The abdication of personal responsibility has reached such epidemic levels that people simply cannot imagine a situation where some government agency isn’t keeping an eye on everything they are exposed to or interact with on any given day. Just contemplate.
You wake up and get out of a bed whose mattress, box spring and comforter have those “do not remove” tags on it, tags (that you, the consumer, can actually remove and would know you could if you bothered to read them) that indicate compliance with all sorts of regulations. You engage in morning grooming using products regulated by the FDA, the CPSC, and/or some other alphabet soup agencies. What you’re allowed to eat for breakfast is determined by the FDA, the USDA and who knows who else. The clothes you wear? Your shoes? The coffee shop you get your double caramel macchiato at? The car you drive? The gasoline you put into that car? The train or bus you ride? The signs you see affixed to the storefronts you cruise past? The entrance to the building you work in? The staircase or elevator in that building? Your chair, your desk, your computer? Every step you take, every move you make, everything you see, deeply entwined by the tendrils of government.
Great, you say, I don’t have to worry about all sorts of things because the government is doing the worrying for me.
But, what happens when I want to eat something the government says I cannot? What if I want to buy a product that the government does not approve of? No, I’m not referring to recreational substances here. Consider, as just one example, a three-wheeled ATV. The government banned them decades ago for safety reasons. What if I’m fully cognizant of the risks associated with my choices? What if I’ve done my research, informed myself, and still want to buy cheese made from raw milk? Suppose I prefer my cookies made with trans fats? What if I want to buy lemonade from the kid on the corner? Suppose I want a set of lawn darts? Why can’t my kid get a Happy Meal with a toy in it?
The answer, of course, is “too bad, tough luck.” Why? Because government has decided that protecting those who can’t be bothered to look after themselves and the actions they take every day trumps those who are willing to take responsibility for the decisions they make. The self-reliant are stripped of their freedom to act as they wish in favor of nannying the lazy. In attempting to ban the sale of large sugary soft drinks in NYC, Mayor Bloomberg sends a message to anyone who manages to remain relatively healthy despite enjoying an occasional Big Gulp that personal responsibility is for naught, that those with less of it will be looked after even if it means taking away others’ freedom to do as they choose.
A common justification, especially when it comes to purportedly health-related matters, is that some are going to burden the rest of us when they get sick or need medical attention. Another is that voters and consumers want someone to make sure the products they buy are safe and that it’s more efficient and more certain if government’s involved than if people are left to fend for themselves in this regard. Both are true, but neither is a justification. Government, whether at the behest of voters or due to the predilections of the politicians, has decided that even those without health insurance or the means to pay for health care must have it provided for them. That decision is then used as an excuse to justify the imposition of regulations on everyone. Can the government assign itself authority simply by assuming financial responsibility? Can you force someone else to decorate their apartment as you’d like by deciding to pay their rent, even if they didn’t ask you to, don’t want you to and insist that you don’t?
There is a tacit admission of this fact at the federal level, at least with regard to such things as education and roads. The feds like to write all sorts of blanket rules and regulations, but when it comes to enforcement, the nature of our government forces them to encourage compliance rather than require it. They do so by tying the rules to money. If a state wants federal money for roads, it must comply with the strings attached to that money. If a state wants federal money for schools, it must follow the federal rules. Politicians love “free” money, and eschewing this money oftentimes produces howls of (somewhat justified) outrage because the taxpayers know that it’s their money that’s being offered back to them, strings attached. So, the states comply. Yet at the core of it the compliance IS voluntary. If you pay attention to the nuts and bolts of nannying regulations, you’ll see occasional examples of this sort of thing – machinations to effect rules in a fashion that doesn’t exceed legal authority. Take some small consolation in the annoyance statists must feel at their inability to simply decree “Thou Shalt” or “Thou Shalt Not.” Unfortunately, these examples are occasional. It is the norm that government can simply declare a product illegal or required that selling a good or service occur only under a specific set of circumstances, all because some people are lazy or because some don’t trust others not to be lazy.
Politicians often have a blindness to the effects of their good deeds. The possibility that their efforts to help those who aren’t looking after themselves might encourage more laziness and less personal responsibility either doesn’t occur to them or doesn’t matter to them. They’ve “done good,” and if they revisit those that they’ve done good unto and find that things haven’t improved, they’ll do some more “good” unto them, and unto the rest of us.
None of this would be possible without the complicity and active encouragement of many voters. These are the folks who deserve our wrath, for it is the laziness in their own lives that fosters the mindset that calls for nannying, either of themselves or of others. “Check everything I buy for me so I don’t have to.” “Take care of the poor so I don’t have to.” “Make sure nothing I eat is bad for me so I don’t have to.” All these demands presume that the desires of some supersede the rights of others, a premise antithetical to a society and a nation founded on the premise of liberty and in order to protect the rights of its citizens. Forcing others to live with, endure and pay for restrictions just because one can’t be bothered to have some modicum of personal responsibility is not only indefensible, it’s contemptible. Want to be lazy? Go ahead, but don’t make me pay the price for it.
Loading ...
Active Comment Threads
Most Commented Posts
Universal Background Checks – A Back Door to Universal Registration
COVID Mask Follies
When Everything Is Illegal…
An Anti-Vax Inflection Point?
“Not In My Name”
The Great Social Media Crackup
War Comes Through The Overton Window
The First Rule of Italian Driving
Most Active Commenters