The Victimization of America

Hold onto your butts people, I'm going to attempt to write something worthwhile.

America repeat after me, "It is my fault. The choices I make, dictate the life I will have."

Trust me I'm in law school and I know all about EXCEPTIONS. I'm sure a few exist, but quit being difficult.

There is an episode of 'Friends' where Joey bets Pheobe that there is no such thing as a truly charitable act. By the end of the episode she isn't able to find one. In the same way, nothing will ever happen to YOU in YOUR life that YOU have no ownership in. Even if you walk out the front door and get hit by an asteroid, YOU chose to walk out the front door. You controlled that action, if not the consequences. Now that doesn't make being hit by an asteroid your fault, yet it also doesn't mean that you are WITHOUT fault in the act of being hit by an asteroid.

Working in the law field you learn that people love to be VICTIMS and hate to be RESPONSIBLE. I got fired because I'm a woman, I got carpal tunnel from the repetative movement at my job, and your reckless driving caused my whiplash. Which fine, I'm going to be a lawyer, I believe people deserve to be compensated for a legitimate injury. The problem is that people don't want to be COMPENSATED they want to PROFIT. They are not participants in the acts of their life, they are VICTIMS.

Law practice cultivated the beginnings of the victimization of America, but in the way of Dr. Frankenstien it has created a monster. A VICTIM with a sense of entitlement not only to be COMPENSATED, but to be MADE WHOLE. The man who's life path led him to a job that involves manual labor, can expect to be compensated for an injury sustained within the course of that job, but cannot be made whole for what that job has taken away from him. This man CHOSE to perform this work that is extremely hard on a person physically and emotionally. If a box wrongfully falls on his head then he can be compensated for that, but his employer CANNOT give him back the years of emotional and physical wear and tear that the job has caused.

We see this victimization and sense of entitlement seeping into all parts of society. Some Americans now believe that they DESERVE certain things such as a job, a home, or free healthcare. Yet all Americans have ever really been guarenteed is the FREEDOM to PURSUE these things. If mechanisms are put into place that allow all Americans to have these things, it is not because they are ENTITLED to them, but because society has been able to advance itself to the point that it provides for those that do not provide for themselves.

Make no mistake, there is no such thing as a VICTIM. What we term a victim is just someone who's choices have lead them to an undesireable outcome. A person who turned to the wrong page in the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' book.