Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should

I’ve gotten into this discussion with people a lot recently.  I keep hearing "I’m within my rights" and "legally I can".  I’ve gotten that with the names being required on post housing.  I’ve heard that to people who are doing unethical things to their significant others during their divorce.  I’ve heard it time and time again to justify the mistreatment or invasion of privacy of people everywhere.  Even The Patriot Act when that whole thing came up was defended with "legally they can do that".  It seems like legal justification is enough to do anything these days.  However, no one stops to think about the line between "can" and "should".

The biggest one I’ve gotten recently is with the military housing thing.  Half the people I know seem to think I’m right to be outraged.  Yes, the military can invade my privacy.  However, just because they are legally able to take away the privacy of the soldiers and their families doesn’t mean they should.

My choice to live on post came from affordable housing.  If the military wanted to make that one fair, they’d determine BAH based on the number of dependents, NOT on whether or not the soldier was married.  After all, the same house off-post would be unaffordable for my family.  There wasn’t really an option when we got here.  We had to find somewhere we could afford to live, and living on post was the responsible financial decision.  If the financial decision wasn’t a part of it, I think I would have made a much different decision.  Then again, at that point, it wouldn’t have made a difference.  Name plates weren’t required and the security of living on post made me feel safer, especially given I’d be spending a lot of time living alone with two young children.  When I made that choice, the whole issue of required name plates on housing wasn’t an issue.

However, the military should have no problems finding a soldier’s home.  If they’re living on-post they have paperwork in their file that states where they live, as well as orders to move into that location.  There should be plenty of reference to where the soldier’s residence is.  There should be no need to post a name-plate on the house to make the soldier easy to find because his information is all stated in his file.  His unit and housing both should be able to access it within a few moments, and they can!  So why would they need these names?

In truth, it’s not "in case of emergency" that’s causing these things to come in line.  From what I’ve noticed recently, a lot of the problem comes from people not paying attention to where they’re going.  I had an MP come to my door to check my house because the resident was supposedly on vacation.  He asked the name (which I didn’t recognize), and it turns out he had the wrong unit number written down.  He wasn’t even looking for a house on my street!  All he had was the house number and unit number.  This stuff happens all the time.  Soldiers write down half the information and show up at the wrong person’s door because they’re too careless to make sure they’ve got the information right the first time.  The MPs have never made that mistake!  Housing has never made that mistake!  From what I’ve heard, none of the emergency crews have made that mistake, so apparently it’s all down to errors made by careless people.  I don’t think that’s a valid reason why I should lose my right to privacy.

I could understand if it was an issue of emergency crews.  I could understand if housing or the unit didn’t have accurate files or there were consistant problems with housing coming up with the wrong address.  I could even understand if it were an issue where soldiers needed to be found in an emergency and no one could find them because their housing information wasn’t updated.  That happens all the time!  However, it happens all the time off-post, so I think that’s a bit irrelevant.

Again, this is a case of "just because the Army CAN do something doesn’t mean it should."

Then there’s friends who are getting divorced.  I had a friend who was talking about gifting away all her property before the divorce happened, to people who would gift it back afterwards.  Why?  "My husband was talking shit about me and I deserve it!  I’m within my rights to do that!  It’s all legal!"  Just because it is legal doesn’t mean it’s right.  When it comes to divorce, the courts try to be fair.  You don’t exactly see me hiding things from my husband when the divorce goes through.  I’m being open and honest about it.  We’re going to work this through.  If the court decides he’s within his right to take things that are rightfully mine, yes, I’ll be pissed, but what can I do.  Fair is fair.  While I might think it’s unfair, I’m involved in the situation.  I’m invested in it.  My view of fair is therefore going to be squewed in my favor.  That’s why there are courts and arbitrary judgment.

What about the woman I know who said she was going to take her husband for everything he was worth?  She had evidence that her husband was cheating on her with another woman.  She was going to claim the divorce was his fault because he had cheated on her so she could get a bigger share of everything they had.  Legally she was within her rights to do this.  In this state adultry is reason for the wife to be granted a larger share of the goods aquired during marraige.  Of course, none of that would have mattered because she was cheating on her husband too.  The only difference was her lack of evidence.  If her husband could have found proof that she had cheated on him, it all would have been thrown out because they would both have valid, equal points.  Instead, she covered her tracks better than he did and decided to use him for everything he was worth, just because she could.

I have to wonder how it would go over if I had my own land and spent all day on the front porch with a shotgun, waiting for someone to enter my property and disobey the "NO TRESSPASSING" sign.  Legally I would have the right to shoot that person for unlawfully entering my property.  How many people would I have to shoot before the state changed that law?  How long would it take before someone realized that just because I CAN do that doesn’t mean I should?

Around here, cheating runs rampant too.  I’ve known more wives that are jealous because my husband isn’t pitching a fit over my boyfriend.  Why?  I talked to my husband BEFORE I got involved with a boyfriend and told him what was happening.  Technically my husband had little right to care.  He and I ar

e getting divorced.  We had only decided to sit on the paperwork because it’s mutually beneficial to do so.  However, many of these wives are upset because they were sneaking around behind their husband’s back and have caught hell for it.  One of them her husband became an alcoholic and started beating her for it.  One husband took off and abandoned his family because he couldn’t deal with his lying, cheating wife another day.  Was it right for those women to go behind their husband’s backs and find someone else while trying to maintain a military income from their husband?  I’ve heard in one case "Why would I tell him?  I’m getting a good paycheck out of this and he doesn’t need to know a thing!"  You could tell when her husband was away because her boyfriend would be over there all the time.

And what about the husband that got drunk and beat his wife because she was cheating on him.  Could he do it?  Legally, no.  However, mentally, yes he could, and it made him feel a lot better about the whole thing.  Again, just because he COULD do it doesn’t mean it was the right thing to do.  It doesn’t make it justifyable because it made him feel better.

From legal policy to personal interactions, there’s a lot of cases of people or organizations being legally within their rights to do things that in the end aren’t so moral or fair to the people effected by them.  In many of these cases the end result doesn’t truly help the people who are effected by it.  Ideas that are meant to be beneficial get abused or used for the wrong reasons.  Does that make the ideal or the law wrong?  Or does that mean the people who abuse the systems set in place to improve the quality of life of those involved in these situations need to be severly punished?

Just because I choose to live in a situation where these policies effect me, does that mean I have no right to voice my opinion of them?  Do I have no right to point out potential flaws in the system so they can be dealt with?  Does that mean I just have to "suck it up" and deal with it?  Personally, I don’t think that’s any better than enforcing unjust rules in the first place, or allowing situations that aren’t truly beneficial or helpful to those involved to happen.

When it comes to the name plate thing, I don’t care whether or not the restriction is changed.  I could honestly care less whether I’m required to display a name on my house.  I just want to know that I’m going to be safe with my personal information emblazoned on my home.  I want to make sure that my personal information cannot somehow be accessed because someone may be able to get ahold of my name and address.  I want to make sure that there are precautions taken to protect families so soldiers with grudges can’t harm the occupants of the home.  I want to know that my family is safe with these policies in place. If they could prove to me that my safety and privacy are still being protected, I would never utter another peep about the whole thing.  After all, it’s just a name.  However, until that day I feel that I have the right to speak for myself and share how I feel.  Perhaps these are things they hadn’t thought of.  Perhaps these things have been considered and there are already measures in place.  Maybe they just don’t care about the safety of the families (in which case you bet I’m moving off post as fast as I can…), and that would be a truly sad thing.  However, I have my right to my opinions and being told to move or deal does not resolve the problem, especially if more families than my own are at risk.  Yes, I CAN just move away and think nothing of the other families who may choose by circumstance, need, or thought out decision to live on post.  However, I SHOULD do my part, voice my opinion, and make sure I’m doing everything I can to ensure the safety of not only my own family and any other family who may life in housing at this post.

As for the people I know who are trying to use their significant others, take them for everything they’re worth in divorce, or anything else, I don’t plan to leave that be either.  If I have evidence (hard evidence, more than hearsay), I’ll bring it to the person in question.  After all, why should one side play with all the advantages when they’re clearly just trying to use someone else to make their own lives easier.

In the end, it’s not a question of whether it effects me.  It’s not a question of whether or not I choose to move away from or otherwise uninvolve myself from the situation.  The question is "What is the morally right thing to do?"  If only more people would consider what is right and not what is the easy way out.

~*~Raven Night~*~