“We have met the enemy and they is us.”

As she talks about the controversy of abortion and how the two sides are deadlocked, both fighting for their rights, pro-life side are claiming right to life and pro-choice are standing on the woman’s right to privacy. Neither side is moving nor is much progress being made with respect finding common ground, because as she points out it is an “all-or-nothing contest.”(64).

She states, “The exceptional solitariness of the American rights-bearer is but one aspect of the hyper individualism that pervades our American rights dialect.” The way our laws and rights are set up and given to us, is one of the biggest reasons why political discourse is impoverished. Duty in our laws is nearly obsolete. I found it interesting that when she asked the question of “Should there be a legal duty to come to the aid of another in peril?” and she gave the incident of the Olympic swimmer and the two year old, then talked about first year law students who were challenged to come up with a theory, only to be taught that there was nowhere in our legal system to impose such a duty. And that the only way to impose a duty is to tie it to a special relationship from one individual to another or link a responsibility to one individual.

One of the most interesting points she made was when she was talking about how other countries have used our constitution as an example to create theirs, and have successfully added in a duty concept amongst the citizens. While Americans lack the concept of duty and grasp the rights as absolute.

Finally, she talks about family structures and social institutions. “Like Property, Family has now become a pigeonhole into which lawyers try to fit all sorts of relationships even as the category itself is crumbling.”(124) perhaps this is one contributing factor to rising deficient family life. She makes the point about how healthy families enable individuals to reach their full potential, the debate then is what a healthy family consists of and how to go about creating and promoting healthy families, both the right and left have different views on family structure. The Kauai project was also very interesting.

One thing I do disagree with however and im not sure if she is supporting this or not, maybe just stating a theory, is “The current generation might be no more or less self-centered or politically apathetic than their parents once were.”(128) I would say in our day and age, with the family structure breaking down, the increasing influence the media has on the young and old alike, and the young growing up in an age where the proliferation of rights movement is in full throttle, this generation is more self-centered and less politically engaged than any previous generation.