Christopher
Active Member
- Aug 7, 2009
- 569
- 75
- 28
I posted something similar to this in another forum and wanted to see others thoughts on this. Over the last decade I have noticed a pattern from the government (which I believe has been occurring for much longer) that involves the increase in the number of policies which remove ones individual responsibility. I think that at least part of the causes of this are from cases where the government was sued or took heat of some kind for something that was previously beyond the jurisdiction or control of the government. One example I have seen was regarding an incident at an amusement ride. Two operators were injured as a result of their negligence in not following proper safety precautions. One of the operators parents threatened to sue the State, so the State shut the ride down, even though the State clearly knew it was not the fault of the owner of the ride and was the fault of the two operators. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what I have seen.
There are many policies the government has implemented that take away individual responsibility and therefore take away individual freedom, the bail outs for one. In a way, when someone sues the government or wants a bail out from the government they are saying please control our lives more and the government when they accept is in turn saying OK, you are not responsible for your poor choices, we will take that on, it is really our responsibility. The precedence is then set and gradually more responsibilities are removed from the individual and passed to the government.
I find this a very sad progression of government policies and this only increases the governments involvement in our lives. Who really wants that? The government seems to be continually hounded by someone or some group wanting them to also take away their responsibility. People then begin to rely on the government more and more to bail them out and save themselves from the consequences of their poor choices. Since these people did not suffer consequences, they did not really learn from their poor choices and they tend to make mistakes over and over while always expecting to be bailed out. What many sadly do not realize is that we are gradually losing our freedoms from this process.
Before anyone begins discussing what about the people that did not make poor choices, and they are just down on their luck, or they were taken advantage of? This is another problem with many of the political leaders we have today. They use the exceptions to the rule to justify their social policies and give them more power over our lives. One quote that typifies this is from Bill Clinton in 1999: I can spend your money better than you can. What this shows is that the government is portraying themselves as more responsible than the public, and I would add that it is because we the people have asked them to do so.
We should make rules that deal justly and fairly with the exceptions, we should however, never make exceptions THE governing rule. The more we not only let the government proceed in the direction it is headed, but beg them to take more control over our lives, the less freedoms we will continue to have. My question is, when will more people begin to realize this so that real change can happen?
There are many policies the government has implemented that take away individual responsibility and therefore take away individual freedom, the bail outs for one. In a way, when someone sues the government or wants a bail out from the government they are saying please control our lives more and the government when they accept is in turn saying OK, you are not responsible for your poor choices, we will take that on, it is really our responsibility. The precedence is then set and gradually more responsibilities are removed from the individual and passed to the government.
I find this a very sad progression of government policies and this only increases the governments involvement in our lives. Who really wants that? The government seems to be continually hounded by someone or some group wanting them to also take away their responsibility. People then begin to rely on the government more and more to bail them out and save themselves from the consequences of their poor choices. Since these people did not suffer consequences, they did not really learn from their poor choices and they tend to make mistakes over and over while always expecting to be bailed out. What many sadly do not realize is that we are gradually losing our freedoms from this process.
Before anyone begins discussing what about the people that did not make poor choices, and they are just down on their luck, or they were taken advantage of? This is another problem with many of the political leaders we have today. They use the exceptions to the rule to justify their social policies and give them more power over our lives. One quote that typifies this is from Bill Clinton in 1999: I can spend your money better than you can. What this shows is that the government is portraying themselves as more responsible than the public, and I would add that it is because we the people have asked them to do so.
We should make rules that deal justly and fairly with the exceptions, we should however, never make exceptions THE governing rule. The more we not only let the government proceed in the direction it is headed, but beg them to take more control over our lives, the less freedoms we will continue to have. My question is, when will more people begin to realize this so that real change can happen?