There is a tendency for the people (as they now are in this country) to shy away from and protest against their own responsibilities and duties necessary for decent society. I do not suggest that they are likely to protest intentionally and in name against decent society, nor overtly against their duties; rather that they are silent on the matter of their duties, but positively loud in protesting that it is the government’s duty to secure them the rights to behave as they wish. Duties are therefore damned; for it seems that every duty is an affront to selfish gratification – and being the serfs that they now are, they are happy to absolve themselves of duties and make them a matter of government; and any move that threatens to take away these duties (or powers as they then become) from government, and place them upon the people, is protested. And I might add that a people which has rights but not duties makes an indecent society.
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In what sense "protestations"?
There is a tendency for the people (as they now are in this country) to shy away from and protest against their own responsibilities and duties necessary for decent society. I do not suggest that they are likely to protest intentionally and in name against decent society, nor overtly against their duties; rather that they are silent on the matter of their duties, but positively loud in protesting that it is the government’s duty to secure them the rights to behave as they wish. Duties are therefore damned; for it seems that every duty is an affront to selfish gratification – and being the serfs that they now are, they are happy to absolve themselves of duties and make them a matter of government; and any move that threatens to take away these duties (or powers as they then become) from government, and place them upon the people, is protested. And I might add that a people which has rights but not duties makes an indecent society.
But the question is, what is to be done?
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