The Order of Superior Entitlement

Back in the early 90s, as Northern Orangemen flexed their marching muscles determined to stride down Garvaghy Road, one often heard argument supporting their invasion of a Catholic housing estate was their self-proclaimed ‘entitlement to walk the Queen’s highway’. Quaint and anachronistic though the phrase, “the Queen’s highway” is, it was in the assertion of entitlement that the Orange Order demonstrated their belief that they were superior to their Catholic neighbours.

Of late, there has been no shortage in Ireland of arrogant, self- obsessed egotists promoting their over-riding indulgences. Despite their numbers, entitlement proclaimers are universally identifiable by an unfailing belief in their own superiority, breath-taking arrogance, contempt for the lower orders, in particular those who would question them and are unshakeable in their self- righteousness.

An example is one, Mr Rody Molloy, profligate extraordinaire of Fas who declared on the Pat Kenny show that he was entitled to fly first class anywhere in the world by virtue of the fact that he was Rody Molloy and CEO of Fas. RTE listeners took a deep intake of breath. Unfettered access to first class air travel and other expensive perks were, Mr Molloy felt, his due. His irascibility at Kenny’s questioning of his expenses, proved the extent to which Molloy felt that his own sense of inflated status should exempt him from any calling to account.

For outstanding chutzpah (Real Player required), it would have to be Mr Sean Fitzpatrick, who felt entitled as a captain of finance and industry and board director with Anglo-Irish Bank, to provide himself with an 87 million euro loan from said bank without any need to divulge his activity to the bank’s shareholders. His fellow board members appear to have agreed with him, dazzled no doubt by his overpowering aura of superiority.

More recently, when Beverly Flynn, fleecer of the public purse, claimed that she too was ‘entitled’ to an independent TD’s allowance in addition to her allowance as an FF TD, her pronouncement was made in a well- that’s- all- there- is- to- it- so –there tone. Entitlement it would seem requires no further explanation or clarification. Entitlement presumes that those who have it, declare it and flaunt it are beyond the reach of such mundanities as ethics or fiscal restraints.

But entitlement in the hands of true masters can excuse more than lining one’s own pockets or screwing the taxpayer, it can even justify the slaughter of innocents. The entitlement to defend one’s self as pronounced by Israel would appear to be the only reply it needs to defend the destruction of the Gaza Strip and the extermination of any of its population who get in the way. And unfortunately, they do tend to get in the way, given that there are so many of them and they are kind of, well, penned in.

Belief in one’s own superiority is essential to the understanding of entitlement. Those who are superior to others have entitlements, those who are vulnerable, dispossessed and discriminated against have rights but in the entitled world, entitlements trump rights, trump ethics, trump international laws, trump truth, trump life, trump everything.