I'm Not Responsible

Isn't it fascinating that no matter what happens to us or what we do to ourselves, that someone or something else is always to blame for it?

• If you are overweight from eating so many McDonald's cheeseburgers that the burger count on the sign goes up every time sit down in the place, it's their fault for having too high a fat content in their products.
• If your kids are beginning to look like Jabba the Hut because they sit in front of the TV all day watching reruns and playing video games, it's not because they never get to their feet except to find their way to the kitchen for another Twinkie, but because there isn't enough health information on the packaging of the potato chips that they are trying to stuff down their pie holes while looking for it.
• If your lungs look like a bag of charcoal briquettes from the three pack a day cigarette habit that you've had for the last 20 years, it's the cigarette manufacturer's fault for not making the warning labels big enough.
• If you wake up every morning to a screwdriver as an eye-opener and pass out every night with a bottle of Jack Daniels clutched in your arms, it's because the liquor industry didn't say "please drink responsibly" in their ads often enough.
• If you're broke after pumping gas into the Hummer that you drive to work every day, it's because an oil company is trying to gouge you in the pursuit of excessive profits.
• If your kids are in the 10th grade and still can't read "The Cat In The Hat", it's because the government isn't providing enough tutoring in the "no one left behind" program.
• If your representatives in government are stuffing their pockets with campaign contributions, speaking fees, and lobbyist perks like someone is giving away free money (wait, they are); it's because there aren't enough campaign finance reform regulations.

• If a criminal can get a hand gun (legally or illegally) easier than you can get a driver's license from the DMV, it's because we haven't passed enough gun control laws.
• If that same criminal uses that gun in a robbery and kills someone, it's because he had a bad home life as a child.
• If an adult beats their spouse or a child half to death, it's because they were abused as a child themselves.

What ever happened to the concepts of self-restraint, self-reliance, and personal responsibility? Is self-esteem so important that we are ready to give up our personal freedoms in order to keep from feeling guilty about bad choices we make? Is parenting so hard for us that we are willing to ask complete strangers (substitute government here if you are a liberal) to take over as a nanny for all of us? Can we really believe that our government can keep us from doing bad or stupid things when they can't do the same for themselves?
The reason that our laws don't work is because we don't enforce them. The reason that people get away with criminal behavior is because we (a jury of their peers) let them. The reason that you make bad choices is that you are so used to letting someone else decide for you that your ability to choose gets less use than your appendix. The reason your life, and probably that of your kids, is so screwed up is your seeming inability or unwillingness to protect yourself from (wait for it now) ... yourself.
Therefore every rotten, terrible thing that is about to happen in the world has to be all your fault, since I'm not responsible.