Does no one accept responsibility any more?

[ManOfWord]

I read the political hoopla and the threads about what the government should do FOR us and it just seems to me like there are so many people who want the government to do everything including wiping their "nose" when they have a sniffle.

Where has personal responsibility gone?

Why is it the government's responsibility to find me a job?
Why is it the government's responsibility to heal me when I'm sick?
Why is it the governments responsibility to put food on my table?
Why is it the governments responsibility to make sure that I make enough money?
Why is it the governments responsibility to control gas prices?
Why is it the governments responsibility to tell me how to raise my kids?
Why is it the governments responsibility to bail me out of my house mortgage when I was the one who signed the contract for a bad loan deal?
Why is it the governments responsibility to bail out the airline industry or any industry for that matter? Why should I be responsible for someone's else's bad business decisions?

Have Americans really become so soft and wimpy that they can't take life by the horns, man up and do what is right?


If I can't afford health care like people who make lots of money, then I can't. No big deal. It's not their responsibility to take care of me. If I can't afford to send my kids to college, then they can join the Armed forces and get them to pay for it after they have done their duty.

There ARE jobs out there. Many of them may not pay boat loads of money, but if you can't afford your life style, they you'll just have to pare down and adjust it. It really isn't rocket science.

Don't have many job skills? GET SOME! READ A BOOK! FIGURE SOMETHING OUT! Apply yourself and stop whining.

As great a country as America has been it just really ticks me off (can you tell?) that our citizens wring their hands and whine and moan and belly ache and complain instead of getting off their fat duff and doing something about it....like work! Kill the cable bill, get rid of the expensive cell phone, stop buying cigarettes, booze, lottery tickets and stop using credit cards to finance your lifestyle!!!

Accept the responsibility! In America, there are few obstacles and "scads" of opportunities!!! Become a winner not a whiner!!



I'm MOW and I approve this message

[Baron1710]

Isn't it obvious why the government owes me all this stuff? Because they didn’t GIVE me a good enough education. I passed a Wendy’s the other day and the sign out front said, “Wraps is Here” it’s been that way for 3 weeks now.

We need more Americans like MOW!!!

[rgcraig]

Originally Posted by Baron1710

Isn't it obvious why the government owes me all this stuff? Because they didn’t GIVE me a good enough education. I passed a Wendy’s the other day and the sign out front said, “Wraps is Here” it’s been that way for 3 weeks now.

We need more Americans like MOW!!!

Lol - pitiful!

[mizpeh]

Originally Posted by Baron1710

Isn't it obvious why the government owes me all this stuff? Because they didn’t GIVE me a good enough education. I passed a Wendy’s the other day and the sign out front said, “Wraps is Here” it’s been that way for 3 weeks now.

We need more Americans like MOW!!!

Who is Wraps?

[DividedThigh]

i agree with mow, he must be one of those fascist like me, we actually expect people to buck up and take responsibility for themselves, what a crime, dt

Holman Bible Dictionary

JUSTICE

The order God seeks to reestablish in His creation where all people receive the benefits of life with Him. As love is for the New Testament, so justice is the central ethical idea of the Old Testament. The frequency of justice is sometimes missed by the reader due to a failure to realize that the wide range of the Hebrew word mishpat, particularly in passages that deal with the material and social necessities of life.

Nature of justice Justice has two major aspects. First, it is the standard by which penalties are assigned for breaking the obligations of the society. Second, justice is the standard by which the advantages of social life are handed out, including material goods, rights of participation, opportunities, and liberties. It is the standard for both punishment and benefits and thus can be spoken of as a plumb line. “I shall use justice as a plumb-line, and righteousness as a plummet” (Isaiah 28:17, REB).

Often people think of justice in the Bible only in the first sense as God's wrath on evil. This aspect of justice indeed is present, such as the judgment mentioned in John 3:19. Often more vivid words like “wrath” are used to describe punitive justice (Romans 1:18).

Justice in the Bible very frequently also deals with benefits. Cultures differ widely in determining the basis by which the benefits are to be justly distributed. For some it is by birth and nobility. For others the basis is might or ability or merit. Or it might simply be whatever is the law or whatever has been established by contracts. The Bible takes another possibility. Benefits are distributed according to need. Justice then is very close to love and grace. God “executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and… loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing” (Deuteronomy 10:18, NRSV; compare Hosea 10:12; Isaiah 30:18).

Various needy groups are the recipients of justice. These groups include widows, orphans, resident aliens (also called “sojourners” or “strangers”), wage earners, the poor, and prisoners, slaves, and the sick (Job 29:12-17; Psalms 146:7-9; Malachi 3:5). Each of these groups has specific needs which keep its members from being able to participate in aspects of the life of their community. Even life itself might be threatened. Justice involves meeting those needs. The forces which deprive people of what is basic for community life are condemned as oppression (Micah 2:2; Ecclesiastes 4:1). To oppress is to use power for one's own advantage in depriving others of their basic rights in the community (see Mark 12:40). To do justice is to correct that abuse and to meet those needs (Isaiah 1:17). Injustice is depriving others of their basic needs or failing to correct matters when those rights are not met (Jeremiah 5:28; Job 29:12-17). Injustice is either a sin of commission or of omission.

The content of justice, the benefits which are to be distributed as basic rights in the community, can be identified by observing what is at stake in the passages in which “justice,” “righteousness,” and “judgment” occur. The needs which are met include land (Ezekiel 45:6-9; compare Micah 2:2; Micah 4:4) and the means to produce from the land, such as draft animals and millstones (Deuteronomy 22:1-4; Deuteronomy 24:6). These productive concerns are basic to securing other essential needs and thus avoiding dependency; thus the millstone is called the “life” of the person (Deuteronomy 24:6). Other needs are those essential for mere physical existence and well being: food (Deuteronomy 10:18; Psalms 146:7), clothing (Deuteronomy 24:13), and shelter (Psalms 68:6; Job 8:6). Job 22:5-9,Job 22:23; Job 24:1-12 decries the injustice of depriving people of each one of these needs, which are material and economic. The equal protection of each person in civil and judicial procedures is represented in the demand for due process (Deuteronomy 16:18-20). Freedom from bondage is comparable to not being “in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and lack of everything” (Deuteronomy 28:48 NRSV).

Justice presupposes God's intention for people to be in community. When people had become poor and weak with respect to the rest of the community, they were to be strengthened so that they could continue to be effective members of the community—living with them and beside them (Leviticus 25:35-36). Thus biblical justice restores people to community. By justice those who lacked the power and resources to participate in significant aspects of the community were to be strengthened so that they could. This concern in Leviticus 25:1 is illustrated by the provision of the year of Jubilee, in which at the end of the fifty year period land is restored to those who had lost it through sale or foreclosure of debts (Leviticus 25:28). Thus they regained economic power and were brought back into the economic community. Similarly, interest on loans was prohibited (Leviticus 25:36) as a process which pulled people down, endangering their position in the community.

These legal provisions express a further characteristic of justice. Justice delivers; it does not merely relieve the immediate needs of those in dire straits (Psalms 76:9; Isaiah 45:8; Isaiah 58:11; Isaiah 62:1-2). Helping the needy means setting them back on their feet, giving a home, leading to prosperity, restoration, ending the oppression (Psalms 68:5-10; Psalms 10:15-16; compare 107; Psalms 113:7-9). Such thorough justice can be socially disruptive. In the Jubilee year as some receive back lands, others lose recently-acquired additional land. The advantage to some is a disadvantage to others. In some cases the two aspects of justice come together. In the act of restoration, those who were victims of justice receive benefits while their exploiters are punished (1 Samuel 2:7-10; compare Luke 1:51-53; Luke 6:20-26).

The source of justice As the sovereign Creator of the universe, God is just (Psalms 99:1-4; Genesis 18:25; Deuteronomy 32:4; Jeremiah 9:24), particularly as the defender of all the oppressed of the earth (Psalms 76:9; Psalms 103:6; Jeremiah 49:11). Justice thus is universal (Psalms 9:7-9) and applies to each covenant or dispensation. Jesus affirmed for His day the centrality of the Old Testament demand for justice (Matthew 23:23). Justice is the work of the New Testament people of God (James 1:27).

God's justice is not a distant external standard. It is the source of all human justice (Proverbs 29:26; 2 Chronicles 19:6,2 Chronicles 19:9). Justice is grace received and grace shared (2 Corinthians 9:8-10).

The most prominent human agent of justice is the ruler. The king receives God's justice and is a channel for it (Psalms 72:1; compare Romans 13:1-2,Romans 13:4). There is not a distinction between a personal, voluntary justice and a legal, public justice. The same caring for the needy groups of the society is demanded of the ruler (Psalms 72:4; Ezekiel 34:4; Jeremiah 22:15-16). Such justice was also required of pagan rulers (Daniel 4:27; Proverbs 31:8-9).

Justice is also a central demand on all people who bear the name of God. Its claim is so basic that without it other central demands and provisions of God are not acceptable to God. Justice is required to be present with the sacrificial system (Amos 5:21-24; Micah 6:6-8; Isaiah 1:11-17; Matthew 5:23-24), fasting (Isaiah 58:1-10), tithing (Matthew 23:23), obedience to the other commandments (Matthew 19:16-21), or the presence of the Temple of God (Jeremiah 7:1-7).

Justice in salvation Apart from describing God's condemnation of sin, Paul used the language and meaning of justice to speak of personal salvation. “The righteousness of God” represents God in grace bringing into the community of God through faith in Christ those who had been outside of the people of God (particularly in Romans but compare also Ephesians 2:12-13). See Law; Government; Poverty; Righteousness; Welfare.

Stephen Charles Mott

We need to revisit these principles of faith.

[DividedThigh]

i find the grass hoppers words offensive, i think it is evil to wish bad on others, especially on people you know nothing about, dt

[Baron1710]

Originally Posted by Grasshopper

You clearly don’t know what people are going through.



It’s not the government’s responsibility to find Americans jobs…but it is their responsibility to protect American jobs…a jobless America will doom America and devastate families.



Right now there are over 50 million people who are uninsured and an additional 140 million who have insufficient coverage. When these individuals seek medical services and don’t have insurance they are billed. Most can’t cover the cost and bills aren’t paid (25,000 Americans declare bankruptcy every year due to medical bills). When those bills aren’t paid the health care industry raises the cost of health care to cover the loss. When the cost of health care increases it increases the cost of our insurance premiums. When the cost of insurance increases more opt out because they can’t afford it and then you have MORE people who are uninsured driving up the costs even more. So more and more of other uninsured people’s medical debt are levied upon the insured driving up our premiums. There is only one of two answers. Stop treating the uninsured all together. You’d see health care costs drop immediately. But that would be immoral. No one would deny treatment to a hurting person just because they don’t have insurance. So the next logical step is…make everyone pay into a national health insurance plan that covers everyone. All pay in and all get services. Right now it’s like this…imagine you’re sitting in a restaurant. You get your bill and give your bank card to the waiter. The waiter returns and you see that you’ve been billed for nearly a third of everyone in the restaurant. That isn’t right! At that point you need to call the authorities and force the restaurant to make everyone pay their fair share. That’s what national health insurance is about. Since everyone gets services…everyone should pay into the system.



Widows, orphans, and strangers had a right to gleaning fields in the OT. These were protected classes. You being an able bodied male should have no right to government assistance. But single mothers and children who have been abandoned by their fathers should be supported. It’s called social morality or social justice.



The Law of Moses demanded that a wage be fair and livable. Look it up.



Because if they don’t you soon won’t be able to afford food for your family.



Because brutally beating your children is deplorable.



Because the lending practices on the back end were negligent and used to be illegal.



Because failure of the airlines could harm the entire infrastructure of business.



Get a life.



I hope that one day you can’t. Let’s see you practice what you preach.



Other nations are subsidizing increasing numbers of their youth. If America fails to make higher education available consider us a third world nation. We’ll be run by more advanced societies that invest in their most precious resources…future citizens.



You obviously want more families raising kids in the ghettos. You can’t raise a family on minimum wage. Survival isn’t living. Also it will encourage the criminal element. Crime will pay more than hard work. Don’t doubt your kids will look at the peanuts you make and opt to sell drugs.



Agreed. But you don’t need job skills for the majority of American jobs anymore.



Agreed, some costs could be cut. But it will not be significant in the long run. Credit card companies should be regulated as they were in the days when they first came out. Most people who have credit cards shouldn’t qualify for them.



I pray to God you find yourself destitute. For with what measure you judge is the measure you will meet.

Stop being a highly insulting right wing mental midget and be a Christian.

Steal from the man to pay for all those social programs you love so much and then wish horrible things on him so that he can no longer support your socialist programs. Nice.

[DividedThigh]

well said baron, dt

I pray he finds himself as destitute as those he judges.