The concept of responsibility for one's life presupposes the concept of
choice over what life to live. That means: Meaningful choice over what
goals to have, what to be, where to inhabit, what to believe and what
mindset to cultivate. Responsibility without meaningful choice is
slavery, and as such a betrayal of all that the great minds of humanity
(including America's founders) have given their lives and work and
minds to accomplish. And any concept of responsibility for one's life
that does not allow for meaningful choice over one's life, is a
tyrannical
lie.
It is not the people who come to America by choice (and thus
possess responsibility for their choice and are to stick with it), but
those who are there without or despite their choice, that raise
trouble.
The African immigrants to America tend to do quite well; it is the
descendants of people who were brought there on slave****ps that feel
disempowered, disenfranchised, and turn to drugs and to crime. The
problem is not racial, as some would maintain, but psychological.
The people who are where they are without meaningful choice or say
in the matter, find the concept of responsibility over their lives a
transparent canard. And people who are alienated from that place, and
are treated as second-class citizens, find responsibility for their
country the most ridiculous thing in the world.
To these people, the correct thing to do is to give what they rightly
feel they've been denied: Meaningful choice. It must be said: "We
know you are not here as a result of your own choices; but now we
are giving you a choice. Here is a check for $10,000; it is one fourth
of what we would have to pay for you to be in a jail for a year. Go
anywhere in the world and build your life there. If you do, then you
will be responsible for your life where you are to go. If you decide to
stay, then you do so as a result of your own choice, and you
likewise become responsible for your life. Either way, you will have
made a choice, and are now empowered over your destiny. And
now, having that power, you are responsible for your life and have no
excuse for complaint or for criminality."
This would give the meaningful choice to the disenfranchised; and
meaningful choice is a precursor to responsibility. A person who's
chosen his or her life after a free and meaningful exploration has
neither the basis nor the justification for criminality or complaints.
And unless people do have such a meaningful choice, it is unrightful
to demand that they take responsibility for their lives - lives that,
unless such a choice exists, is not theirs; that they have not
chosen; and for which they simply cannot be rightly demanded to
take responsibility until such a choice becomes reality.
Giving such choice, I believe, will do more to reduce explicit or
implicit crime in America than the actions of a million police
officers -
Make Constitutional concept of life and liberty a greater and richer
reality in the lives of more and more people -
And empower millions over their destiny, resulting in tremendous
improvement not only in their lives, but in condition likewise of the
United States, as people, feeling empowered over their destiny,
rightfully and entirely move from destructiveness toward action
constructive and life-sup****ting.
Because let's face it. The things that were true of America long
ago - that it was the world's only land of op****tunity and freedom -
are not nearly as true anymore. There is more economic
op****tunity now in Eastern Europe, China, India and even parts of
Latin America; and there is far more intellectual, spiritual, social,
emotional and ***ual freedom in most other parts of industrial
world. The movements that have misused the noble elements of
American system for goals that are not only ignoble but in fact
deleterious to all that is noble, have robbed America of its
greatness, nobility and goodwill.
The malignant strain of feminism that misuses the beautiful, noble
tradition of civil rights and compassion for the disenfranchised to
destroy all that is noble and beautiful in the hearts of American
women, murder beauty and passion, effectively purify race of
elements seen as made wrongly, spread paranoia that leads to
entrapment, and under the pretext of freeing the woman from
patriarchy aim at still greater oppression determined to control
every aspect of American women's thoughts, hearts and lives -
The malignant strain of psychology that misuses the noble
tradition of free speech and freedom of inquiry to destroy people's
rights to freedom of thought, feeling and personality and to
demonize all places from which such things can come -
The malignant strain of academic philosophy that misuses the
academia created in service of intellectual freedom and
sustained by originality to claim that there's nothing original and
proving this by destroying all sources of originality, creativity and
intellectual freedom of which people are capable -
And the malignant strain of Christianity that misuses the noble
tradition of religious freedom to attempt to create an effective
theocratic dictator****p with no tolerance for religious or spiritual
or social freedom or any meaningful freedom of choice and of will -
Have vitiated the good in America, broken its promise to the
existing, and turned the place into an intellectual, social,
emotional, and spiritual dump.
Nor is America the most livable place in the world. On the list of
most livable countries in the world, that my friend who's been in
150 countries has composed even before Bush came to power,
bringing down American people's standards of living and ladening
the population with an impossible debt burden, America was
number 3. At this point it would most likely be down on the list
far further. And, as recent events have shown, neither is America
any longer the safest place in the world.
And American anti-intellectual, anti-artistic, anti-poetic, anti-
romantic, anti-free-thought, paranoid, militaristic, assimilative,
mental-conformist, keep-up-with-the-Joneses, dump-on-the-
outcasts, wear-plastic-smile-while-carrying-a-dagger-behind-the-
back, mentality, is worse than unacceptable to me and a
complete betrayal of America's promise.
What I am saying is nothing less than this: What America is
now, is a betrayal of what America was intended to be. And it
is not possible to love America's principles without loathing
what America, under two decades of society turning toward
fascism, has become.
When faced with these realities of what America has been
becoming, I made a choice. I did not anticipate this choice;
it was a result of falling in love with a woman on the other
side of the planet. But a choice indeed I have made, and I
am sticking by it.
I made a choice to leave the United States.
And in making this choice, paradoxically, I became a true
American. I took control of my destiny and took responsibility
for whatever results may be. What caused this transformation?
Power over destiny. When my life is mine, I have nobody to
blame for failure except myself. I feel affinity for my life, rather
than being in it an alienated observer. I have reason to push
ahead and wake up in the morning. And I have every reason
therefore to achieve, to excel and to make the most of my
life on Earth.
The freedom of choice over one's life, is therefore precursor for
personal responsibility as well as all the good that comes with it -
And if America wants people to take personal responsibility,
then it will give people such a choice.
Ilya Shambat
http://ibshambat.blogspot.com
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