Taking the Blame

There has been a lot of loose talk about responsibility lately. One whole political group has staked their claim on the concept as they interpret it. By which they seem to mean that if you're powerless and dependent on others its because you haven't taken responsibility for the fact that you're, well, powerless and dependent on others. See, the idea is that you (the p. and d. on o.) just haven't seized the opportunities to make a better life.
The irony, of course, is that the very people who cast such scorn on the needy because they're not taking the responsibility, the business executives and social/political leaders, they're coming from a setting where no one is ever to blame for anything. In business, no one ever accepts the responsibility for something going wrong; it is always some subordinate who came up with the idea or who didn't carry it out properly. It is one of our contractors who dropped the ball, or some government regulation that makes the  business more accountable and less able to cover things up. No one spilled gallons of oil  in the Gulf, that was someone else's fault. No one authorized all those toxic bank loans, that was because some subordinate was careless. No one voted to go to war in Afghanistan or Iraq. No one sat on millions of dollars of assets because they didn't trust the current economy. Not their fault.
Taking responsibility doesn't mean casting blame anyway. It means facing limitations and admitting it when things are or are not something that come within your capability. It means doing what you can and not hesitating to call on others when you can't. Yes, it is a wonderful thing when someone achieves something no one had thought possible,  goes above and beyond. The danger is when we romanticize or even expect such superhuman efforts.
When someone does something where he or she goes beyond expectations, that can be inspiring. But there is a whole percentage of our population who seem to hold against those in greatest need that they are not inspiring enough.