In America, it is becoming the trend that the more you are responsible for something, the less you are accountable for your actions. The too-numerous-to-list news stories involving the daily activites of the Bush White House illustrate this point. But other examples include Enron, DHS and FEMA directors, and, of course, the EPA. Today I am taking a look at two very different areas of responsibility and accountability, the first being that of American students in regard to their own educations.

America has adopted a complete and total “blame the system” mentality that continually increases the burden placed on teachers while removing accountability from the people who matter the most and should be the most involved: parents and students. Parents will complain about work overload and lament their inability to spend quality time on education with their children. Why should this concern teachers? Teachers are responsible for providing educational information to kids present in class who are willing to learn. If you can’t raise a child who can go to school and make the effort to learn, why should the buck be passed to a teacher? This is not the teacher’s child, only a temporary resident of the educator’s classroom. Students themselves are increasingly led to believe that their lack of effort is not the problem as their whiny Baby Boomer parents and grandparents force schools to lower standards to accomodate their idiot children rather than tell Junior to lay off the X-Box long enough to read a chapter or write a report. Dumbing down education serves no one, least of all the students it is intended to “help”. Are we going to reward lack of effort forever? It’s time that students are made more aware of how their choice of uninvolvement will come back to haunt them. Teachers are not parents, and shouldn’t be made to coddle children in the classroom. If Junior turns out to be an idiot, that should be something his parents work to correct, not reward or overlook out of love. Real love would dictate a stronger hand at making eduction the kid’s top priority.

Moving on, a growing movement in America is working for an increase in men’s reproductive rights. Sounds silly or stupid? I agree that it partially is. But it is not so clear cut or black and white. Men are still regarded as the primary instrument of pregnancy in this country, and rightly so. Women aren’t walking around the streets getting knocked up by osmosis or something like that. But at the same time, there are examples available of women telling the men they are with that they do not want children or can’t have children only to reveal later that she is pregnant and the man is now responsible for child support for a child he did not want and did not consent to creating. Men like these are victims of theft, basically, as their sperm is stolen for impregnantion without their agreement. But because the welfare of a child comes before the “free-wheeling” lifestyle of any man, it’s just and right to force a man to pay for some woman’s duplicitous actions? Child support can run into the thousands, depending on the type of life the court dictates the child involved should have. Now a man who was duped into fatherhood has his entire livelihood strangled, essentially robbing his future legitimate children of part of the income and resources that would be reserved for them when the man is ready for his family. Theft? It’s almost more equatable with rape. Sure, it’s doubtful (if not completely unlikely) that the man in question wasn’t enjoying the act of reproduction, but is enjoying sex a punishable crime if you believe a lying woman about her methods of birth control or reproductive ability? I am not signing completely on board with the movement to abolish child support from fathers who do not actively raise their children. But at the same time, men should be allowed to have as much input in their reproduction as women do, especially in cases where a woman deceived a man into getting her pregnant. Courts often make the case that it takes two individuals to make a child. This is technically correct, although if you bring the issue of consent into the case, that is not always true. A woman raped into pregnancy is (in anywhere but South Dakota) usually given the option of aborting such a child. That a woman could do the reverse to a man and take his sperm for her own aims is an idea that may strike some as silly, but this is too-often a real situation that men find themselves in. Is equality under this democracy too much to ask? And even if the case mentioned here is eventually thrown out, isn’t this an issue that should be discussed more by people who want to focus on building better families and raising support for all children being raised in this country?