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.

oh dd is fine moondog - I'm getting slowly pissed on brandy bought with state handouts and considering giving up my job, as suspect any success I have may well be resulting from the placebo effect/general maturation!!!

re:food in hospitals, its not that bad. iactually eat the hospital food most days i am at the hospital visiting. its the same stuff in the canteeen as the patients get.

personal responsibilty, isnt tha where you get a loan comp phoning offering you 2k and you say no as you cant afford the repayments? i mean u dont says yes, take the cash and then moajn you cant afford the 1st payment.

(this thread reminds me - I've been meaning to start a thread on the current climate of "prizes for all" which has eroded the state education system.......maybe too late in the evening for that particular rant)

I lived in a SureStart area when I had ds and IMO the scheme is fantastic. Giving out free smoke alarms alone has to be worth its weight in gold (as long as people change the batteries, I suppose...). There was a real mix of people - this was inner London - from very middle class to those in desperate circumstances and we all learned from each other. Support for parents has to be a good thing. At a very basic level, having a dental health promotion person informing you that 1000ppm fluoride is the optimum level for children so don't bother paying extra for 'baby' toothpaste, buy supermarket own brand because it is actually better as well as cheaper, for instance. And don't put juice in bottles or anywayupcups.

OK, some people are crap parents, but you have to keep trying to help their children - don't you?

As for personal responsibility, sure, that's there, but when you come to things like credit cards and gambling it's not that simple. The companies who make money out of plunging people into debt have very sophisticated ways of trapping us. There's an imbalance of power between the individual and the organisations which are prepared to make money out of misery.

I would say that, of course, I used to work for the largest consumer organisation in the country; we were often accused of nannying when calling for better regulation. For me, it was more about the balance of power. If big business sells car seats that kill and injure children that has to be a. exposed and b. if they won't stop doing it, they have to be regulated to protect all of us.

We did an awful lot of work on the NHS complaints system, by the way, to try to encourage them to move towards a system that would actually acknowledge failures and apologise, as well as put things right after they went wrong, hence avoiding the need to litigate except when it was actually necessary.

But sometimes it is necessary. Everyone concerned 'knew' Prof van Velzen had this enormous collection of babies' organs. Wasn't until a witness to the Bristol inquiry let the cat out of the bag that the parents heard about what had happened to their children. And wasn't until the parents got solicitors that anything was done about it.

Oh no, sorry, I wasn't meaning to criticise! I totally agree, though - I really wonder why some parents bother to have children. I know for a lot of them, with little or no emphasis on their education, and no will/determination/opportunity to better themselves, having a baby probably seems like a good idea - but sheesh! What some parents are allowed to get away with makes me

(and what do you say I start a thread on special needs board stating that SLT doesn't work and it's all bollocks....)

Step away from the brandy bottle swizzles!!

At least you are thinking Grand Thoughts!
What really riles me nowadays is bovine mums who don't join in at birthday parties......

Of huge political import natch....

(Wincing as I type!!!)

join in with what?

I only play pass the parcel if there's something booze-flavoured in it for me

(aw c'mon moony, you know it's not very effective....EJLCD recently had a rant about stammering therapy which confirmed everything I knew from years of clinical experience)

Oh you know,get up and do something with the kids instead of hugging the bloody leisure centre wall...

(It's all to come swizzles m'dear!)

Edam,thought provoking..
(Sorry,sounds patronising but really not meant to. I know that SS has made a difference here or I wouldn't give up my free time freely (!) to be part of it.

oh no, I'll only be attending birthday parties held in national trust tearooms, where I can be assured of a decent slab of cake, surely

Not patronising. I just had such a great experience of Sure Start. I'm a fan, basically. Shame the government has stopped it being a local, bottom-up thing and turned it into central government diktat thing instead, though.

It is a myth that people can escape a life of poverty simply by hard work. The economy would collapse without its class structures. What you?re basically talking about is some utopian Marxist state where all work is valued equally and fairness is the basic tenet. We however live in a capitalist society, based on the amassing of capital via the capitalization of others.

There?s a very short book by Polly Toynbee called Hard Work which sets out the difficulties people face in working themselves out of poverty. It?s enlightening even if you don?t like Toynbee herself.

And just who are benefits meant for if not those who desperately need them? The phrase ?lift out of poverty? is being misread I think. Existing just above the poverty line isn?t exactly rolling in it. The situation people were born into affects how they look at the world. You can hardly blame people from a desperately and chronically neglected area to have solid middle class values underneath it all. Like they just needed a slap FGS.

"I also notice from doing home visits that the people who the surestart initiative is aimed at have better tellies and better CD systems than I can afford. A case of priorities, yes, but how do you begin to tackle that?"

I can hardly believe this..

You'll also find them paying astranomical interest on their repayments for such gaudy rubbish. And a spiral of debt! Are they also supposed to be immune to the consumer fetish that drives all of us? Social mobility is okay for us but not for them obvioulsy. They just shouldn't have tellies in the first place then they'd not know what they were missing.

There'll be a call for social darwinism next.

mt, imo, benefits should be a short term safety net for people who have eg, lost their job, while they look for a new one. They should also be a mark of a compassionate society caring for its vulnerable members - eg dla etc. Things like tax credits are good and bad, in that they may help people go out to work who otherwise would have been much worse off, but they also mean that employers can get people to work without paying a living wage.

Benefits should not, imo, be a lifestyle choice - the world owes me a living, I am going to spend my life on the dole with my hand out! And I firmly believe that you should not make the choice to have children if you - before you conceive - know that you will be relying on the state to support them and you for the next 18 years! (I put it like this because anyones circumstances can change, also anyone can have a contraceptive accident and it would be inhuman to suggest that people on the dole should be made to abort - I swear to God I heard that opinion in the pub a few years ago!!!)

In a pub, yeah? After how many pints ?

me sitting at table near group of drunken arseholes, eavesdropping shamelessly cos my own night was so boring!!

their other gems that i can remember were all asylum seekers come over here to get a free house and that gay people (homo's to quote) shouldn't be allowed to work with kiddies (I assume in case it's contagious!!)

have i walked into a snob bar?

wheres custy> she will be here in a min

Man, I'd have got up and moved tables, MTPW!

Women on welfare in the US may be forced to use contraceptive implants, while those who have babies are forced to go out to work rather than care for their baby. That is a form of eugenics.

And where is that thread about the social effects of very young babies in nurseries again..

The amount of people who are on benefits for many years is actually very low in comparison to the amount of collum inches the issue attracts to push right wing social policies. In actuality the biggest demographic stuck in the benefits system are the ill (including mental illness such as depression and PND) and disabled. They are only a smidgen more popular than the 'slacker' underclass who only deserve our contempt it seems.

Even for this section of society often it?s not a question of wanting to change. People don?t know how to change and their low social standing makes change nigh on impossible to change. Of course some won't want to either, depression puts many into a state of apathy. Having a fag is about as much a treat as they can expect. My mother defended her right to smoke on exactly this rationalisation.

if I'd have been more brave or more drunk I'd have told them they were 'anchors' (!!!!!) rather than just thinking it!!

But I couldn't tear myself away from the eavesdropping either!!

I'm a bit puzzled by this thread. What's the issue? That lots of people are immensely stupid and can't take personal responsibility? Well yes, that's true, but what's the solution? I certainly don't think the American one is the civilised way forward.

Just watching car-crash TV is proof of how much even the most idiotic can take on personal responsibility when they're given the motivation and support to do so. How many episode of Little Angels,, Honey we're killing the kids, etc., have there been where you get people who are simply floundering. Last night, HWKtK had what I first incredulously believed to be the most intolerably stupid parents on, who allowed their kids to eat shite, watch TV for 6+ hours a day, never read to them, never exercised, forced them to passively smoke the equivalent of 150 fags a year - in short, you just felt that this family was a candidate for the workhouse, except that they had jobs. Within a month, they'd turned their family around with proper food, family activities, no more than 2 hours TV a day, bedtime stories, etc. But they managed to do this because they were given the motivation and support to do it. Without that support, I'm sure they would have carried on being Mr and Mrs Blob.

I do believe in personal responsibilty but I also believe in giving people motivation and support. I myself am on benefits as a lone parent and have just started a degree. I want to get off benefits, get a good career, support me and my daughter, etc etc. But I need a lot of help to achieve this.

I am also lucky to come from a fairly comfortable background, am well educated and so on. It must be far tougher for those with very little money and few opportunities. I know that is not an excuse but as mt says very few people are on leaching off benefits their whole lives.

Actually,I'd rather my taxes paid for layabouts to have a good tv system than the present ludicrous system wear the proles boost the earnings of zeros like Paris Hilton and Victoria Beckham by buying shit like 'Heat'.

Even football (where at least some talent is shown) is boosted by idiots buying exortionately priced nylon leisurewear for themselves and their blooby kids.