I struggle to fully understand the benefits of personal rights. I am aware that rights are a great concept, particularly in the American ideal--that we are given certain "unalienable rights" and so forth. However, I see so many problems with rights as well. Rights lead to a victim mentality--the sense that we are "owed" something, the feeling that we have been wronged, the feeling that we "deserve" this or that. This thought process has created our extremely litigious nation, where we all live in fear of being sued until somebody does us wrong, then we all want to sue.
I think that a much better idea is to teach personal responsibility rather than personal rights. I believe that I alone am responsible for my attitude and actions, and that cannot be taken away from me. Both bad things and good things will happen to me, and I will choose how to respond to them. Rather focusing on what I deserve, I try to focus on how I can act. Suffering is inevitable; what we do with it isn't.
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