Sorry, but you are not entitled to your opinion

Type “I am entitled to my opinion” into a Google search and you will see that it is a standard riposte of the frustrated debater, on topics as diverse as politics, religion, music and football.The idea that everyone is entitled to his opinion is one of those truisms so often repeated that it now goes without saying. Like many truisms, however, it is false. The entitlement would be relevant only if it guaranteed the truth of your opinions. But it can’t do that, because it is an entitlement supposedly enjoyed by everybody. And people disagree. Jack and Jill are both entitled to their contradictory opinions about trade and poverty, but they can’t both be right. So insisting that you are entitled to your opinion cannot possibly give you any proper advantage in a debate. Especially since there is no such entitlement in the first place. We do not have a right to our own opinions. Stornoway - Zorbing.

The law gives us all a right to life. Your right to life means that everyone else has a duty not to kill you. This is not something that the Government may or may not decide to associate with your right to life; it is that right. A law that did not impose on others a duty not to kill you would thereby fail to establish your right to life. Does your right to life mean that others have a duty to feed you, to house you, to provide you with medical care? These are hotly debated questions, but no one doubts that the answers to these questions about others’ duties are what define and delimit the right to life.

Does your right to your opinion oblige me to agree with you? No, that would make the duty impossible to perform. For I too have a right to my opinion, which you must respect. If we disagree, I must change my opinion to yours, and you must change yours to mine. But then we disagree again, and must change our opinions again. And so on forever, never managing to do our impossible duty. It is just that on some topics, many people are not really interested in believing the truth. They might prefer it if their opinion turned out to be true — that would be the icing on the cake — but truth is not too important. And to register this, to make it clear that truth is neither here nor there, they declare: “I am entitled to my opinion.” Once you hear these words, you should realise that it is simple rudeness to persist with the matter. You may be interested in whether or not their opinion is true but take the hint, they aren’t. Source: Jamie Whyte