Posts in "responsibility"

By Bonnie Kristian at 5:44PM

Jan 10, 2010

Want a better quality of life? Try more responsibility and less government.

Here's a recent video from the 10th Amendment Center:

Many of us, after years of indoctrination at our government schools, were left with a sense that there is a great government force working hard every day to protect us and look after our best interest. We were told that government standards keep us safe from disease, that government highway regulations keep us safe from car accidents, that federal agencies make sure that the food we eat will be healthy.

The result of all of this? Americans everywhere drive more carelessly, do not research what they put on their plate and take medications that leave them sicker, rather than healthier.

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By Aaron Ricks at 8:23PM

Jan 6, 2010

The Banality of Evil

The recent controversial post written by Matt Cockerill reminds me of Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil."

From Wikipedia:

The banality of evil (as coined by Arendt) describes the thesis that the great evils in history generally, and the Holocaust in particular, were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths but rather by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their state and therefore participated with the view that their actions were normal.

Who is responsible for the death of innocents caught in the frenzy of battle? Is it the legislative and executive leaders, marching their country to war? Is it the commanding officers, giving the orders? Or what about individual soldiers, carrying out orders like they were told? We could even ask if the question that perhaps the arms manufacturers also have a responsibility for innocent deaths. Are they not all complicit in the death?

To be honest, I'm not sure. But there is a great lesson to be learned: atrocities are not usually committed by blood-crazed sociopaths. But rather individuals that give their quiet, obedient consent to the real sociopaths.

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