entitle me this

Entitled – “qualified for by right according to law”

Entitlement – “The fact of having a right to something”

Those are two definitions I took from the Merriam Webster online dictionary. Like all pieces of the English language, there is a nuance to usage and context. But I think those are pretty decent summaries of what those words mean.

I don’t like the first one when applied to attitude. Indeed, it’s instant qualification for deletion from my sympathy when one starts demonstrating an entitled air. And that may well be owing to the fact it is a flaw of character of which I am guilty.

That disclaimer made, I find the overuse of that vocabulary in the present political banter infuriating. Because… well, in order to argue the need to cull entitlements, is it not being argued that someone else is entitled to keep something else? In other words, a percentage of the country has a legal right to keep income that would go to taxes but cannot co-exist with the fact of having a right to healthcare or unemployment or education or several other nameless programs.

I’ve never been in the tax bracket that has to fight for its right at the present. Maybe someday people will decide my writing is so brilliant I can … no I doubt it. Nor do I really want it. I grew up and live amongst people who have to wonder if their right to have something is in jeopardy. People who live by each social security check. People who have the unemployment checks figured out to the day of the week to help hold the breath for the success of the next job interview (and I’ve been that person). People who need Medicaid to buy chemical formulas to keep themselves alive. People who needed WIC and food stamps to put food in the mouths of their children. Yeah, so maybe I’m that bleeding heart liberal and jaded by my affection for these people. They are my friends so I don’t want to see them for the parasites of American life that they are. And I don’t have a lot of billionaire friends. In fact, maybe I’m just a Bitter Betty and I want to take away their rights and blind myself to their better qualities.

Or maybe I’m just naïve. And I honestly accept that may be the case.

I think with my heart about this issue. I think of my grandmother who was in and out of the hospital this summer, who has medication, and a whole family to take care of her. What about the grandmothers who don’t have that? Or her peers who aren’t grandmothers? But, like myself, never married and never had children… but was a teacher and touched many lives with inspiration. Who needs that social security check to pay for heat, to pay for food, to pay for a few modest entertainments to fill a lonely day. Is that really an awful thing to claim as a right? After working for the state and putting wages into a system that taxed her too?

When times are tough, sacrifice is required. Not everyone gets an easy out. We all have to give up something that is ours, no matter if it is our right or not.

And like I said, I’ve never been rich. I’ve never even moved to the upper side of middle class… some times near the middle and a few times lingering towards the lower. So I don’t know how hard it would be to have to give up that tax money. I am half joking, but also half in earnest here. I don’t know if it is difficult. I don’t know if it is a burden and forces one to give up things like health or heat or the right to keep what one earns. I honestly do not know.

I like people. I like all people… and I don’t begrudge anyone the lamentation of a hardship. Life is hardship. But there are people in this world who look at hardship and suck it up willing to give up what little they have. And then there are those who look at hardship and decide they are entitled to keep what is theirs.