The Pnebleu Blog

Where did personal responsibility go? How did we even get to the point as a nation of considering nationalized healthcare? Why do we have individuals and family units living for years on welfare? Why don’t people stand up and take responsibility for their actions, criminal or morally wrong? Why do people fresh out of high school seem to go wild and crazy after they move out? Why is blame always shifted to someone else or to some external force? Most problems and issues can be narrowed down to a root cause of personal responsibility or lack thereof.

The growing trend for citizens to keep relying on the government for more and more is quite disturbing. FEMA, Social Security, welfare, and universal healthcare are programs where an individual’s responsibilities have been taken or moved over to the government to manage, as if it could manage it better. People need to step up and take charge. The government doesn’t need to do everything for you. It wasn’t designed to do that. If we are going to live in a nanny state, why would anyone want to work and provide for themselves? The incentive would be to take the government handouts and do nothing in return. This is completely wrong. It’s immoral, unproductive, and un-American. We are called to be the best we can be, both by God and by the capitalist system. If you live in America you have been give so many blessing by God, working your hardest is the least you can do in appreciation. In the capitalist system, rewards are give to success; leaching off of the success of others hurts the economy and reduces the incentives for hard workers (because they’re rewards will be taken by the government and redistributed to the undeserving “failures” in capitalism).

Let me make this clear, I do not think pure capitalism is the way we need to go. Welfare is very important and I’m not saying it should be abolished. However, I think it should be run by the states and should have a time period or some limit. This limitation would prevent people from staying on government welfare their entire lives. Private charity would play an even larger part than it does today, if you removed national welfare, the tax burden that causes, and the current state welfare systems and replaced them with a limited welfare program by the states.

National universal healthcare is appalling to me. It removes my right to have no healthcare plan and just pay for expenses as they come. Setting up a system like this removes everyone’s responsibilities. They’re saying you’re too stupid to go out an choose you method of paying for healthcare, so we are going to step in and make that decision for you. Look, you even get to choose a level of service! The supporters are going to say that the program is for the poor and underprivileged, so they can get health insurance. This may seem harsh, but it’s not the government’s job to bail out the “failures” of the capitalist system. By providing them with free or cheap healthcare when they cannot afford to attain it without government assistance, what incentives to work harder and move up in “class” does this procure?

Back down on the personal level, people always seem to find someone or something else to blame. Grow up! Be a mature individual and take responsibilities for any of your actions, right and wrong. If you make poor grades in school, don’t blame the professor or the test. Take responsibility for doing poorly and study harder next time. At work, mistakes happen, confess if you’ve done something incorrectly.

Financial responsibility has disappear with the arrival of the credit card. The amount of debt in this country is astounding! You people out there need to stop buying stuff you can’t afford! Be responsible and buy only what you need if you are in debt. Don’t purchase items on credit, save up until you can afford it. If you do finance something, pay each payment out fully or more. Don’t let the interest grow! Hard work and a tight wallets lead to prosperous lives. Be a responsible consumer.

This country has become, or maybe always was, a sissy state. Both on the national and personal levels people are lacking in responsibility for themselves and their actions. This is a major problem. If everyone is telling the government to take care of them, then no one is left to to take care of anyone, because we are the government in this country. We have to stand up and take responsibility.

Why are we, young people, so stubborn? What makes us think we know everything and want to do everything our way? It must be some innate drive or behavior that rares it’s ugly head in our late teens and early twenties. Advice from our parents is heard, but we still do things the way we think they should be done. Correctness either way isn’t the issue. It’s about independence. It must be the underlining motivation to leave the nest.

Lately, I’ve seen it represent itself strongly in me. In looking for housing in College Station, or in looking for and applying for jobs down there. The twang of stubbornness has made me do just the opposite of what I was kindly given the suggestion to do: Turn in applications before we went on vacation. But no, something compelled me to wait until we got back and then sit around and wait for word from potential employers. I’ve been beating myself up for not ignoring that little voice in my head telling me to wait until we got back.

Obstinance seems to get the best of us, however. It also hits us in the prime of life. But the majority of people grow out of it with time. Hopefully, my unfruitful doggedness will soon be outgrown, for it’s causing me more problems than benefits.

First, I just want to apologize for not posting since December 2006. What happened to January and February? I’m trying to post more meaningful and serious topics on this blog and use my Vox blog for silly, immaterial stuff. Now into the reason I’m writing this.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve looked back and seen how stupid or immature I’ve been in the past. There is nothing I can do now to make up for those things, obviously. You never know how you are going to feel about your current behavior in the future. Opportunities to do things or not do things when we’re younger will always be looked back at in 20/20 hindsight. I look back at some of the decisions I made and wish that I knew then what I do now. It’s the same for everyone, it is part of the human condition.

I’m about to turn 20. I have my whole life in front of me, and yet I’m already looking back at the past. Why is that? Is it because there are so many unknowns in the next few years of my future? Such as what I’m going to take next semester when I’m a junior (I’m going to be a junior in college, when did that happen?!?!) or who am I going to marry and what will our life be like. Because I can not see into the future, I look back to the past. Is this a normal thing to do?

As I get older, am I only going to look back and see a lack of wisdom?