Joliet Central High School

Joliet, Illinois

 

Teacher: Michael Reilly

 

The Role Of Personal Responsibility In Improving Communities

by Larry  Doe

 

You can look anywhere in our society and blame problems on people not being responsible and not taking responsibility for their actions.  We can blame problems such as government, welfare, pollution, and abortion on the lack on responsible people in our society.

 

We blame many of societies problems on what we feel to be a lack of government participation in every- day life.  If you look closely at the situation, you realize that in all actuality the problems in government are caused by the people society put there.  We sit back and criticize Bill Clinton for his scandalous actions, when for hundreds of years we have sat back and watched other presidents, neighbors, and husbands doing the same thing.  Our country has a bad habit of sweeping its dirty habits under the carpet.  We act like we don not notice a problem till it gets so big we can barely control it.  The problem with government today is not the scandals or dirty politicians it is the society that groomed them.

 

 Welfare is another problem in our society that we try to pawn off. Many people in this country see welfare as a free ride. They see it as a reason to be lazy and sit around, but not all people feel this way some people actually need welfare. They may be sick or have a disability. The problem is not welfare it is the people that abuse it.  Welfare is important to people trying to make their lives better.  The many people that abuse welfare should not be allowed to.  Clinton has made a great effort in the fight against the abuse of this system, but the problem still exists.  We let it get so bad that now as Clinton tries to fix it another problem is arising.  Many of the first people kicked off welfare are those who need it most.

 

Pollution is another topic of debate in our society. The fact is that the government, which is supposed to protect us, has backward laws about pollution. They tell the voters that they are going to cut down on pollution, but in all actuality they just rewrite the same laws and nothing ever really changes. The government gives companies pollution credits and if they do not use those credits they can sell them to companies that need them.  So instead of companies not being aloud to pollute as much, the government gave them a loophole so they could get around the law.  Then they tell the public that they do

 

all that they can. Society as a hole blames companies for pollution when they should actually be blaming the government. The government needs to stop passing the buck and take some responsibility for the problem that it causes. We have already caused irreversible damage to our planet and if we don not stop soon we will have nothing left to save. We as individuals have a personal responsibility to write our governors and to write our congressmen.  If we don not do it for ourselves nobody will do it for us.

 

Next we have abortion which is a major controversy in our society today.  Some people feel it is their responsibility to fight for the unborn.  Some people feel that it is unconscionable to bring a child into this world knowing it will not be properly taken care of.  If people spent less time worrying about what other people think and more time worrying about what is best for them for would be fare fewer problems.  People are killed and riots break out because every one is so worried about what others do they do not take care of themselves.  If you kill a doctor who performs abortions you are nothing more then a killer yourself.  If people were more responsible and took the proper precautions then the whole situation would not even exist.

 

What needs to happen, in our communities and society in general, is that people need to take responsibility for problems they cause and the problems around them.  If people just made a small effort to fix problems they see when they are still small then the problems would not be so bad.  Our society has become so lazy that they just let everything slip past them.  By doing this the solution often just causes a new problem, which we then ignore.  We have created a cycle that will be hard to break, but if we leave it untouched we will eventually cause a problem that we will not be able to fix.

 

Q1.  Society invests in marriage in the USA by giving tax breaks and lowering car insurance.  Society invests in Manus by giving new families money to start out with.

 

Q2. 

Married once for 42 years, always take time to listen to what the other person has to say.

Married once for 42 years, always make sure you consider the other person’s feelings. Married once for 38 years, always keep a sense of humor even in the bad times.

Married once for 38 years, listen to what your wife/ husband has to say.

Married once for 27 years, if you dwell on the bad times you will lose what is best in life.

Married once for 27 years, make sure to spend time with the person you love.

Married once for 26 years, never make work a priority over your marriage.

Married once for 26 years, always make time for each other.

Married once for 3 years, do not lose the spice in your romance.

Married once for 3 years, keep communication open so that problems do not build up.

 

Q3.  According to Richard Eckersely, are collective goal should be to focus on wealth distribution and conservation just as much as creating wealth.

 

Q4.  The goal for my local community would be to clean up the litter on the streets and to help the elderly maintain their yards.

 

Q5.  The excerpts from “Tomorrow’s Child” explain how society will continue on a downward spiral if we do not spend more time with our children.

 

Q6.  Democracy makes lawyers helpful in our society because they play a key role in taking over jobs that are done by the government in hierarchy societies.  Diversity, wealth, and size make lawyers particularly useful because they help lawyers standardize rules in society.

 

Q7.  I prefer regulations to punitive damages because they save the bother of having a trial.  The only alternative I can think of to the first two choices would be to take responsibility of the conditions around us.

 

Q8.  Society will benefit from the retirement of baby boomers in many ways.  The baby boomers will start new businesses, they will offer many services to the Generation X’ers, and they will cause a reform in the way the elderly are cared for.

 

Q9.  I think Clinton’s anti- poverty plan will make a real impact.  As he states the economy is at a point were it benefits the less fortunate.  This means that they can become productive workers and buyers.  Plus now the government is leaving money dispersal to private sectors so that it can be put were the most good will come out of it.

 

Q10.  Three things that Truett Cathy and Tom Lewis have in common are the fact that they both help children that are less privileged, they both believe in hard work, and thay both believe that you should take enough time to do a job right.