About personal responsibility and equal distribution of wealth

This topic has been mentioned on and on lately these days in the news. But what exactly is personal responsibility? For what I have been able to read and see in the news lately, Barak Obama took some heat from some left wing movements for “daring” to suggest that Americans ought to have personal responsibility.

But what exactly is personal responsibility and why I think Barak doesn’t get it. Personal responsibility in the context of being able to live a decent life as a good American citizen is the understanding that you alone are accountable to both self and country to do whatever is in your hands, to morally, and righteously put your best effort to achieve your own goals, and abide by the law of the country. This means you are mainly responsible for taking care of yourself, not the government. That is truth regardless of where you live.

The problem with this is “Where do you live?”

Let me explain. If you live in a country where the manner your education is delivered, the choices for health care, how many children you can have, the type of fuel you put in your vehicle, and even the type of vehicle you can drive, how much money you can make before they decide you need to be taxed relatively much more than others, etc… then your personal responsibility is hindered. It might not mean much in some cases.

In that scenario I still have personal responsibility. The problem with it is that my best effort is always going to be truncated by a government decisions that overrule what I can achieve under the mantra of equality. …Right!

Equal possibility means that both you and I have the same chance at aiming for the same goal. But if at the end it turns out I exercised personal responsibility and aimed better than others, the outcome doesn’t make it unfair for any of the parties.

The role of the government is then to make things possible and fare for all Americans and law abiding citizens and residents, not only a few. The other side of it is that no citizen should be kept from achieving higher possibilities, and if we choose a president that will govern with the mindset of getting a much bigger cut from you because you make over $200k, he is not making it fare for you. Math tells me that if you make 200k and I make 50k and we both pay 25% of taxes, you are already paying into the economy more taxes than I do. 4 times more, to be exact.

One of the things I like about this country is that I am free to achieve, and I don’t want an American government to become what I know of other countries. I am free here to live where I want, go where I want, drive what I want, and buy what I want, given my possibilities because the government doesn’t hinder my ability to do those things, thus my personal responsibility and effort pays back.

That’s why Obama’s equal distribution of wealth is not really “equal” and it never will be. If he understood personal responsibility, he will know that. Punishing American companies for being successful is an error and it has socialism written all over it. What now? Do we need to take money from law abiding Americans that invested their moneys in Exxon just because Obama thinks it is too much money (windfall profits). That is the stupidest thing I heard. There is no mathematical or economic sense to that.