The blame culture, it’s a festering sore on modern life. Somebody smokes themselves to an early grave in spite of 30 + years of warnings on packets and discussion of the damage to health in small groups in pubs, around the coffee machines, and on TV and radio. Blame the tobacco industry, it can’t be their own fault.
Somebody else takes drugs, and shuffles of this mortal core, blame the seller of the drugs, the police for not stopping it, anybody but the poor unfortunate who made the choice to take the drugs. Yes somebody dieing young is a tragedy, whether through smoking, drugs or being knocked down by the proverbial bus, but we make our choices and we pay the price.
Only in this modern world we don’t expect to pay the price anymore. We all expect to do as we wish, then blame somebody else.
Parents blame schools for their failing offspring, the nice people of the world blame society for hooligans, vandals, and robbers. Isn’t it time we went back to taking responsibility for ourselves?
It’s not societys’ job, or the schools job alone to sort out our wayward youth, it’s up to the parents. Arguing with headmasters and teachers when your brat plays up and gets punished, then blaming them again when little johnnie is not listening to anyone anymore is plain stupid. Take responsibility for your children, and help the school to instill discipline.
Tripping over in the street used to bring a tut, and self admonishment for being clumsy. Now it’s an invitation to sue someone because you didn’t pick your feet up and mind where you were going.
Suing a hospital because somebody died in their care won’t help to fix the NHS either, all you do is drain more money from the system. Blame never helps, and claim just keeps some greedy lawyers in champagne and ferraris.
It’s also because of this lack of taking personal responsibility for ourselves that lets our government exercise ever more control over what we do. If we’re all willing to let somebody tell us what risks we should and shouldn’t take, relieving us of our responsibilities we shouldn’t complain as our rights are eroded away.
We all have free will, but with it comes responsibility too. If we wish to do as we want when we want then we also need to stop blaming other people when it goes wrong too.