Eric in a previous entry linked to a page of John Stuart Mill quotes and featured one. I thought, given, the discussions that have gone on around here the past few days that it deserved a more prominent place.

...it is the absolute social right of every individual, that every other individual shall act in every respect exactly as he ought; that whosoever fails thereof in the smallest particular, violates my social right, and entitles me to demand from the legislature the removal of the grievance.

In physics we like to say there is no preferred frame of reference. You use which ever one makes the problem solving easiest. So we have the center of mass frame. The laboratory frame. And many other frames to help think through problems. Eric puts it really well in the social realm. Here is a paraphrase of his most cogent point.

Either we are all entitled to our grievances or none of us is.

We can either go for a nanny state and pretend evil acts have been prevented or we can live free and assume that evil acts will happen and that those acts that DIRECTLY affect me will be punished if the perpetrator can be found.

There are all kinds of ways lives can be wasted. Some waste their lives making love to their bong. Others waste theirs going to church. Depends on the frame of reference. In the social realm we do have some universal frames of reference. But they are very few. If we stick with those we can avoid most questions about whose grievance is most grievous. A benefit from that would be that grieving because your grievance has not been attended to would be discouraged. Unless you got enough mourners in one room.

BTW yell as loud as you want about your grievance. I don't mind. It is grievance mongering by law that I take exception to. It all starts with "there ought to be a law."

Oh. Yeah. For those of you hoping I was going to discuss kitchen appliances I have:

Grinding Mills

Which, believe it or not includes Lap Dances. I never knew, in this day and age, that it was socially acceptable to include a lap dancer as a kitchen appliance. Ah. Well. I couldn't afford one anyway. The hospital bills would be way too high. And being a victim of justifiable homicide is not my idea of the best way to spend a weekend.