Shoveling majority under the rug

Thursday, February 5, 1998

Shoveling majority under the rug

RIGHTS: Preponderance of people don’t always have their will
observed

Comparatively speaking, the citizens of the United States enjoy
a fairly broad range of human, civil, social and economic rights.
I’ll venture that many of our fellow students visiting from other
countries and cultures agree. Conversely, there are those who feel
that some of the rights this country guaranties its people are
little more than unfulfilled promises. I find both opinions valid.
In support of the former, the fact that you are reading this is
proof that we do enjoy several particularly valued types of
freedom. It strikes me that were this article to be published in
any number of other countries, I might expect to "disappear" in the
next few days. In support of the latter, there are millions of
people in this country who, through no fault of their own, are
absent the ability to read this article.

One of the problems endemic to the issue of rights lies in our
grasp of what exactly rights are. Traditionally, Rights (capital
‘R’) are formally decreed freedoms and guarantees granted in
documents like our Constitution, France’s "Declaration of the
Rights of Man and Citizen," and The U. N.’s "Declaration of Human
Rights." But "rights" (lower case ‘r’) have also been taken to mean
the freedom to do anything that is not expressly prohibited.
Consequently, our "rights" are as ubiquitous as the leaves on a
tree. Contortions of the Right of Speech manifest themselves as the
self-perceived right to hassle the guy behind the counter because
our morning coffee is not served sufficiently hot or to insult a
Parking Enforcement Officer for doing her job. One of the problems
with interpreting rights as license to do whatever isn’t illegal is
that so often our self-perceived rights contradict the
self-perceived rights of someone else; the guy behind the counter
and the Parking Enforcement Officer have the right to not be
verbally abused.

The issue of contradictory self-perceived rights reminds me of
the news story about a man who, while in the process of being
arrested for some violation of the law, expressed his disdain for
the police officers at the scene by relieving himself on their
patrol car. The cops tried to cite him for doing so but found out
that there was no express statute making such an act illegal. If
you believe that you have the right to do anything that is not
technically illegal, ipso facto, you believe that the perpetrator
had a right to piss on the car. Is there then a point where
exercising our self-perceived rights becomes wrong? To emphasize
this point, I refer to some cigarette smokers who claim their fetid
effluent to be an unavoidable by-product of their right to smoke.
To them, the rights of others to avoid said stench is
inconsequential. I’ll discuss smoking in greater detail later.

The truth is our rights are not as broad and comprehensive as
many (myself until recently, included) generally assume them to be.
I’m no legal scholar, but even I know that several of the ten
articles in our Bill of Rights have gaping qualifications. For
example, the Right to free speech is guaranteed unless the topic of
your conversation involves planning a felony. The Right of assembly
is guaranteed; but don’t try it without securing all the necessary
permits. As for our so-called Right "to keep and bear arms":
According to the Los Angeles Police Department Watch Deputy I spoke
to, walking down the street with a holstered, non-concealed,
un-loaded firearm will get you arrested. Period.

Voltaire said "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend
to the death your right to say it." Thanks to his influence on the
framers of our Constitution, Bruin Columnist Mark Shapiro can (and
did , in his Jan. 27 article "Commercials, food make Super Bowl so
special") exercise his right to publicly ridicule Queen Latifa and
Gilbert Brown because of their weight. Likewise, Bruin reader
Martine Bernstein can (and did, in a letter "Jokes in bad taste" on
Jan. 29) exercise her right to publicly object to his doing so. The
sword cuts two ways and so it should.

The justification for various exceptions to and exclusions from
our Constitutional rights as, they were originally memorialized,
boils down to the issue of "greater good." As we all know, the
protection of your unalienable right to "life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness" (as specified in our Declaration of
Independence) is more compelling and beneficial to society than the
protection of my right to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater. But,
when the pro’s and con’s of a contradiction of rights are not as
obvious as they are in the above overused example, the subject of
rights gets a bit sticky. As with "Capital ‘R’ Rights," the
overriding principal deciding the outcome of collisions between
contradictory "small ‘r’ rights" should also be the "greater
good."

For examples, I’ll focus on a few items culled from recent
issues of the Daily Bruin.

Question: Do Ryan Tamm and his trio of zealot college basketball
spectators have the right to wreck the viewing experiences of
hundreds of other spectators by refusing to sit down during that
all important competition of ball throwing acumen with our cross
town rivals ("Standing up for UCLA," and responded to on Jan. 29 in
the letter "Just be a fan, not a nuisance")? I’d hate to think that
he and his friends don’t have the right to flaunt their adoration
for the team by standing-up for the entire game. But, I’d also hate
to think that all of the people behind them don’t have a right to
see and enjoy the game. Whose rights should supersede the other’s?
It boils down to the rights of a few weighed against the rights of
many.

All things being equal, I’d like to believe that the rights of
many would and should prevail. In fairness, I wasn’t there to
witness their insensitivity to the requests of fellow rooters, but
I interviewed someone who was. I do know that I, most regrettably,
would not have had the right to go down there and bitch-slap Mr.
Tamm and his arrogant pals into submitting to the more civil and
decent wishes of those cursed to have been seated behind him. Pity.
I have no doubt such temptations occurred to one or more of those
who suffered as a result of their selfishness. Isn’t it then ironic
that Mr. Tamm’s right to not be battered was preserved by the very
same person or persons whose rights he was so thoughtlessly
ignoring? In this instance the rights of the many were trampled by
the rights of the few.

Next question: What about the rights of the approximately 900
residents of Dykstra Hall? According to recent Daily Bruin
articles, they have suffered multiple and significant
inconveniences as a result of construction on and about their
domiciles. They are without mailboxes, a dining facility, study
lounges, music practice rooms, and on several occasions hot water.
Yet, they pay the same price as people who live in fully-functional
residence halls. They have asked for and been denied monetary
compensation. Michael Foraker, Director of Housing, claims that
there isn’t any money budgeted for compensation. Oh, really? I
wonder if there’s any money in the budget for defending against a
class action suit. Perhaps the residents of Dykstra should each
ante up a hundred bucks and go rent themselves a pack of attorneys.
The resulting ninety thousand dollar war chest might do the trick.
Believe it: the Office of Residential Life would put all nine
hundred of them up at the Bel-Air Hotel before they’ll let a jury
near this one. If a hundred bucks seems a bit steep, they might
consider peppering the responsible parties with hundreds of small
claims summons for partial breach of contract. Or, they can all
just shut-up and suffer.

I’d like to think that the aggrieved in this matter have some
recourse. It seems unfair to me that they are paying for services
not received. Citing "budgetary concerns" as an excuse for
depriving people of something for which they have paid works just
as well for muggers. Students tend to get screwed because they’re
not all that savvy (yet), or because they haven’t come to a full
understanding of their rights, or because they’re too busy watching
reruns of "The X-Files" to make a stand. Well here’s their big
chance. I hope they have at it.

Next question: What the hell is Alex Balekian talking about? (I
mentioned earlier that I’d be getting back to the "smoker’s rights"
issue. Voila!) Recently, he wrote a strange little piece in this
paper about California’s newly enforced ban on smoking in bars,
nightclubs, casinos, etc. ("Smoking ban hurts businesses, solves
nothing," Jan. 20, 98). Part of it went like this: "With the
current situation, hundreds of smoking customers in every bar are
being unnecessarily inconvenienced for the sake of a handful of
workers." Hello? At first, this sentence seemed too silly to be
taken on face-value. It made me wonder if he was bucking for a job
as one of those tobacco industry toadies who publicly disputes the
perils of second-hand smoke but privately asks you to refrain from
burning through a pack of Marlboro Lights around their children.
This isn’t a convenience issue; this is a health issue.

In the above quote, Balekian is using the "rights of a few vs.
the rights of many" argument to make his case. But he has slyly
painted the "few" as the "workers" and the "many" as the "smoking
customers." He’s got it backwards. Approximately one in four adults
is a smoker. By doing that little trick with the common denominator
and some quick subtraction we conclude that the remaining three in
four adults are non-smokers. In other words, non-smokers heavily
outnumber smokers. Consequently, the non-smoker’s rights should
prevail.

For the record: I smoke ten to twenty cigarettes every day and
this ban is the best thing that’s happened to me, as far as smoking
goes. I went to a club the other night and over the course of
several hours I smoked zero cigarettes instead of ten. I didn’t
walk out of there reeking of smoke. Nobody got holes burned in
their clothes. Nobody inhaled the magical particle that would
eventually lead to cancer. The air was clear. It smelled good.
People who really wanted a cigarette made the supreme effort of
taking it outside for a few minutes. I didn’t go through the guilt
of forcing someone else to inhale my smoke. It was civilized. It
was actually pleasant.

Maybe this ban will go farther than just protecting – and justly
so – the rights of that "handful of workers" from inhaling our
carcinogens. Maybe more smokers will learn to enjoy socializing
without our frantic attachment to the social crutch that cigarettes
have become for so many of us. Maybe the ban will make it easier
for us to eventually kick this filthy habit. Maybe Medi-Cal won’t
have to foot as much of the outrageously expensive burden of
providing hospitalization and treatment to the thousands upon
thousands of people who will get sick and die from either smoking
cigarettes or merely being around others who do.

In fairness, we smokers do have a right to smoke, I suppose, in
much the same way that we all have the right to sever our own
fingers with pruning shears. I think the point here is that we
shouldn’t hurt others while we indulge in our own vices.

It all leads back to the "pissing on the cop car," scenario.
Just because something isn’t illegal doesn’t mean it isn’t wrong,
especially when that something deprives someone of his or her
rights, such as enjoying the game, breathing decent air and
receiving that for which one has paid.

Here, today, on our picturesque Westwood campus, we suffer, with
nauseating regularity, people who insist that their rights take
precedent over ours. These people will go on to take jobs as
attorneys, politicians, police officers, heads of HMO’s and other
positions of authority by means of which their anti-social
inclinations can be institutionalized. Unless we want to allow
their ambitions to demean the quality of our lives we must endeavor
to understand and exercise our human, social, economic and civil
rights. We must also respect those rights as they are claimed by
others. When rights collide, we owe it to ourselves and each other
to judiciously determine the greater good.

Michael Daugherty