IN HIS inaugural address, President George W. Bush called on American citizens to accept personal responsibility for their actions. This ethic is a refreshing change from the last eight years. Throughout his two terms in office, Clinton demonstrated a concerted effort to avoid the consequences of his own actions. He even lied under oath. Unfortunately, Clinton's personal ethos of deflected responsibility set the tone for both his administration and the nation. In the last decade, Americans have conjured up many new excuses as to why they are not responsible for their own lives. Genetics, family, society and biology have been the usual suspects.
President Bush recognizes the fact that this way of thinking is detrimental to society and he rightfully urged each American to accept personal responsibility for his or her choices and actions.
In his inaugural address, Bush reminded citizens that "America, at its best, is a place where personal responsibility is valued and expected."
Democrats and other critics claim Republican policies that center on personal responsibility are heartless and only serve the interests of the rich. The rich have the freedom to make choices, critics argue, but those at the bottom of society are too repressed to have any real choices.
This simply is not true. All American citizens have many choices and opportunities before them. Not all citizens start out with the same opportunities, and unless we are biologically engineered, we never will. Even if we started out with the same material goods, we would have different emotional, familial and biological backgrounds.
These differences in opportunity should be considered when allotting public funds, but they should not be reasons for deflecting personal responsibility. Regardless of what economic goods an individual was born with, he can still control his own actions. Republican welfare policies recognize this fact and aim to help those who deserve to be helped, forcing those who continue to make bad choices to accept the consequences of their decisions. Such policies recognize the fact that there is a difference between someone who is willing to work but unable to find a job and someone who is perfectly able to work but unwilling.
Many critique the Republican stance for leaving citizens in poverty. Democrats, however, formulate welfare policy without proper appreciation for personal responsibility. According to most Democrats, those who continue to stay unemployed despite being able-bodied citizens should continue to receive welfare checks simply because they are poor.
Such policies are not beneficial to the recipient or society. Republicans are not cold hearted, they simply want to allocate funds to help citizens who need a temporary boost or have a permanent disability. Most Democrats, on the other hand, want the public to pay anyone who is poor, including those who are too lazy to get a job. This perpetuates an ethos of deflected responsibility. The welfare recipient starts to believe society is responsible for his unemployment status.
Bush calls for increased responsibility not only in policy, but also in civic life. Citizens of all backgrounds and social standing complain about the current state of American politics. But they do nothing.
Personal responsibility means individuals should try to change their environment so it reflects their ideals. It is the responsibility of those who do not like the current system to try to reform the way it operates.
It is too easy to blame the media or politicians. The people control the system - so the people are responsible for maintaining and building its integrity. As Bush said in his speech, "When this spirit of citizenship is missing, no government program can replace it." We cannot expect the government to create civic spirit, nor can we expect the media or society at large to create civic spirit. We each must cultivate our own dedication to American society.
All too often we blame the media, or the politicians, or the corporations, or celebrities, or the bureaucracy, or even abstract forces such as modernization for our problems and lack of social cohesion. But we all are willing participants in society.
Bush's inaugural address should remind us that personal responsibility means both accepting the consequences of our actions and accepting responsibility for improving a society of which we are all members.
(Kelly Sarabyn's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily.)
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