Does personal responsibility still exist?

I was watching a little television with my parents today and saw a show that normally wouldn’t even pop up on my radar screen. It was the Judge Joe Brown show where people who have a beef with each other volunteer, (with pay of course), to air their differences in front of a national television audience. Of course, we are entertained throughout the show with the snaky comments from the Judge himself, but what caught my attention was one particular episode when a man “borrowed” his girlfriend’s car and then rolled it. Since the car was basically totaled, the owner, who did not have comprehensive coverage, demanded compensation for her damaged car. The demand for compensation to the owner was quickly denied as being unreasonable and that boyfriend indicated that he was not responsible for any damages due to the accident not being his “fault”. In other words, since someone cut him off, anything that happened after that was no longer his responsibility. Though the Judge ruled that the boyfriend was responsible, it was clear that not only was the boyfriend upset, but so was the owner’s daughter, (the girlfriend). The looks on the faces of the couple made me think!  What has happened to personal responsibility in the world today?

Time was, if someone borrowed, used or otherwise took possession for an object that you owned, they always returned it not only when they said they would, but it would be clean and in as good as working order as when they borrowed it. If they stayed the night, they would clean up after themselves and even offered to help with the dishes. That doesn’t seem to happen anymore in this nation of ours. I have a friend that recently let another borrow a sander, after six months it still hadn’t been returned even though it was promised to be back within a day or two. Later the borrower confessed that he had actually lost it and since he didn’t have the money and it wasn’t his fault that his wife moved it, he shouldn’t have to pay for a new one. Needless to say, this didn’t go down well and it was agreed, (after the threat of broken knees), that the borrower would have a new sander in my friend’s hand the next day. The fact that someone would borrow something and not return it, simply floored me. I had always lived with the motto, never borrow unless you must and if you do, then treat it better than if it was your own. The fact that most people don’t live by this motto is totally alien to me.(read more here)

Redgage picture of the day-----parrot

 Enjoy!