When we ask ourselves, "Who Is Responsible?" we are, most typically, actually raising this question: "Who Is To Blame?" My commentaries in this daily blog focus mainly on "politics," and there is a lot of blame being passed around, from all quarters. Not only are we all, seemingly, on the prowl to find something to be "angry" at, we are all hunting down people to "blame" for what is going wrong.
Again, thinking about "politics" in the United States of America, different "sides," different "parties," often agree on what's wrong, but they have different ideas about who is to blame for the problems. And, of course, our politics is defined by lots of disagreement about what, actually, is "wrong" with the United States of America, today. There is a lot of disagreement about what needs to be done.
My personal belief is that anyone who actually believes in what is usually called, "democracy," and that I call "self-government," needs to be upfront about who is to "blame."
WE are. We are to "blame," because we are all "responsible." That's what "self-government" means. We are in charge, and if things are going wrong, we need to accept our responsibility. If our government is dysfunctional, if it's wasting money, if it's ignoring problems that need to be addressed (hint, hint: "Global Warming" and "Income Inequality," just by way of a couple of important examples), then the people who are supposed to be in charge of the government ("We, the people") need to confess that the responsibility is their own.
A large percentage of the citizens of the United States believe that we are "heading in the wrong direction." That is what the polls tell us, and if that's true, then the responsibility for changing what's happening is our responsibility. As a practical matter, if we are willing to accept our personal responsibility (instead of blaming someone else), then we will need to spend a lot more time working to institute and support the kind of changes we want, and that we believe will make things better. Bitching about things, assigning "blame," doesn't solve our problems.
My short phrase to describe this situation, promoted in my dailiy blog postings, is pretty easy to remember: If we want to have self-government, we are going to need to get directly involved in government ourselves.
Foundation of Freedom
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