The Right to Not

At a time when freedoms are under siege and high ground to defend them is hard to find, when “it’s my Constitutional right to…” or “it’s my God-given right to” or “I’m entitled to…” dominates the public conversation, there’s another right.The right to — not.

No one’s declared war on silence.

Not every statement requires a rebuttal, and not every comment is a value judgment. We’re not bulls in a ring, compelled to charge every red cape. Nobody’s twisting our arm, demanding our opinion or complicity. If we have an opinion, we have the right to voice it — or not voice it.

We can be the rock in the stream that lets water flow by, not the salmon fighting the current. The salmon’s fight to its spawning grounds is righteous because the stakes are survival of its species. Your stakes are likely to be much lower. You can stand down. Unless lives DO depend on it. Unless this is a fight YOU want.

When we are judged for our age, our youth, our weight, our race, our intelligence, our education or lack of it, our very selves, we can take that in as a gentle breeze or we can choose to let it grab us, spin us, or tornado us into another county. We have a right to our uniqueness; we don’t have to defend it.

When challenged, we have the right to not be provoked. Dogs know this instinctively.

Our dog Jessie and her sisters Zena and Maggie, have, with time, each figured out her own place in the hierarchy. They also understand the rules of engagement as most adult dogs intuitively do; although, as with any species, their abilities improve with age and practice.

Ask any human teenager who’s ever misread a situation and paid the price.

Eight-pound Jessie is our alpha; she’s owned that job ever since Beggs, our first Beagle, died in 2013. Nothing got by Beggs. Jessie was Beggs’ apprentice, so nothing gets by Jessie.

Maggie, a young whippersnapper, is still learning. It goes like this:

JESSIE, on high ground on the back of the sofa, eyes hard: I’m the boss of all of you and you’d better not forget it.

ZENA, on the floor, avoiding eye contact: ‘kay.

JESSIE, ominously, to Maggie: You therrre, rrrunt. What’rrre you looking at?

MAGGIE, staring up at Jessie from the floor: Play with me! I wanna play!

JESSIE, staring back, curling lip: I’m warrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrning you!

MAGGIE, still making eye contact: But I want to play! Pleeeeeese?

JESSIE, dive-bombing Kamikaze-style at Maggie: How DARRRRRRRRRE you! Die, RRRRRRRRRRRRUNT! DIE!

BARBARA, breaks up fight, rubs hand where tiny teeth landed. Ow.

237 identical events later:

JESSIE, on high ground on the back of the sofa, eyes hard: I’m the boss of all of you and you’d better not forget it!

ZENA, on the floor, avoiding eye contact: ‘kay.

MAGGIE, on the floor, avoiding eye contact: ‘kay.

As beings of free will, we’re granted daily opportunities to engage or disengage. Unless this is your chosen hill to die on, you can stand down.

Sometimes, the best retort is none.

An earlier version of this article was originally published by the author at grainofinfinity.com on February 12, 2018.