Someone Else's Problem

Let me present you with a scenario, dear friends. Have you ever let a friend or family member borrow something of yours? Maybe it's something small, a book or a DVD or a t-shirt, or maybe it's something big, like your car. It's someone you like and trust with your stuff, obviously, or you wouldn't let them borrow it in the first place, but they manage to betray your trust anyway. Your book is returned with crayon drawings all over it, your DVD is scratched, your t-shirt has a big ketchup stain on it, or your car looks like it might have turned into a Transformer and been blown up several times. Did your friend or relative offer to fix or replace the item that became damaged while in their possession? Oh, they did? That's awesome, they have a sense of accountability!

Or how about this one: you're over at a friend's house, and the two of you are playing video games. You're getting your ass kicked, and your temper gets the best of you. You throw the controller at the TV, but your aim is terrible and it goes into the fish tank instead. The controller is all waterlogged and will never work properly again. What do you do? Do you just leave without saying a word, leaving your friend with one fewer working controller than they previously had? Wait, what? That's exactly what you would do? Holy shit, stop reading this blog right now and go drink some bleach!

If you're a friend of mine, though (and if you're reading this blog, you probably are), then you probably aren't that terrible. Good for you. Some people, however, have not learned that there are proper ways to act in society, and those are the sorts of people who will break something that belongs to you and then won't take responsibility for what they did. Surely someone or something else is to blame! And even if it is my fault, why should I have suffer the consequences? That's the kind of thinking that too damn many people seem to have now, and I'll tell you exactly why: nobody is willing to tell someone when they're behaving like a jackass, and being stupid doesn't hurt like it should, so these folks just plain don't know that actions are supposed to have consequences!

Apparently it's not okay for parents to punish their children anymore, because it's not politically correct or some bullshit, and now we are seeing the results of that course of non-action: children who have never been made to clean up their mess, because they see that once they make the mess, nothing will happen to them, and someone else will clean it up for them. And then we all wonder why so many people are turning out to be massive dickbags. If there was a direct correlation between acting like an idiot/asshole and being dead, well, there would be corpses lining the streets.