entitlement

But the issue has to do with land, which is our land (Bashar Al-Assad)

Embedded in the word "entitled" is a sense of being able to possess or claim something as mine. Its roots are in the word "title" which means of course the name of a thing, or a right to property.

Originally, it had a positive connotation, invoked as a means of pushing back on a repressive regime, person or condition trying to remove something belonging to someone else. In this spirit, the declaration of human rights proclaims as "inalienable" things which cannot or should not be taken away. 

These days, "a sense of entitlement" has a more negative connotation, claiming for myself things to which I have no right at all. It has come to be associated with spoiled brats and bullies whose scope of privilege far exceeds their basic human rights.

It's a touchy issue.

For example, I may have a right to dignity, but am I entitled to respect? I may have a right to freedom of expression, but am I entitled to be heard? I may have a right to be whomever I want, but am I entitled to be seen that way?   

The recognition of human rights has enabled women, children, minority and indigenous peoples to enjoy freedoms of which they had once been brutally and casually dispossessed. There has been a beautiful shift in perspective, not because it has expanded the breadth of personal entitlement, but because it has limited it. We have identified as "violence" the act of forcing someone to relinquish basic freedom, and acknowledged as "wrong" privileges once claimed at the expense of someone else. 

Entitlement is not about where my rights begin, but about where they end. We need to remember that if we do not want the exercise of rights to blur the line between my freedom and yours.