While discussing the 300 individuals who got arbitrarily excluded from the airdrop, a frequent reply is that those individuals are not entitled to the airdrop. The retort generally ends up, stopping the conversation, people either agree, disagree, or do not comprehend the argument.
I was in the latter category for a while until I put some further thought into the matter. When someone asserts that a HIVE account is not entitled to an airdrop, the statement implies that those who received the airdrop are either entitled or privileged. Perhaps this is me, checking my privilege.
So what exactly is an entitlement anyhow? According to Wikipedia, entitlement's are provisions made according to the legal framework of society and based on concepts of principles (or rights), which are themselves based on concepts of social equality or enfranchisement.
If entitlements gravitate around the concept of principles (or rights), which get based on social equality or enfranchisement, that means that if we exclude a group of people based upon an activity that they had every right to perform (voting), then we are running our airdrop entitlement program in a way that not only discriminates but also disenfranchises.
In addition to the above, if we start to examine the political speech of HIVE accounts to reverse the discrimination, then, to be quite frank, it's no different than what JS is doing on Steem when people talk about him or promote HIVE. It is, in effect, a continuation of the censorship of stake based on whether or not individuals are engaged in "wrongspeak."
We cannot choose to REE when he does something out of character with regards to governance and then carry-on with similar activity on HIVE. If we want a better system, we should start with our best foot forward.
Is HIVE a public token with a freedom-oriented system of governance, or is it a private club that dictates how people can speak or who they can vote for? In the age of COVID-19(84), we're living in tenuous times, online and off. If we don't realize when the government (or systems of governance) trample upon people's most basic rights, then we will lose them forever.
The spirit of this post is embeded in this song.
The image above is brought to you courtesy of Pixabay.