Responsibility

The media are alive today with stories of how developers now want a piece of the TARP bailout funding. Presumably these are the same developers who built tidy fortunes over the last five years due to the cheap money the Federal Reserve kept pumping out and the same creative lending that is now in some small part responsible for the economic mess in which we find ourselves.

Banks. Investment banks. State governments. Automobile manufacturers. Now developers. Where does it end?

There used to be an entrepreneurial spirit in this country. A spirit of risk taking that separated us from other peoples. People accepted the consequences of their behavior. Failure was not fatal. Thomas Edison failed many times in his attempted inventions before he hit it big with the incandescent light bulb and other creations. One of the most brilliant men I know failed more than once with companies before he founded one that had lasting success.

Now we line up for the government to feed us, put a roof over our heads, pay our medical bills, educate us and put us through college and take care of us in our old age. We've given up responsibility for ourselves to government.

Edmund Gibbon once said of ancient Athens, "In the end more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free."

As a nation our goal was once the preservation of our freedoms as brilliantly articulated by FDR:

• Freedom of speech


• Freedom of religion


• Freedom from want


• Freedom from fear

We seem to have lost our direction, wanting instead, as the Athenians did, freedom from responsibility. And we turn to a massive, largely ineffective federal bureaucracy to be responsible for our care and keeping--cradle to grave.

But there will a price for this. As Gerald Ford said, "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have." Including your self-respect, your money, and yes, your freedom.

Just thought you might like to know.