Respect and Obedience

With all the interaction between governments, law enforcement and civilians lately, we all see many comments, blog posts, news articles and even speeches. In all these, I keep seeing the word ‘respect’ when from context what I think they mean is ‘obey’. It is as if everyone is to read between the lines and in their mind substitute ‘obey’ for the word ‘respect’ because the former sounds negative. I wish in these and other circumstances people would say exactly what they mean. Personally, it becomes much more difficult for me to respect you when you do not say what you mean.

I am not an expert on the English language but notice the complete difference in definitions. According to Google:

Respect and obedience are completely independent to me and they always have been for as long as I can remember. Your position or status doesn’t change this in my mind nor in my actions. I can respect you, but choose to not obey you. I can also obey you, but have absolutely no respect for you. To me obedience is a choice. It is a choice I make based on circumstance, context and my beliefs and value system. Respect is something that you earn from me again based on my value system.

Respect and obedience are very different.