0808 Choice and Responsibility
0808 Choice and Responsibility
Lately there has been a spate of seemingly unrelated news stories that need attention. In a certain way the significance of these events lies as much in what they reveal about those involved as in the events themselves.
In every circumstance, individuals made or endorsed choices. In every situation, some kind of justification for those choices is required, theoretically, before the court of public opinion. The question must be asked; are those choices being made and promoted for responsible reasons? Sometimes choices are easier to make than to live with.
A good first issue to examine is Sunday alcohol sales. According to many business owners, further promoting the legal drug alcohol through Sunday beer and wine sales is good. It is good because it generates more money for them with minimum responsibility after the sale.
But financial gain and customer gratification have consequences and carry responsibilities. We are quickly becoming an alcohol culture with tentacles reaching deep into the family unit itself. Business owners and local leaders rarely live the consequences of adults modeling alcohol to children and teens as an ultimate agent of social privilege, affirmation, pleasure, and self-medication. The responsibility for consequences in future homes will be handled by others – social service agencies, addiction support networks, secular and church counseling centers, hospitals and police departments.
“Problems of the Heart”, by local author Dena Woods, is a fictional love story for teen girls, but it accurately portrays one young woman’s emotional struggles from the fringe of a substance-abusing youth environment. While not its primary intention, it serves to expose the tragic consequences of practicing a lifestyle based on lessons inadvertently learned from adults. Most of the story takes place outside of a biblically Christian culture but finally recognizes the need for redemption, the “Say Yes to Sunday” that alcohol peddlers pervert and seem unable to comprehend.
Gambling is another legal drug, albeit a psychological one. It almost mirrors the choice systems, consequences and responsibilities, or lack thereof, of alcohol sales. Money is the lure and the consequences – increased crime, addictions, recreational and economic leaching of families, belong to someone outside tribal “reservations”. As of this writing, in spite of all its pathologies, gambling will soon infect Allegan County and then move on to Muskegon county; this in a state where casino gambling is illegal but where twenty-four casinos already exist.
There are still some who are willing, for the good of others, to recognize decisional consequences and responsibilities. Thanks to the Mackinac Center, MichiganVotes.org is tracking legislative bills, amendments and voting records in plain English. Secretary of State Terry Lynn Land has furthered government transparency by posting the department’s detailed quarterly expenditures report online for all to examine. In both cases, responsibility is the goal.
The Supreme Court recently had the courage to uphold the principles and text of the Constitution of the United States, even though Washington D.C. has since chosen to defy the ruling. In a decision that struck down D.C.’s gun laws, the Court recognized its responsibility to the Constitution and the consequences of disarming law-abiding citizens. It recognized the responsibility for proper self-defense in the home as resting on the shoulders of each family.
The great Charles Spurgeon once exposed the heart of the choice-consequence-responsibility dynamic when he noted that “though the heavens should fall through our doing right, we are not to sin to keep them up.” God has never hesitated to crash persons or peoples in their efforts to repackage foolishness as wisdom in order to “keep up” their chosen “heavens”. There will always be consequences to face and responsibilities to shoulder, whether by Congress, state legislatures, county boards, city councils or individual parents.