Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It’s not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It’s not an endlessly expanding list of rights – the “right” to education, the “right” to food and housing. That’s not freedom, that’s dependency. Those aren’t rights, those are the rations of slavery – hay and a barn for human cattle. There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.

-P. J. O'Rourke, as copied from here

But tell us how you really feel................

 Perdition, thy name is entitlement. If I were forced to conjure up a single human characteristic lurking out there on the down low likely to be responsible for a societal implosion in the next few years, it just might be entitlement. The number of endlessly entitled and simultaneously clueless individuals out in the world is just stunning. I know that correlation is not causation, but, sweet Jesus Palomino, these two things sure do seem joined at the hip to me.

-Martin Hackworth, from here