Personal responsibility. This is the hardest one to fix. People do not take responsibility for their actions anymore, because it's obvious that it's always someone else's fault, and it's entirely likely they need to pay for it... whatever the fault is.
There was a recent story that kind of got me going again on this aspect of what's wrong with America, but it's not the way that you'd probably think. Do you remember when we used to have authority figures? Police, principals, parents, etc...? Those used to be the people you would never question because you'd either get beat or worse, and if it was dealing with the police or school and you got in trouble, then you definately got beat. I'm not talking abuse, but getting hit on the butt a few times was usually enough to make you not want to do whatever you did again.
Those days are long gone. Remember the cops used to say, "Stop or I'll shoot," or if you drove away in your car they'd shoot out your tires or run you off the road? You can't do any of that anymore. And it's getting to the point where you can't even taze someone without worrying about violating someone's rights or getting a race card dropped on your back. I realize there were and are bad cops, and I do realize that there was racism in dealing with certain people, but aren't we past that?
Anymore when someone says, "This cop pulled me over and did this and this wrong," I always have to ask myself, "Why'd you get pulled over," and "if you weren't doing something wrong then why do you care?" You can tell me that's wrong, but I know when I get pulled over, even if I hadn't done anything wrong that time, I know that I've sped before and ran lights before and didn't get caught then, so maybe this one is payback. It's honestly not that big of a deal.
There's a story of some kids who made a MySpace page for their principal that accused him of being a child mollestor and various other things. The students got kicked out of school and then suspended, and now the parents are suing the school for stifling their kids' freedom of speech. This is the society we live in. Instead of people like this going off to die somewhere, they are literally kept alive by the government and society to the cost of us all. My parents would have rightly beaten me and taken my computer, explaining the seriousness of what I had accused the man of. Not these parents... not these times.
Yes, personal responsibility is probably the biggest thing missing from America right now. Everyone's first answer is to sue, even if it means that they are going to prove to a lot more people exactly how stupid they are. Kind of like this story about lawyers attempting to get money by just threatening to sue, until they did that to the wrong person.
Use the fucking constitution! I'm not saying that we need to go all Ron Paul on it, but the fact remains that the basic idea and principle of the United States Constitution was near perfect. Whereas The Bible said that it was perfect, cannot be flawed, and anyone can twist its words so that it may seem evil, our constitution pretty much realized that it would become outdated, that it would need changed as time went on, and set down processes to do so.
You can't use the constitution to make it so that people can't get married, you can't use the constitution to say that people can kill their babies (I'm pro-choice, it's just a fact though), this whole "going to war" deal is bullshit and it was bullshit ever since 'Nam, our tax system is a sham, and our lack of checks and balances right now is a literal disgrace. If we cannot vote for, hope for, or buy a government that will work then it is time to force it to.
It's humorous to me that our politicians talk about how poorly Iraq is doing with their political progress when our system is so fucked.
Lawsuits. Frivolous lawsuits are the bane of the intelligent. Getting rid of the "bad" lawsuits would solve more problems than changing the president, senate, house, and every other level of government. Certain lawyers would get less money, some would be completely out of a job, we wouldn't have to have "Caution: Coffee served very hot" labels on everything, and it would save states, companies and the government untold millions.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you get a finger in your Burger King meal, you deserve some money because it's pretty obvious someone was negligent (it's SOMEONE'S finger... right?); if you poke your eye out by drinking your Starbuck's coffee that you left the coffee stirrer in, you're just retarded and should probably die quietly. If you wreck your car while you are fleeing the cops, you shouldn't be able to sue (the cops should be able to end the chase before it gets to that point anyway, but that's another topic); if you crash into a soccer mom in her minivan while avoiding the cops, you shouldn't be allowed to live.
The problem is who is to decide what a bad lawsuit is? That's the part I haven't figured out yet, and I'm not sure there is a good answer. At this point though, I'd rather abolish all lawsuits and hurt a few people rather than let the innumerable stupid ones through.
...more to come...
IF I HAD A MINE SHAFT, I don't think I would just abandon it. There's got to be a better way. -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988.