The word responsibility has become so twisted, degraded and rare, that it’s used primarily on the news when terrorists want to celebrate their latest bombing. With so many substantial problems in the world, will anyone take responsibility for anything?
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10 replies on “Will Anyone — Other Than Terrorists — Take Responsibility for Anything?”
Dipalito I think is the name of the woman who solicitated the murder of her husband.
Have to link one of my favorite movies that is on similar tangent:
Levity (2003)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0304328/
Not very surprised by the low rating, one needs at least the basic understanding of responsibility and remorse to appreciate it, and the short supply of that didn’t start yesterday.
Just added to my Netflix queue. Thanks for the suggestion!
The Pasadena Central Library building has been closed down. The latest inspection found that while the building was very well built to withstand the vertical force due to gravity, it was not built to withstand the horizontal forces due to earthquakes. So no one is allowed in except for staff, and then only briefly to pick up material needed for work. Now people are wondering how all the previous inspections missed that. I’m wondering if the people who signed off on those inspections are going to be asked questions.
Years ago, I was conducting a routine survey in an x-ray room and I noticed that I was peering over the operator barrier in order to check the placement of the x-ray detector. According to regulations, that barrier is supposed to be a minimum of seven feet tall. I’m six feet tall. See the problem?
I made a note of it, and at the next routine survey, I saw the barrier had been extended to the required seven feet. Somehow, it had retreated to the background, and no inspector had paid attention to it, even though it was in plain sight in the middle of the room. (I think it was even on the check list. Everyone must have thought it had been inspected so many times before, it must be OK.)
Accountability and responsibility go hand in hand. However, they are not the same. The accountability for the wife soliciting a hit man was an extensive sentence. She did not take responsibility for her actions. Sad, but you can not force someone to be responsible. If our society legally would have held her (intent) accountable for the false accusations of the drug violations plot to start with, she may not have escalated it to a murder plot. Instead society allows many instances of these lies and deceitful behavior to be treated as though it doesn’t matter. There are often many lesser actions that people choose to perform, long before the one that they get held accountable. If you only punish/correct the person/behavior when the actions are at the far end of the spectrum.
The lessons that the person learned is there are no repercussions only failures to achieve their goals. So they learn to “try, try, again” and take the easiest, quickest, and don’t consider the consequences for either themselves or the victims, because there are none….. That is how you will succeed in this society.
Second chances are a wonderful thing. Second chances will not work without responsibility and repentance (as Harry Ferguson so eloquently explained below). Accountability is the corrective action to encourage the “about face”.
Each society design has their weaknesses. Every freedom/respect based society started out with “intent” and literally died with “letter” based systems. Many comparisons have been made about the US and the Roman Empire……
When did deceit and lies become unimportant and acceptable?
When they can’t technically prove them in court….
When did deceit become acceptable in American culture? By my reckoning, the very moment we took that first bite out of the government-dependency apple promulgated on the lie that taking what doesn’t belong to us is righteous and just. We who aspire to personal responsibility know that through the massive public debt we condone, we steal and enjoy the fruits of the labor of generations not yet born. Yet what do we do to repent and atone for that? True, we didn’t start the problem, but not only do we do nothing to fix it, we presume to justify it as an entitlement. I kneel in awe at our mid-19th century forebears who were born into a parallel circumstance and resolved, no matter the personal price, this stops with us. How far we have fallen from the American ideal embodied in this beautiful story recounted by U.S. Rep. Davy Crockett, Not Yours To Give: https://fee.org/resources/not-your-to-give/
You make a great point. Once America became indebted, it was no longer was in control !! The history of America’s debt and banking in general are epic tales unto themselves.
Why, thank you. Yes, you’re right, it is about control. Once we accepted the bargain, our foundational relationship with government became transformed from citizen rulers of public servants to dependent supplicants of our ruling benefactors. But the matter of control is only an outward manifestation of the primary moral failure we invite into our hearts. Once we accepted that first lie – that we are entitled to enjoy the fruits of another man’s labor – and adopted its immoral behavior by empowering our government to seize it at the point of a gun to deliver into our willing hands, we essentially altered the course of our national destiny. I have faith that we can right our course, but it will not be possible as long as we accept and savor the delicacies of the men who work iniquity (Psalm 141).
The words “I’m responsible” don’t exist in the Leftist vocabulary, unless it’s to take credit for someone else’s accomplishment. Responsibility has the same effect on Leftists that a cricifix has on a vampire (or a Leftist, for that matter).
Repentance is based on a military term meaning “about face”. It does not mean feeling sorry or changing your mind. That is a start only. It means to change your action. Minimum to stop doing what you are doing. Turn around and do what is right. That can lead to atonement where that is possible. Picture a drill sargeant yelling “About Face!” You don’t. He yells at you. “I said about face!” You: “I am feeling sorry, and I’m thinking about it.” Sarge: “Stop thinking and just DO it, or you WILL be VERY sorry!”