Speaking of nothing in particular...

This post has nothing to do with triathlons or sports or anything even remotely related to anything else I have posted previously.

I am totally convinced that people are idiots and the world is going to hell in a handbag.

Society is being eroded at a fundamental level and nobody is doing a bloody thing about it. The various idiots are trying to ban gay marriage, ban abortion, or counter the various bans, which to each side, is the erosion of either our moral fiber or the erosion of our free society. While the various religious and liberal agendas are working themselves out in the media some very fundamental issues are going undressed.

What do I think are the biggest contributing factors to the erosion of our society? Entitlement and accountability. Today I am pissed off at accountability.

My rant today has spawned from the reaction to a tragic car accident last weekend Three people were killed in a car accident when the car they were in went into a water filled ditch and flipped over. The accident went unnoticed for at least 30 minutes before a passerby noticed the flipped vehicle.

There is now an outcry for ditches to be filled around Richmond. The ditch is being blamed for the death of the young people.

What people are failing to remember is that the driver of the vehicle did not have a driver's licence, only a learner's permit (though there is some media that suggests he was a new driver, not a learner), was not supposed to be carrying passengers or being driving without the supervision of somebody over the age of 25 with a fully graduated licence. The car failed to stop at the stop sign and it appeared that speed was a factor. The car apparently is owned by the driver's mother.

Nobody wants to make the poor, dead, teenaged driver responsible for killing himself, and his friends. Blame the ditches.

One of two things happened. The kid's mother allowed her son to drive her vehicle or he just took her keys without her knowledge. If she let him take her car, she needs to take some blame for the death of her son and his friends. If she didn't give him her keys, he basically stole her car. Either way, things don't look good. But it's the ditch's fault.

There is evidence that shows the car was exceeding the posted speed limit of 50 Km and failed to stop at a stop sign. Must be the ditch's fault.

That ditch must pay! Let's fill the ditch in! That will solve everything! Down with ditches!

Or...

Here's an idea: why don't we blame the kid that drove into the ditch? Why don't we blame the kid that was driving too fast, not obeying the posted speed limit and wasn't properly licenced, and very inexperienced?

I know it's not a popular stance to take. Blame the dead kid. I must be heartless.

I know the parents, friends, family, and people with a heart, all want to find somebody or something to blame other than the person they loved, but sometimes, more often than we would like to admit, great and wonderful people do stupid and tragic things, with stupid and tragic consequences. It sucks but it's reality. Cold, hard, reality. And we, as a society, need to wake up to that reality.

Why is it that society simply refuses to make people accountable for their own actions? Why must it always be the fault of another person, institution, childhood trauma or some inanimate object? Filling in the ditches in Richmond won't stop people from dying, it would just cause problems for the agricultural industry in the area as well as cost more money than anybody is willing to pay.

When did common sense become a thing of the past? When did it become okay to place the blame on everybody and everything other than ourselves? Why do we, as a society, support the idea that we, as people, aren't accountable for our actions?

I could go on forever about accountability. I'll just stop here for now.