The idea of the sanctity of a person's right to drink - as discussed a bit in the 20 February class - struck me as a rather interesting area in which to attach so much significance. In that week's reading, we had seen how homes and businesses had been destroyed by governments - absent compensation or reimbursement - without causing a huge public stir. But the notion of depriving a person of his or her right to drink seemed to rise to a much higher level of affront and personal contentiousness. Are we now seeing the same level of contentiousness and individual resistance in the ongoing matters of gun control? Does a woman's "right" to abortion rise to a similar level? Did civil rights protests and Vietnam demonstrations - and the recognition of the liberties they sought - generate the same degree of widespread majoritarian emotionalism?
What might be some of the other liberties that American citizens have found critical, personal, and worthy of emotional individual defense? Why do they attach so strongly to one issue - like the right to drink - and less so to others? What causes one issue to take on a plain "near and dear" identity whereas another issue - which on its surface may appear to rise to a similar level of individual significance - causes hardly a public stir?
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