@bankhaunter wrote:
You can have the right to be offended but not the right not to be offended as that suggests others don't have the right to offend you.
I have as much right to not be offended by the actions or words of another as I do have to be offended by them - that is my choice. This right does not impose a duty on another to behave in one way or another.
As with the analogy I made earlier over eating fish and chips - I have the right to make my own decision.
Freedom of choice is a long established social convention and is the ethical core of a free society, to answer Lambsy's question. In general laws and legal conventions restrict those rights to choose in specific cases but there is no law in this country that I am aware of that restricts my right to feel resentful, annoyed, (definition of offended), or indifferent, (i.e. not offended), about the behaviour of others.
