My current lack of a job - also your fault. My shoes got wet
in the rain the other day, well yeah that was your fault too.
If by this point you are feeling rather skeptical about these
accusations, that's good (Unless you're that jerk who stepped
in a puddle right beside me yesterday, my wet shoes ARE your
fault). One of the great advents of our time is the astonishing
degree to which people abdicate responsibility. "Well I wouldn't
have yelled at him if he'd just driven me to the mall when
I asked, it's his fault". It's depressing that these sort
of things get said all the time, and the people who say them
also believe them, and example like the one I just gave only
represents the inconsequential ones.
There
courts have become the whiny loser's bitch in a lot of respects.
In Canada (I'm not sure about the US, particularly since you
guys like to go nuts with different state laws) being drunk
is a viable defense in court for comitting a crime. This drives
me nuts. That losers can get away with a reduced sentence
or even scott free for something like oh say MURDER because
they downed a 26er of Bicardi's medacine is unreal. For that
matter, any time someone blames their actions on being drunk,
as though it was not their fault, they are wrong. If you drink,
you make a (technically) rational decision to consume a substance
that you (unless there are some powerful forces of ignorance
at work) know is going to affect your judgement. Likewise,
if you get hammered and then get yourself injured in some
idiotic manner - your fault. There was an instance of a company
having a Christmas party and one of their employees got really
hammered. That employee was offered numerous rides home and
a cab and refused them all. She then went her own way, got
hit by a car, and proceeded to sue her company for not making
sure she got home safe. She won. If I were the judge I would
have made HER pay THEM for the pain of tolerating such a ridiculously
stupid person.
I suppose in talking about shedding responsibility, it's more
or less impossible not to touch on politics on some manner.
That nonesense with the "mission accomplished" flag was particularly
fun to watch, as the navy and White House struggled to figure
out how who would be blamed in what manner, eventually saying
something idiotic like "well the navy raised the flag, although
we gave it to them, but uh only because they asked for it".
I don't really know the details and didn't care enough to
look further, since the whole thing reeked of a lot of pointless
deception to avoid a bit of embarassment. I wonder who they'll
eventually use as a scapegoat for the CIA leak thing. Anyone
not particularly important who happens to have had access
to that information better start checking the want ads.
There are a few lessons that can be learned from all this.
Ideally we'd all recognize the value of owning up to our mistakes
and at the same time be more forgiving of others who are willing
to come out and fess up. But since that's not going to happen,
my recommendation is to practice lying and acting outraged
a lot. Chances are it'll help a great deal more. While it
would be great for people responsible for mistakes to just
step up and take the blame, I suspect even then it would come
out something like this, "yeah shit man I messed that one
up, but it's not my fault I was drunk..."
-Ritz
