The Cumberland Times-News published by latest letter to the editor this weekend, dated Feb. 12, under the headline "Rights are inherent." The text is below.
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Rights must be earned, argues David Biser of Cumberland (“Rights, duties and everything in between,” Feb. 3). “Duties precede rights,” Biser says. “Duties are the foundation upon which rights are built and founded.” To forget this, to emphasize the primacy of rights over duties, is in Biser’s words “a recipe for disaster,” a guarantee of “anarchy and chaos.”
Let’s present Biser with a newborn infant – a squirming, squalling embodiment of pure, naked Need. Does this baby have a right to be fed, clothed, sheltered, loved? Not in Biser’s world-view. What duties has this child performed, in its first minutes of life? For that matter, what duties, what work, could it possibly accomplish? What good is it, really, to anyone?
Oh, sure, a sentimentalist could point out that a theoretical someone might enjoy caring for the thing – but has that person earned the right to raise a child? What duties have they taken on, in order to be granted this enormous privilege, in the flat, arid, quid-pro-quo landscape of Biser World?
Having discarded this infant, and all its lazy, noisy, unqualified ilk, let us widen our view of Biser World. All the aged and the infirm, for example. What duties can they possibly fulfill? They may have served their purpose for a time, but now they might as well be babies; and we have dealt with babies.
Meanwhile, who is tallying how many households actually deserve to expect ambulance service, fire and police protection, clean air and water, proper medical care? These rights must be earned, after all.
How about the right to vote? How many poll taxes and other qualifications does Biser World impose, to ensure that only the deserving get to cast a ballot and have it count?
The same efficiencies, one assumes, are in place to deny the undutiful, and hence the undeserving, of all other rights they might unreasonably claim: to a fair trial, to education, to opportunity; to their right to be heard, to be visible – indeed, their right to exist.
I turn away from this dystopian wasteland with a shudder. Biser World is, at base – and a baser base cannot be imagined – a terrifying, heartless, nightmare scenario, the antithesis of America, of civilization, of humanity. That many people, including some of our Allegany County neighbors, are secretly and not-so-secretly working to bring it about, makes it even scarier.
Let’s work instead for a society based on cooperation, on communication, on compassion, while we yet have the rights to do so.
Andy Duncan, Frostburg
