Drink responsibly

Since I had my mind on wine last time, that must have been the reason that I noticed that a lot of advertisements for alcoholic beverages come with the disclaimer to "drink responsibly". I think I know what is meant, but is that what the tagline really means? It would seem to me there are two sides to the responsibility coin: there is that for which you are responsible, and that that you are made responsible for. They don't always match.

There is absolutely no reason why we shouldn't be responsible people. One-on-one, between you and me, well, there's not that much we misunderstand when it comes to the word, but let it be somebody not so close to us, someone just a little different from us and all of a sudden, the word can take on a much stricter, sometimes sinister meaning. Too often – and this is particularly true of too many conservatives I know – responsibility gets lumped together very quickly with "fault" and before you know it, we're blaming people for being irresponsible or for simply being responsible for their own plight, whether they are or not. It's much easier to blame someone than understand them.

I mean, it's quite clear, isn't it, that anybody who has ever collected welfare is a lazy, ne'er-do-well who just wants to live off of other's hard work. When we look at the numbers, though, all the people who have received welfare handouts combined for the last half-a-century haven't collected as much as a handful of bankers who were justifying their salaries and bonuses with the crazy notion that they worked harder than anybody else. We know in the meantime that's just not true. It's clear that a person who took out loans to get a decent education and now can't find a job because they're not looking hard enough. And if they take what they can get – temporary contracts and lower pay, parttime contracts because it saves employers money, well, that's obviously their fault that they can't pay back their loans. Why should we let them off the hook?

No, to me, irresponsible is not knowing what you're talking about, but talking anyway; it's grossly generalizing instead of being informed; it's rushing to judgment without reasoning; it's blaming the victim instead of finding the real perpetrators and holding them responsible.

These kinds of things, though, are best done closer to home. It's the best place to start and where you have the greatest chance of making a difference. Drink responsibly, locally.