"Aha!" said Whitlaw, pushing back his white hair and advancing on the unfortunate student. "But now you're infringing on my rights when you say I can't build my own A-bombs."

"Sir, you're being ridiculous now. Everybody knows you can't build an A-bomb in your back yard."

"Oh? I don't know that. In fact, I could build one if I had access to the materials and enough time and money. The,principles are well known. You're just betting that I don't have the determination to carry it through."

"Uh-all right. But even if you did, the rights of the individual still have to be weighed against the safety of the general public."

"How's that again? Are you telling me that one person's rights are more important than another's?"

"No, I-"

"Sure sounded like it to me. You said my rights have to be weighed against everyone else's. I want to know how you're going to determine them. Remember, all of us are supposed to be equal before the law. And what are you going to do if I don't think your method is fair? How are you going to enforce your decision?" Whitlaw eyed the boy carefully. "Try this one-it's more likely: I'm a plague victim. I want to get to a hospital for treatment, but if I even approach your city, you're going to start shooting at me. I claim that my right to medical care guarantees me entrance to that hospital, but you claim that your right to be free of contamination gives you license to kill. Whose rights are being infringed upon the most?"

"That's not a fair example!"

"Huh? Why not? It's happening in South Africa right nowand I don't care what the South African government says about it, we're talking about rights. Why isn't this a fair example? It's your definition. Sounds to me like there's something wrong with your definition of freedom." Whitlaw eyed the uncomfortable boy. "Hm?"

The boy shook his head. He gave up.

"So, let me give you a hint." Whitlaw turned to the rest of us again. "Freedom is not about what you want. That doesn't mean you can't have what you want-you probably can. But I want you to recognize that going for the goodies is just going for the goodies, nothing else. It has very little to do with freedom." He sat down on the edge of the desk again and looked around. "Anyone have another?"

Silence. Embarrassed silence. Then, a voice: "Responsibility."

"Eh? Who said that?"

"I did." A Chinese boy in the back of the room.

"Who's that? Stand up there. Let the rest of the class see what a genius looks like. What's your name, son?"

"Chen. Louis Chen."

"All right, Louis. Repeat your definition of freedom for the rest of these louts."

"Freedom means being responsible for your own actions."

"Right. You have your A for the day. You can relax-no, you can't; tell me what it means."

"It means you can build your A-bombs, sir, but if you aren't taking proper precautions, then the government, acting on behalf of the people, has the right to take action to guarantee that you do, or shut you down if you don't."

"Yes-and no. Now we have something else to define. Rights. Sit down, Louis. Give someone else a turn. Let's see some hands." Another boy in the back. " `Rights: that which is due a party by just claim, legal guarantee, or moral principle.' "

"Hm," said Whitlaw. "You surprise me-that's correct. Now close the book and tell me what it means. In your own words."

"Uh . . ." The fellow faltered. "That which is rightfully yours. The right of ... the right to ... I mean, it's what you're entitled to...... He became flustered and trailed off.

Whitlaw looked at him with a jaundiced expression. "First of all, you can't use a concept to define itself. And secondly, nothing is rightfully anyone's. We've already covered that one, remember? There's no such thing as ownership; there's only control. Ownership is just a temporary illusion, so how can there be any such thing as rights? You might as well insist that the universe owes you a living." Whitlaw grinned abruptly. "As a matter of fact, it does-but it's a lifetime job to collect."

He resumed his machine-gun attack. "Look, I'm going to make this easy for you. All that stuff that we call rights-that's just a lot of stuff that politicians say because it sounds good, so people will vote for them. They're actually ripping you off because they're confusing the issue, putting a lot of stuff in the way between you and the source of it all. So I want you to forget for a moment all of that stuff that you believe about rights. Because the truth is, it doesn't work. In fact, you can even forget about rights in the plural sense. There's only one right-and it isn't even a right in the traditional meaning of the word at all."

He was in the center of the room. He turned slowly around, meeting the eyes of all of us as he spoke. "The defining condition of adulthood is responsibility. So what's the one thing you need to experience that responsibility? It's so simple you won't get it -it's the opportunity. " He paused a moment to let it sink in, then repeated, "The opportunity to be responsible for yourself. That's it. If you're denied that one, then you're not free, and all of the other so-called rights are redundant. Rights are opportunitiesthat's the definition. And opportunity demands responsibility."

A hand went up. "What about people who can't take care of themselves?"

"You're talking about the insane and the immature. That's why we have keepers and parents-to watch out for them, to clean up their messes and paddle their behinds and teach them not to make any more messes-and not turn them loose upon the world until they learn. Part of the responsibility of adulthood is seeing that others also have the opportunity to reach adulthood and be responsible for themselves too. Mentally as well as physically."

"But that's the government's job-"

"What? Somebody call the asylum-one of the lunatics is loose. Surely you don't mean that, son."

The boy looked stubborn. "Yes, I do."

"Mm; okay," said Whitlaw. "Justify yourself."

"It's the government's responsibility," he said. "By your definition."

"Eh? No, I said it's the people's responsibility."

"The government is the people."

"It is? Not the last time I looked-according to the book, the government is the representative of the people."

"That's not fair, sir-you wrote the book."

"I did?" Whitlaw looked at the text in his hand. "Hm, so I did. All right, point for your side. You caught me begging the question."

The boy looked smug.

"-But you're still wrong. No, you're only half wrong. The purpose of a government-the only justifiable reason for its existence-is to act on behalf of the member population in a delegated area of specific responsibility. Now, what's a `delegated area of specific responsibility'?" Whitlaw didn't wait for someone to guess at it-he bulldozed on. "It works out to be anything that enough people are committed to-whether it's right or wrong. Get this! A government, acting on behalf of the member population-and in their name-will do whatever it is delegated to do, regardless of any defined morality in the matter. If you want proof, read a good history book." He plucked one off his desk. "A good history book is one that tells you what happened. Period. Forget the ones that explain history to you-they're ripping you off of the opportunity to see the whole picture."

He sat down on the edge of his desk again. "Listen, the government does what you want it to. If you say that you don't make a difference, you're guaranteeing that you won't. The fact of the matter is that anyone who is committed enough to enroll other people into the same commitment will make a difference. I want you to know that it does not take a majority. Some of the games that specific segments of this nation's population have enrolled the rest of us into include an extensive military organization, a space exploration agency, an interstate highway system, a postal service, a pollution control agency, an economic management bureau, a national education standard, a medical insurance service, a national pension plan, a labor management bureau and even a vast and complicated system of taxation so that each of us can pay for his or her fair share of those services-whether we wanted them or not in the first place."