Your Right to Convenience

You have the right to have convenience. You have the right to make garbage. You have the right to waste water. You can do whatever you gull-durn please. If you want to triple-plastic-bag your leaky chicken at the grocery store, by good-goddamn it is your right to do so. You want to have a baby, and gosh-darn it, you are going to use plastic diapers, because gosh-darn it, you are going to be tired, and you know what? Shit stinks. And YOU do not want to have to deal with that.

Umm... yuck.

Yeah, I heard that from my own step-daughter. She NEVER planned to use cotton diapers, and now she IS pregnant. Even though the "disposable" ones (quotes on that, because they are NOT disposable, they are just moved away from YOU to another place) are bad for the planet, bad for the kid, bad for... well, ME. Yeah. They are getting added in to MY world. Why don't I have a say in that? Because YOU must have your convenience? Even though you KNOW babies poop and it smells bad, but you are going to have one anyway, but the rest of us have to revolve around that? What about OUR rights to a clean planet? No? Nuthin'? Not so much?

So you have the right to use plastic. And you don't think the government should step in and ban plastic bags, because that is an infringement of your rights, and, after all, where will it end?? You know - smokers as the same thing... no smoking on the beaches, public places, what's next? You're own home? Yes, actually, in some towns you cannot even smoke in your own back yard. Because smoking hurts people other than the smokers. Well, guess what - your water waste is hurting those who DON'T waste. Because, just like we share the air, and you don't want to smell their cigarette smoke, we share the water, and I want to have mine around to use when I want, and since I use it responsibly, YOU should too. But you don't. So we have to put bans and limits on water usage sometimes. But guess what? I have to follow the same bans and limits, even though I wasn't the problem.

Likewise, because YOU can't be bothered to ease up on the plastic, MY Earth is polluted, even though I have been enjoying it responsibly. Your gross dirty diapers are in my environment, even though I had nothing to do with them. But there they are.

So, I ask again: where does your right for convenience end, and my right for a healthy planet begin? It doesn't seem to matter, so long as things are easy for the masses.

Man, I would LOVE an answer to that one...