False Entitlement
Our constitution recognizes and guarantees a number of basic human rights. We are entitled to our opinions, and we have the right to speak, gather, and worship as we please. We get those for free, don’t we? In the original Starcraft game series there was a cheat code, “something for nothing,” which allowed players to exceed limits or bounds that otherwise would have restricted them. With the cheat code they could receive something they had not paid for. Too many people think that freedom comes free. Because we forget the millions who have died to make us free, a false sense of entitlement creeps onto us. For instance, many people believe that the ability to download music for free is a “right.” Orson Scott Card raised the issue of illegal file-sharing in his article, “MP3s are not the Devil,” and pointed out that the shared files themselves are not evil, so to speak, but the sharers. Sue not the files, but the consumers for their blatant use of “cheat codes.” Illegal file sharing hurts not only musicians, but the consumers themselves because they believe they are entitled to something for nothing. Laws and restrictive policies try to give us integrity (a cheat in its own way), but the only real control in life is self-control.