Personal Responsibility

Sometime ago, suicide became a popular way for kids and teenagers to escape being bullied. The increase in suicide cases is largely due to something that Dr Phil types have dubbed "cyber bullying". For those of you out of the loop, allow me to get you up to speed.

We communicate in ways that were totally unfathomable a mere 10-15 years ago. In seconds, a picture can be delivered to millions of people via MMS (multimedia messaging service), email, or more recently, facebook. Stupid little brats who's parents don't love them enough to discipline them have figured this out. If you don't like Sally, you can take her picture, add a caption or (for the more talented little buggers) photoshop something embarrassing onto it, and have it sent to all of your friends so they can have a laugh at Sally's expense. If you're feeling especially cruel, you can write a snazzy song and shoot a music video that you upload to YouTube for the same purpose.

Even worse, Mike, who was dating Sally, talked her into sexting him some nudies of herself which he promptly sent to everyone in his contacts list. It's pretty awful. Many very young people have taken their life because they just couldn't handle it or wouldn't talk to anyone about it. The few who do decide they can handle it are then punished when they stick up for themselves.

This is terrible, of course, but not what I want to address. What I want to discuss is something that has me deeply concerned. In many cases, the kids who bullied a person that then committed suicide are often pursued for murder. Really, people?! Has our desire to not take responsibility for our actions seriously come to this?

Listen, if you tell me to jump off of a bridge, and I do it, I alone am responsible for the injuries I will inevitably sustain. If a group of mean spirited kids band together and tell Sally to hang herself and she does it, she alone is responsible for hanging herself. Unless the mean kids followed her to her home and then watched her wrap a belt around her neck and kick a chair out form underneath her legs, the only thing they're guilty of is being mean. Sally is the one who made the decision to end her life.

I bring this up not to get anyone riled up about cyber bullying but to start a conversation about personal responsibility, something I believe we as Americans have lost our grip on. American families who live beyond their means expect banks that own their debt to bend over backwards even though the terms that they agreed to spell out what the consequences of not paying your debts are. And when someone finds that a bank is not willing to work with them, which is rare, they complain to the government, who then oversteps it's boundaries and tells the banks that they can't seek to recoup funds from a debt. That's jacked up!

That Corvette you bought doesn't belong to you until you've sent that last payment to the dealership. Until then, if you don't pay you're monthly bill, the dealership gets the take the car back. Maybe you lost your job. Maybe you got injured and can't work. That's life people. It is your responsibility to ensure that the dealership gets their money, even if life knocks you down and then gives you a swift kick to the left temple. That's not the dealership's problem; that's not the government's problem; it's your problem.

Before I go any further, let me explain something. I do believe that people should help each other when they can and not stand by and watch people suffer. I'm also not saying that mean kids aren't in the wrong. They certainly are guilty, but not of murder. The only crime committed is name calling.

Along with this shift in blame comes a very dangerous and slippery slope. Imagine if a kid you that goes to school with your kid commits suicide. Now, imagine that that kid didn't like your kid, even though you're kid never bullied him. So, suicide kid writes in his journal that your kid picked on him. Guess what? Your kid is now a murder suspect. What? Crazy talk! I know!

We need to start taking responsibility for our actions. Half the reason the American economy is in the state that it's in right now is because we refuse to take responsibility for our actions.

An upset college student who purchases a sniper rifle, kills his chemistry teacher, and happens to be pretty good Grand Theft Auto made a conscience decision to kill his teacher. Rockstar Games had nothing to with that.

A lonely middle aged man who walks to his attractive neighbor's house, rapes her, and happens to be on his fifth year of a Hustler subscription only has himself to blame for the rape. Even if Hustler Magazine encourages deplorable acts such as rape, Hustler didn't commit rape.

Every human being on the face of this planet could call me a fat, sloppy, whorish failure who should shoot himself in face with a shotgun. If I kill myself, I alone am responsible.

It's time we take responsibility for our actions. I fear that if we don't the result will be much worse than any of us can imagine.