Cindy Kiro says the offenders at Hutt Valley High are entitled to an education and is supporting the Principal's position.
That has upset some talkback callers. I contributed the following;
As long as we blindly cling to the prevalent culture of 'rights' that has developed over the past 40 years, more disruption and dysfunction will develop.
The system of legally enshrined rights to things like social welfare benefits, electricity, education etc is ultimately troublesome because there is nowhere to draw a line. The only genuine rights that should be upheld are the rights to be free from things like violence, theft and the imposition of force.
The Hutt Valley High situation highlights this very well. The offender's right to an education is trumping the victim's right to be free from violence. That is wrong. There is no 'right' to an education. It is a privilege. And privileges can be withdrawn.
Peter Williams: Close to a COP out
10 minutes ago
7 comments:
Agreed!
They're quite entitled to an education, but they can do it themselves. Whatever happened to those guys who used to drop out of school and educate themselves while working? Seems we're totally reliant on the state these days.
The thing that always gets me about "rights" is they never seem to come with responsibilities. If you have the right to an education then you are responsible for your behaviour to ensure others can enjoy the same privilege.
The Objectivists have the best take on Rights and what are real ones and which are false.Basically a genuine right is a negative....to be left alone and not prevented from acting as you see fit.All humans have them by virtue of being human.
False rights require positive actions to be undertaken....someone is FORCED to act for another against their will...therefore that persons rights are themselves violated.
In other words genuine human rights do not require the violation of those same rights held by others to be respected.
The whole issue of human rights and the massive misunderstandings most people have about them is whu we have the political problems and therefore the social problems that we do...
Get Rights right and we will see the change we need...
Here is a great site re rights and what they are all about
All of us have a duty to ourselves to become conversant with real rights and make the case for them whenever we can.
http://freedomkeys.com/rights.htm
James, The theory of negative and positive rights was what I had in mind. This situation seemed like a good opportunity to explain them in a practical sense.
Yes Lindsay.The more people who understand the difference between positive and negative rights will start a process of political change in minds and then reality.
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