly, accept the results when their candidate does not win.

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Life

Creating a Little Heaven on Earth for Yourself

When you carve out few moments for yourself, the world is a different place

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What would your life be like if you had the ability to drop back when you wanted or needed to do so? To have time for true rest and relaxation? To have time for quiet reflection?

Despite the pace of change in society, the constant development of new technology, all the paper and information that confronts you on a daily basis, and everything that competes for your time and attention, you have the ever-present opportunity to remain resilient.

Carve It Out

When you carve out even a few moments of breathing space for yourself, the world is a different place; it does not seem so hectic. Often, things work out for the best. You have a sense of control almost independent of your environment.

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The feeling of being in control of your life, while acknowledging that you are only a small part in the overall scheme of things, enhances your experience of the world around and within you, every day.

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