Why You Don't Deserve Respect

It's a common theme in modern media that everyone deserves respect. We are taught at an early age to "get along with everyone" and to "play nice" and to "share our toys", but is this really a realistic world view?

Let me ask you this: as an adult, do you really believe that you should respect everyone regardless of their actions or beliefs? What if those beliefs include a belief in slavery? What if they believe that all gays should be murdered? What if they believe that legalized theft of your money is okay? What if they believe that corruption, lying, and outright fraud are acceptable in their push to be re-elected? What if they believe that your fundamental rights aren't rights at all, but privileges that can be taken away from you by passing a law?

Morally speaking, if you disagree with any of those beliefs, you agree that we shouldn't always respect the person who espouses those believes. Still think you should respect someone even if they have different beliefs? Let me explain to you why that's a nonsense idea, and that you already know this, but you're parroting what others have told you to think.

Suppose I tell you that you need to respect Hitler even if you disagree with his beliefs. Still feel the same way? That's an extreme example to prove a point: if someone has immoral beliefs, and you respect them, you respect them including those beliefs. You can only either respect someone or not respect them, there is no middle ground here. And it only makes sense that if someone has immoral beliefs, and you are trying to be a moral, ethical person, that you not respect them.

Would you respect someone who is trying to rob you at gunpoint? Their view is that your valuables now belong to them because they have a gun pointed at your head. What if that person was a government agent, say from the tax department? Does it become right and good if it's sanctioned by law? The obvious answer is: no. Immoral acts and beliefs are immoral no matter when they occur and no matter who the perpetrator is.

It's interesting that people hold the dimwitted and, frankly, illogical view that everyone deserves respect. When people say or do immoral things, they deserve your ridicule, not your support. The only way humanity as a whole will progress is to recognize when people are doing immoral things and stop them. Respect is not a right. It is earned through truly moral actions and behavior. No one, including myself, and including you, the reader, deserves respect.

We have to earn it like everyone else.