Wednesday, August 16, 2023

The grief entitlement


Residents of Maui are telling visitors to stay away, "with one angry resident telling the BBC she saw visitors swimming in the water that 'our people just died in three days ago'.” [link]

You don’t get to shut down the world because "someone died".

It would have been unreasonable of me to demand that the section of road where my daughter died be shut down for a month or so to keep people from going anywhere they might have enjoyed. I didn't have that right.

It's unreasonable for anti-gun bigots to demand new gun rules because some evil loser used a gun to murder people. They have no such right.

Your pain and grief doesn't give you the right to shut down the world. It doesn't give you the right to control others. It just doesn't.

I can understand if locals tell visitors they'd rather they not come now. Or warn them of the situation and how amenities may be unavailable. I could even see locals simply refusing to do business with visitors, and instead focusing on their neighbors. But, you don't control others. You can refuse service, but to scold them for being in the ocean, when they were apparently already on the island, is too far.

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I really need money for some unexpected expenses on top of the expected ones. 
PayPal and Venmo are faster, so that would be preferable. 
Thank you.