Entitlement

In life there are privileges, there are rights, and there are entitlements. Privileges we understand (mostly). That's when you get to do something that not everyone gets to do. It requires permission. You don't, for instance, have a right to drive a car. Those under a certain age aren't allowed. Those over that age are required to earn their license to drive. And it can be taken away from you if you abuse it. It's not a right.

So what about entitlements? Are they the same as rights? Not quite. We may use the terms interchangeably, but there is, in fact, a difference. A right is something that is justly yours regardless of whether or not anyone gives it to you. According to the founders of our nation, governments are instituted to secure rights. You know, those "inalienable" things that are due us. An entitlement, then, is a bestowed right. You didn't have it coming, but now you do. It isn't yours as a matter of your existence, but now it is yours as a matter of entitlement. Most often an entitlement exceeds a right because someone is required to provide it for you. Social Security, for instance, is an entitlement in which the government is supposed to provide money for those on Social Security. You not only have a right to retire, but the government is obligated to pay you; you're entitled to that money.

Consider, then, how rights work. You may, for instance, have the right to keep and bear arms. That, they tell us, is your right. What does that mean? Does that mean that the government in its job to secure your rights is required to issue you a weapon? No! It means that you may, if you so desire, get yourself a gun.

Today, of course, we no longer think of it that way. You have a right to eat and if you don't have the will or means to obtain food, it is the government's job to give it to you. You have the right to healthcare and if you don't have the will or means, they will provide it for you. Of course, the "right to eat" or "the right to healthcare" aren't laid out anywhere in our constitution or anywhere else I can find, but that doesn't matter. It's your right, so the government will provide. "Hey!" I want to cry out, "Where's my gun?!"

Entitlements are even worse. These are things that are not rights until they are assigned. That makes them more like privileges than rights. Still, try taking away an entitlement. Wow! They'll bite your hand off! It's what has gotten Greece and Italy into their current economic condition. Create entitlements that bankrupt the country and then try to take them back. Riots in the streets!

The problem of entitlement doesn't only operate on a national level. It also operates in your home. Kids grow up being cared for. They're given food, clothing, housing, an education. Somehow, when they turn 18, it seems in so many cases to be the job of the parents to continue to provide all this for their children without, of course, any authority. "Why can't I have my girlfriend spend the night? I'm 18." Go ahead, Mom. Try cutting off his income. Be prepared to bandage the hand he bites. Because, you see, we often take privileges, convert them in our heads into rights, and then turn them into entitlements. That is, "I get to do that" (privilege) "so it must they must let me do that" (right) "and provide for me the means to do it" (entitlement).

This is all very disheartening when you can see it in society and when you can see it in your home. It's worse when you see it in the Church. Instead of seeing life as a privilege, an unearned, unmerited gift, we see it as not merely a right, but an entitlement. God owes us. Oh, we don't likely think that consciously, but certainly it's a common perspective. "God owes me comfort, pleasure, food, clothing, shelter, not only the things I need, but the things I want." And if He "fails" to provide? Bad God! Bad, bad God! We've come a long way, baby, from seeing all that God gives as a splendid gift when we turn it into an entitlement. And we do it frequently.

Here's a big problem with entitlement. Entitlement is based on dependency. That is, "You owe me this." In the case of a right, you're allowed to do/have that, but you're responsible to take care of it yourself. In entitlement, you depend on those who are required to provide it. In terms of nations, it has been said, "The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage." In national terms, entitlements lead us back to bondage and collapse. In personal terms, it does the same thing. Perhaps the gratitude that a perspective of privilege brings is a better choice.