The following column was published on The Oregonian newspaper's OregonLive web site on August 14, 2000. It is reprinted here with permission of the author, a Cascade Policy Institute supporter.

Monday, August 14, 2000

What happened to personal responsibility?

What does it say about our society when we allow our citizens to escape responsibility for their own actions? And what does that teach our children?

If we can place the blame on someone else, does that somehow make our actions OK? I don't think so.

It is outrageous to think that someone who consumes too much alcohol at a drinking establishment and ends up injuring themselves while on the premises can then turn around and sue the tavern owner. Aren't we in essence saying to that person, "It's OK, you didn't mean to drink too much. If the bar wasn't there and if the bar tender didn't serve you the alcohol, you never would have fallen and hurt yourself. Poor thing."

Yes, we have required bar tenders to stop serving drinks to those who appear inebriated, but that's an unfair burden to place on them. It calls for a subjective judgment which is not always accurate. We have laws against drunk driving and public drunkenness that specifically target the drinker. It's not anyone else's fault. We all have free choice and must pay the consequences ourselves for making the wrong choice.

Let's take this one step further. In light of the recent tobacco cases, I wonder when someone is going to sue the alcoholic beverage manufacturers. After all, if they didn't make it, people wouldn't drink it. Right? Wrong! Just look at what happened during prohibition.

We, as a society, have become one of non-responsibility. If our children do violent acts, it must be the music or the movies that are responsible. The kid didn't take the gun to school by himself, did he? Those swear words didn't come out of his mouth, did they? If we smoke and develop lung cancer, why it must be the tobacco company's fault? We didn't voluntarily put that cigarette in our mouths, did we? If we over indulge in alcohol, trip and injure ourselves, we didn't put that drink in our mouths, did we?

If only someone had been looking out for us, we wouldn't do all those bad things. We didn't mean to do it.

Just think. Someday (and at the rate society is going, very soon) we'll be able to do anything we want and get away with it so long as we can blame someone else.