The 'Crowding Out' of Personal Responsibility

It's early Monday morning: you wake up to the government approved messages coming out of your clock radio as you pour milk from your government approved dairy farm and their government-approved cows into your government approved cereal made with subsidized grains that the government insists is good for you. When you leave the house to get in your government-approved vehicle and after buckling your compulsory seat belt you're no more than a quarter mile away from home before you see the literal signs of government interference in your life. Posters with instructions dictating what you can do and even where you can go. You pass a crosswalk by a tax-funded compulsory education facility where there is a government employee shouting commands about when to proceed.

Before you can even get to work in the morning the government has interfered with every single decision you have made. So what, then, is left to be decided by yourself? virtually nothing. The silver lining, however, is since you do not make these decisions how can you possibly be responsible for their outcomes? It's not your fault that you're not as successful as you wanted to be; not your fault that you're not as good of a parent or a son as perhaps you should be.

The all-encompassing influence of government regulations has eroded personal responsibility and with it, accountability. How can you be accountable for your own actions if you're not responsible for your own decisions. This way of thinking not only leads to apathy and dissociation but also breeds resentment: it stands to reason that the natural extension of you not being responsible for your failures is that others must not be responsible for their successes. It should be no surprise that we see flip flops and sweatpants donned by those who shuffle their way to coach while sticking their nose up at those in first class seats. So too it should be no surprise that when there is a tragedy those who are affected do not attempt to rise up and overcome it but instead hang their heads as victims and hold out open palms waiting for handouts from that which controls their lives: the government.