Personal Responsibility

There I was blathering on to a friend about taking personal responsibility for all the bothersome things we’ve done to the planet when I read about the Contract With America. This was a document released by the Republican Party of the United States during the 1994 Congressional election campaign – including a section called The Personal Responsibility Act

An act to cut spending for welfare programs by means of discouraging illegitimacy and teen pregnancy. This would be achieved by prohibiting welfare to mothers under 18 years of age, denying increased support for additional children while on welfare, and enacting a ‘two-years-and-out’ provision with work requirements to promote individual responsibility.

Calling this Personal Responsibility is like saying a gun promotes peace. Yes, but at what cost? And now – if anyone reads my blog, which is debatable in the first place – people may assume that my tagline means I’m all for this sort of knee-jerk, right-wing malarkey.

This is how we erode our innate sense of right and wrong, our will to community and humanity. The Nanny State tells us what we should do, instead of empowering us to make the right decisions ourselves.

When a child learns to take personal responsibility it is usually as a result of learning by making a mistake. So to punish those who make a mistake ensures they will not learn from it, but instead will feel aggrieved at those who punish him/her. Anyone with a grievance is dangerous to society as it turns their will to help and co-operate into an overwhelming sense of self-preservation ie it makes conservatives out of socialists! Self-fulfilling prophecy, anyone?

So now I’m right pissed off with the state of things, since where America leads, so much of the English speaking world seems to follow. But I want to take a stand – and I’m sure many free-thinking Americans want the same. So although the Contract With America may have had limited affect, possibly increasing the majority of Republicans in the Senate in 1994, I am determined to re-claim the concept of Personal Responsibility, and turn it into a meaningful statement 2007 style.

Singular Cake – take one slice, you greedy fascists! Stop killing in the name of state or country or Capitalist dogma, and learn to control your goddamn rage….er, like me.