Personal Responsibility - Alien Concept??

[Mytwopenceworth]

Am I alone in this? So many news stories about how the government should ban this and that, how people should be stopped from doing this and that - example, we shouldn't have longer pub opening hours because people will drink more and it will cause trouble. Credit cards should not be allowed because people will get into debt. No gambling because people will develop an addiction.

It seems to me that people need to take responsibility for themselves. People complain about all the ways that they can get into trouble and demand the government 'stops' it yet at the same time, complain about regulation of everything because it is a nanny state. Either we want the government to treat us like children who can't make their own choices, or deal with the fallout of their bad decisions, or we want the government to say you made your bed, you lie in it!

Surely what is needed is information, not regulation. Make damn sure people are well informed about the possible repercussions of their actions - eg credit cards leading to huge debts and then let them make their own choices.

We are adults, not children, why do we want to cry that it was somebody elses fault when we screw up?

I have messed up totally - especially in the financial side of things - I don't blame anyone but myself!

Obviously we need to protect vulnerable members of society from abuse, but imo the rest of the population should face up to their own responsibilities and grow up!! If you screw up you screw up and maybe, just maybe, it is YOUR OWN FAULT!

Sorry for the rant, it just seems like everyone has rights and nobody has responsibilities.

I agree with you, I also hate the compensation culture that we're fast becoming. It seems we can't have accidents any more - everything has to be someone's fault - as long as it's not your own of course.

mtw I see it as controlling us too, we should be all be made accountable for our actions.

Maybe the govt are trying to do these things because somewhere down the years we may be able to sue the arse off them.

It's a good point. It seems we are encouraged these days to look away from ourselves whenever something goes wrong (i.e., it's someone else?s fault) but when things go right it's down to our own strength and ability in spite of the government. It's all too easy and makes fools of us all really. We swallow every bit of marketing rubbish about being worth it when actually, no one wants to work for anything anymore. Rights spring from privilege. It's easy to forget that. If everyone took a moment and imagined a world without politics they might see that it really would be the survival of the fittest and we?d be up shit creek.

its the government system in the uk, you dont have personal responsibility, you have authority instead, telling you how free and lucky you are all the time

To be fair Nightynight, that's the way of the world. We just have a better class of illusion, or maybe we should feel lucky we have the illusion at all. Most of the world doesn't. We all live in a so-called 'false consciousness'.

I disagree mt - france is different from the uk, there is more personal responsibility and less authority.

illusion? its propaganda!

What for, though?

No, you're not alone, MTP. Not at all! It's my ultimate pet peeve b/c I was brought up w/a strong sense of personal responsibility.

I have made A LOT of serious mistakes in life - personal, financial, professional, etc. In fact I'm still paying for some of them. But w/o personal responsibility, I'd never have been able to move on and become someone with real goals, doing it slowly but surely.

Those mistakes were almost all entirely my own damn fault. No one to blame but me.

Now in some areas of my life now, I see people who have made very poor financial decisions - mainly motivated by greed - and are now crying foul. GET OVER IT AND SUCK IT UP! Been there, bought the tshirt.

I agree, nightynight. I saw a lot more personal - and social - responsibility among the French and the Germans as well.

You are a true poet Expat. Benevolent, wise and giving..

that was re: "GET OVER IT AND SUCK IT UP!"

Where's my book of classic quotes..

Hey, mistakes suck. But they're part of life for most folks. If you decide to learn from them.

A lot of people want less government, less interference, but there are things that go w/that.

You can't have it both ways.

I remember learning German from a Swiss German bloke. He asked us what our summer jobs were. One student asked, 'How do you say 'lifeguard' in German?' The instructor was like, 'Huh? Describe this to me.' So the student talked about how he worked on a beach as a lifeguard. The instructor then said, 'Hmm, we do not have this word. You go swimming in ocean, you drown, that your own damn fault.'

mt - I thought you were a full blown disillusioned anti-establishment cynic! to keep the ruling class in power of course

..yes

'You go swimming in ocean, you drown, that your own damn fault.'

That stuck w/me alright!

Ill try that one out on my German colleagues tomorrow

Go for it. That word had him flummoxed when it came to a beach or coast. He thought it was at a pool, but the idea that someone could police something like an ocean front stumped him.

I'm not anti-establishment for the sake of it though Nighty. There must be some establishment, some rules. Idealism is good as a starting point but it can never be an end in itself. Life is too complicated. People forget that the Enlightenment project is only a few hundred years old and that it is still ongoing. That the paradox of all this is we need rules to manage human nature not simply people; exactly that human nature which makes us both benevolent and selfish, that enables us to understand the concept of social responsibility while making us always be aware of where the next bargain is. That's an illusion, somebody pays for that bargain, they're just further down the line than we are and we all tacitly accept this every time we buy into it, literally.

The more of us there are the less there is to go around and whatever monetary system it is that dominates a society or culture, at it's heart is always the same primal battle for resources. Society strikes a very delicate balance. You only need look around the world to see what happens to benign humanity when recourses are short. Politics is vital to the idea of civility but it?s at heart a management system and the people themselves are the resourses. It?s just more explicit now but that?s the way it?s always been and always will be. There is no alternative.

Oh I love that eis, and so will my family!!!

MTP,you are so right.
Nodded all the way through your post.
Went to a PTA meeting last week,and one of the topics for discussion was the state of the school. Part of it needs to be pulled down.There is of course no money for that but there is money to build expensive metal barriers to stop people climbing onto the (flat) roof in case they fall through and sue the council!! These have been erected in all the school yards in this county.

Words fail me......

Now,I'll just go back to the Tory conference if you'll excuse me......

I do agree that there's a lt of hypocrisy on this topic. free free free the markets, but lets ban anything the commoners might like. or something.

My view is that anything that affects the individual only (eg gambling) should be down to personal choice, with age limits. anything that affects others (such as pollution, building homes on floodplains etc) should be regulated.

Arguably smoking and booze licenses fall into a grey area between those two. the argument being that drunken louts will attack passers by if pubs open later, and that pubs are full of non-smokers. Neither is 100% true, so regulation should be done on a case by case basis, and not by blanket ban.

I thought you lot were all in favour of the silly pubs with food no smoking legislation though.

To stop them hurting themselves too, surely? Kids don't have such a nuanced understanding of personal responsibilty so often do swim in the sea and climb on roofs when they shouldn't. Are we saying these they and their families deserve everything they get?

..and moondog, you're absolutely right.

I have long thought that public bodies should be exempt from paying compensation at all, and should instead be made to pay into a central fund that is distributed to make services better. I believe that to be the best way in all cases, but especially in cases where the person suing was injured partly through their own stupidity.

mt - I'm not saying that, no. but i am saying they shouldn't receive massive payouts.

SB,intersting points. Do we allow the proles (said in ironic fashion before I am lynched) to keep on slowly murdering themselves with Diamond White and Sovereign fags or do we need to protect them from themselves???

I have never read a better reasoning of why poor people like (nay need) crap than that found in 'On the Road to Wigan Pier.'

I am on the board of the local Sure Start initiative and at our monthly meetings am either filled with pride and hope or bone crushing despair at the inability of a certain sector of society to pull itself and its progeny out of the mire.