Personal Responsibility

Moral insanity is mania without hallucination. Sufferers maintain their intellectual capacity but become carried away by emotions or moral dispositions, so much so that facts or reality fail to impact them.

Today we have a group of people on one side of the political landscape that are able to lump and blame all poor people, all unemployed, all disabled, everyone on welfare, and anyone that has had anything bad happen to them into the sub category of those who have failed the personal responsibility test.

This test has no questions but does put you in a category of pass or fail depending upon your economic status. Rich is pass, poor or unemployed is fail. It doesn't matter that you may have been born into wealth or came about it illegally, if you are rich you've passed.

Being poor means you have failed the personal responsibility test even if you have worked your entire life and are now unemployed because your factory shut down or your industry has ground to a halt.

Unemployed means you have failed the personal responsibility test even if you have sent out hundreds of resume's, been to umpteen job interviews along with hundreds of other people and are still on unemployment and can't find a job. Collecting unemployment checks even though you have payed into the system for this very reason to insure you against job loss is still failing the test.

The personal responsibility test never takes into account cause and effect. Never acknowledges that many things are beyond your control, like who your parents were, where you were born and how you were raised. Like the factory you have worked for your entire life that shuts down and sends the jobs overseas putting hundreds out of work. Like the company bailing on the pension plans and health care pay outs...or firing you two years before you reach retirement age for some bogus reason. That's your fault you know, you weren't personally responsible.

Failing the test means those who lost all their hard earned money in pension plans and may need welfare to help out in their old age because they were wiped out they weren't personally responsible. Failing the test means that even though you have planned and saved for old age, have health insurance but have to go on Medicaid after selling your home and depleting all your retirement savings when your wife suffered a type of cancer the insurance company wouldn't pay for. You've failed and deserve what happened to you, you weren't personally responsible.  But the people that sold you the insurance policy that doesn't cover your specific disease aren't complicit.

The conservatives defend the view that the rich are moral but the poor or even middle class that are losing homes and jobs and haven't been able to pull them selves out are somehow lacking in personal responsibility and a strong moral fiber.

The personal responsibility test fails to look at that most important segment of society that is causing millions to lose their homes and jobs; that caused the economy to tank by risking other peoples money and then having the taxpayers bail them out, what happened to their personal responsibility, why aren't they held accountable? Why do they get a pass? Its because we passed laws that say corporations are not people when it comes to accountability but they are when they want to finance politics, meaning they write the laws.

Private success and personal freedom depend upon the government protecting all of us equally and that is not happening today. Today it is more about self interest, the ethics of greed and profit as opposed to a market that works for all of us.

The reason that people that put us in this bind are not being prosecuted by our government is because it is too hard. They have too much power and money and can fight for years in court to avoid convictions. But the little guy, that guy that has failed the personal responsibility test he can't even get a hearing to avoid being thrown out of his house.

The hard working taxpayers, the 99% that bailed out the banks and financial institutions don't want corporations controlling their lives more than government. We the People had no control over any of the decisions made in 2008. Corporations govern our lives for their profit not for the nation, those that got bailed out and borrowed that 7.7 Trillion we are only just learning about, they made 13 billion off us...how much did you make? But that shouldn't be the question, it should be how much did you lose? They will send us into oblivion if it means they can make money.

Shouldn't we all be asking why they aren't paying their fair share for the massive amount of tax dollars that 99% of us have spent building the infrastructure they use daily, for the massive amount we have loaned them at rates we will never enjoy?

When we talk about personal responsibility expand that meaning to include those that have caused others to suffer. That have made money off our tax dollars and still want to contribute less and less to the maintenance of this nation.

A robust public is necessary for private success. Corporations have used the government and our tax dollars to their advantage but they don't want you to understand that. We want a Market for All not a Greed Market. When you think about personal responsibility think about how it applies to the wealthy and corporations too, not just the poor and down trodden. Think about cause and effect.

And PS:

When you support busting unions, you support lower wages, longer work hours, and no health insurance or pensions. You support the destruction of the middle class and people moving into poverty. When you support lower taxes for the wealthiest of us you defend the view that the wealthy deserve the power to control you. You support the failure to pass the personal responsibility test. The wealthy and corporations don't care about you, they care about their bottom line, and they sure as hell will use you to vote in their favor.

Corporations and the wealthy need to contribute more, they don't get off using the government for their purposes and to our detriment, that is not what we are about as a nation. Its time to ante up.