Entitlement…

[rbnyc]

I remember when I was a young teenagers and I watched the Republican pr machine destroy the word liberal in true Orwellian fashion. And I remember feeling like the liberals were letting it happen. Republicans made liberal a dirty word, and liberals started looking for other ways to describe themselves. I remember thinking, why do we allow ourselves to be complicit in this? Why don’t we take back our language?

I have seen a few people point this out about the word entitlement. This is a word I would really like to aggressively reclaim.

Let’s first look at three definitions from Merriam-Webster:

a right to benefits specified especially by law or contract

a government program providing benefits to members of a specified group; also : funds supporting or distributed by such a program

belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges

Republicans are successfully shifting the definition from the first to the last, and making it an ugly and unearned thing. And even the dictionary definition neglects to underscore a key component – that people are entitled to benefits because they have earned them.

People are entitled to benefits because they have earned them.

Many benefits are earned because people have paid into them their entire working lives. They paid for these benefits and should receive what they are entitled to receive.

We are entitled to this, because we earned it. We are not ashamed to claim our entitlements.

Many people feel, and I agree, that there are also “certain unalienable rights.” We earn many entitlements by the virtue of being human. We are not greedy, lazy, irresponsible or week for claiming our entitlements. Food, shelter, healthcare, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…these things are ours. We are entitled!

Whatever the Republicans can’t outright steal, they try to shame us out of by redefining our language. We need to correct this.