Wednesday, August 01, 2007

"Personal Responsibility" - Last refuge of scoundrels?

I just heard on the news this morning about a company that there are a lot of complaints about. The company is telephoning people with bad credit and offering them a credit card. They ask for bank account information before disclosing that there is a fee of $150. People are complaining that even if they refuse the card upon hearing about the fee the company deducts money from their bank account anyway. When a reporter asked a company spokesperson about this the reply was, "These people willingly gave out their bank account information. They need to take personal responsibility for their actions."

Asking your victims to take "personal responsibility" for their decision to trust you after you have abused that trust strikes me as unbelievably arrogant. Is "personal responsibility" becoming the new last refuge of scoundrels?

2 comments:

multitudinal said...

personal responsibility is upheld by the right wingrs ddespite it being ludicrous. It implies that people are completely in controll of their lives which just isn't true. Life is what happens when your making other plans. Everybody slips up, and whereas socialism would lay a mattress, conservatism says 'tough luck; pity you didn't inherit any money or skils to clean up after you like we have'

Dave Barrett said...

manyverse,
Yes, itsn't it currious that these people who think poor people and minorities should take personal responsibility for their situation never seem to call on George Bush to take "personal responsibility" for the crimes committed by his administration.