Benefits of Ownership

Individual responsibility and personal accountability are not dead...yet

Recently, a lament was shared with me of how there is no more individual responsibility and personal accountability, in our society. At first, I was inclined to agree (which I did, in fact, as I just was not in the mood to engage in a debate with this individual at the time). Upon further reflection, I could not reach the same conclusion. Individual responsibility and personal accountability are alive and well – thriving, in fact. The difference lies in who the individual is being held responsible and personally held to account, and for what.

When we learned that former president Trump had in his possession several file folders of documents that could barely fill a Banker’s Box™

that he had de-classified (but not really, as we also learned, later) before leaving office, there was no shortage of bad actors on the left from all walks of public life falling over themselves to hold him, and him alone, responsible for such an egregious breach of protocol if not national security, and holding him personally accountable in front of God and everybody for the consequences. Without question, this could soon be a constitutional crisis.

Of course, there was no such effort to hold individually responsible and personally accountable the current occupant of the office of the President of the United States, someone I refer to as ESOTUS (Empty Suit Of The United States), for the virtual trove of classified documents (boxes of them) – some dated from his time as Vice President – at various locations such as his Chinese Communist Party-funded “think” tank at Penn University, his securely locked garage which also contained his Corvette, and his personal residence. The hue and cry for individual responsibility and personal accountability was replaced with the same bad actors all performing linguistic gymnastics and contortions of logic and reason to differentiate the latter from the former so as not to voluntarily reveal themselves as hypocrites (I have no problem with someone being a hypocrite, by the way. After all, I am one, myself – I do have a problem with a fellow hypocrite being absolutely sure that he is not, and trying to convince me of the same).

Not to give all of the previously mentioned bad actors a pass, but they’re only behaving as most of us have at some time or another – we haven’t been able to make entire careers of it, though. Sadly, what has become an anomaly, lately, is one who takes responsibility for his own error or mistake and holds himself accountable for it and faces the consequences. Ike was prepared to take full responsibility for the Allied invasion of Normandy, had it failed, and be personally accountable to face the consequences. We’ve not seen such character and integrity, since. It isn’t something that happens every day.

An odd exception to this, and one that I don’t accept as being at all indicative of good character are those and others (coaches, typically) who own up to the mistake of making an offhand remark, or committing an otherwise innocuous act that becomes viral on social media after being determined to be racist, and the “offender” is all but forced to take responsibility, express his remorse, vow to do and be better, and then cancels himself by resigning his position, thereby denying himself the opportunity to demonstrate his commitment to adhering to the impossibly high and arbitrary standards of his new woke religion. Those folks are not hypocrites – they’re worse – they’re cowards.

The fact of the matter is, whether we’re public figures, or one of the faceless members of the mass of ordinary folks, at the end of the day or the end of our lives, we each are responsible for ourselves, and we are the only ones accountable for our actions, and their consequences. Accepting this sometimes difficult fact, I have found, is really the only way to have a clear conscience because I enjoy sleeping soundly, at night.

The world in which we live, however, operates much differently. There are those who, when confronted with the consequences of their own recklessness, will offer any number of excuses in the hope of evading personal accountability.

Similarly, there seems to be value in making others responsible and accountable for our own acts of extraordinarily poor judgement, particularly when it results in harm to ourselves. Some examples? I’m glad you asked.

Example 1

Coffee is a hot beverage – that is why, when it is ordered to-go, it is served in a Styrofoam cup so that you can hold it without burning your fingertips – with lids that grip the rim to keep the contents hot. When delivered via a drive-through, the hot beverage it is to be placed in a holder specifically designed for that purpose. The hot beverage in that cup with the lid is not meant to be placed between your legs where the cup could collapse forcing the lid to come off and the hot beverage spill onto your clothes and scald your skin. For most of us, common sense tells us that it is our own fault this happened because we failed to exercise sound judgement. However, someone who just couldn’t bear to take personal responsibility found an enterprising parasite (read as, attorney) to make a national fast-food chain with deep pockets, accountable instead. This was so ridiculous it was mocked in an episode of Seinfeld.

Example 2

How about any given disclaimer on any given household chemical, but particularly laundry detergent, that has to caution you, the consumer, not to ingest it. Granted, reaching adulthood isn’t a difficult task, but if you have made it that far, it’s a good bet that you know enough not to put in your mouth substances typically found in a cupboard under the sink, like any compound designed for cleaning and disinfecting surfaces in the kitchen and bathroom. Yet, courtesy of social media, untold numbers of teenagers close enough to adulthood to know better, engaged in the Tide Pod Challenge:

“Now videos circulating on social media are showing kids biting into brightly colored liquid laundry-detergent packets. Or cooking them in frying pans, and then chewing them up before spewing the soap from their mouths.”

Of course, while kids do, in fact, do stupid things, their stupidity isn’t their fault, apparently – no, it’s the fault of the manufacturer.

While acknowledging that there are some like the fictitious Irwin Mainway, of Mainway Inc., who manufactures toys that will easily injure anyone playing with said toys, I also hold that the market would very easily and effectively shut down such a commercial enterprise, and others like it. My point is that personal safety is the responsibility of the individual, and if you are a parent, your kids’ safety vis-à-vis their toys is also your responsibility. 

My biggest issue with product safety lies with automobile manufacturers. Beginning with Nader’s take-down of the Chevrolet Corvair, other innovations aside, auto safety has become the paramount concern of auto makers ever since – likely, to proactively stave off legally mandated compliance with new, more ridiculous regulations.

Ironically, features intended to make automobiles safer, only increase the danger. How? By removing what was a useful skill developed over time spent behind the wheel and making it just one more variable to be monitored electronically by a system that makes a car “smarter” with each new model year. I know that ~99.9999 percent of the time, the electronic technology performs perfectly (and what of the .0001 percent it does not?), which is disturbing enough for a paranoiac, like me (does anyone remember SkyNet? No? Why do you suppose that is? Clearly, it’s the damn matrix).

But what does this have to do with individual responsibility and personal accountability, you ask?

Driving a car is serious business. Regardless of what you drive, you are basically in control of a two thousand-pound murder weapon. You – you – must pay attention at all times. If one keeps this firmly in mind before getting behind the wheel, it can work wonders for your driving habits. One lesson quickly learned is that as a motorist, you are just one of several on the road at any given time. Another is that there really is no room for pride and arrogance – or if there is, it isn’t for very long. Further, it is assumed by everyone else that you know what you are doing because you know the rules of the road, and will abide by them, hence you will not be a danger to others.

I learned to drive in a 1976 Fiat 128. It was front-wheel driven due to the transversely mounted 4-cylinder engine, with a manual 4-speed transmission, and no A/C. It was almost as basic an automobile as you could get – its only option was a built-in AM radio.

Because it was a no-frills vehicle, it was critical that the operator – me – pay attention – to the engine, fluid levels, temperature – and my environment. That meant learning driving skills beyond basic operation – skills like driving defensively, seeing several car lengths ahead, and taking no more than a second or two to check all three rearview mirrors. I learned “on the job” how to effectively brake on a slippery road surface by gently applying the brakes while using the manual transmission to manage the engine RPMs and thus better control my speed, and by extension, my car. These are all matters of individual, personal responsibility, and acting in a personally responsible manner accrues to the general good of the public safety of city streets, county roads, state highways, and federal interstate roadways.

One of the consequences of not driving responsibly was what we used to call, an accident. Regardless of the seriousness of said accident, in every instance, there was a determination of fault that had very real, material consequences. If you were found to be at fault, your insurance company would pay damages to the other driver’s insurance company on your behalf, and yours after you had paid the deductible – then, drop you like a hot potato. At some point, though, this went the way of the Dodo and no-fault insurance became the norm.

No-fault insurance – what the hell does that even mean? Does it mean that collisions just occur, as acts of nature like tornadoes, hurricanes, and earthquakes? Does it mean that I could be driving along in my car, under control, paying attention to my surroundings, and then suddenly – from out of nowhere – another car appears directly in my path and me, being unable to swerve in time to avoid colliding with it, hits said car? Did the operator of the other car have no idea where he was, or that my car would collide with his? I’m being intentionally absurd, I know. The benefit to the law-abiding citizen, as I understand it, is that any claim submitted with a police report will be processed without any resistance from the carrier, though you can still count on an increase in your premium.

At the end of the day, we each are responsible for ourselves, and we are the only ones accountable for our actions, and their consequences. Whether anyone else knows is immaterial because what matters is that we know. It is crucial that we each make peace with what we’ve done because there’s no changing it – only the hope we may, one day, apply the lessons learned, and that perhaps others will, too. With that, I offer the following because for me, at the time I learned of it, this was a most powerful object lesson:

The small town in rural Minnesota in which I grew up is also home to one of the state universities – this means that bars and restaurants catering to college students are a significant part of the local economy – there are a lot of them. Several years ago, a local high school football hero was all but set to enjoy a charmed life as the heralded phenom quarterback who would lead the Golden Gophers back to respectability and perhaps even regain the national prestige the program enjoyed in the era of leather helmets, black high-tops, and the Wishbone formation.

In the wee hours of the morning one weekend day, said local hero was out on the town with friends (as young men newly of drinking age are wont to do). They were outdoors on the sidewalk in front of one of the many local establishments when there was some kind of exchange between members of the hero’s party and those of another group of young men. Something precipitated an escalation of passions (already fueled by alcohol), and what was likely intended as a non-violent nudge by the hero caused one of the other group to stumble and strike his head on a planter, which resulted in a serious, life-threatening injury, and once out of danger, left him severely impaired. As it turned out, the young man suffering the injury was a husband, and a reasonably new father. This was a tragic, life-altering event by any standard, and if one has any compassion, one cannot help but feel badly for not only the young man, but his wife and child, as well.

As I read, and then re-read the story, I could not help but wonder:

·     What is a man who is a husband, and a father, doing at a bar at that hour of the day on a weekend, let alone any other night?

·     Regardless of what might have been the reason, why would anyone remain in a social situation that is seemingly deteriorating and could very well lead to there being a physical altercation?

Nothing positive happens outside the home after 9:00pm. This is especially true if you are married, and even more so if you are also a father – to me, it was both a natural and reasonable question deserving some consideration. Almost all the responses to the news story posted on the local paper’s wall on Facebook were dripping with emotion, expressing sympathy for the injured young man, and inexplicable and irrational hatred toward the privileged local hero. In my response, I acknowledged what a tragedy it was that had befallen the young man, but also thought it a fair question to ask. I was wrong – and not just, “you’ve made an arithmetic error, here” wrong, but, “I hate knowing we breathe the same air” wrong. Judging by the response to my post, I was Satan, himself, blaming the victim.

Much more significant, however, the lives of two young men changed dramatically, that day – both for the worse, though, for one, incomparably more so than for the other. For the injured young man, his bright future as a husband and father all but snuffed out and replaced by one dependent on life-supporting technology for the rest of his days. Unable to earn a living and provide for his wife and family as all men not only wish to do, but is their raison d’être, he will spend his days convalescing. If that is not tragic, then I have no idea just what the word means. For the local hero, his athletic scholarship rescinded, the legal fallout rendering him as damaged goods and his window of opportunity to play collegiate football at a level that may offer the prospect of one day playing in the NFL all but closed, he now has to face a future where his athletic talents all but go to waste, mourning what might have been.

It’s the kind of lapse in judgement every young man in his 20s experiences, usually with no serious consequences with the exception perhaps, of some cuts and bruises from a drunken brawl that lasted all of ten seconds – sadly, not for the local hero, nor for the young father. Each of those men’s fates is a result of the choices each one made in the moment. Yes, it’s easy to be Captain Hindsight and point out the obvious, but that is not why I recount this story.

I do so not to point the finger, not to judge, not to criticize, not to blame, and certainly not to make myself feel superior – I do so because I find it to be a most powerful object lesson for all of us, as mentioned above. My own exceedingly bad judgement has cost me countless professional opportunities, relationships, and the satisfaction of a career filled with significant achievements – a far cry from days, weeks, and months of waiting to learn whether a mistake I made will land me in jail. No, the consequences of my lapses in judgement are relatively easily remedied.

If the Lord truly does look after drunks, fools, and little children, then I am living proof – I am still here in spite of myself. Like it or not, we are responsible for the decisions we make, our own actions, and their consequences. If you can come to accept your past, and you’ve done what you can to genuinely and sincerely apologize to those affected by what you now own, and can forgive others whose actions have so adversely affected you, then you can look yourself in the eye, and with a clear conscience, move forward. If you do this just once, you can do it again – not that it’s license to continue to be reckless, having no regard for others, but you’ll find you are leading a much more enriched life.

Here endeth the lesson, dear reader.

Thanks, so much, for reading!