Americans, on the whole, have never gotten too excited about the doctrine of predestination. The suggestion that you can’t manifest your destiny is as mocked as a McDonald’s customer with third-degree burns and as publicly vilified as any supposedly frivolous lawsuit.

Every red-blooded American knows that anyone who really wants to can pull him or herself up by the well-worn bootstraps and ride off into the sunset (or a realistic facsimile thereof). The American Dream, after all, relies on Personal Responsibility to ensure that the dream comes true. And taking Personal Responsibility is all about making the right choices. As long as we make the right choices, we can’t help but succeed.

Except when we don’t.

Well, not us, of course. Other people. If they don’t succeed, they must have made the wrong choices in the first place. After all, in the Land of Opportunity, everything is a choice!

It doesn’t really matter if some “choices” are a thousand times easier to make than others, or that a lucky few might be far more well-equipped to make the “right” ones. No, if we acknowledged such a self-evident fact — if we insisted on as much collective responsibility as Personal Responsibility — what fun would that be? The perpetual revival of mutual recrimination (clearly a sign of a contented populace) could hardly survive such an inhospitable environment.

Choose to become a parent and enjoy the hollow satisfaction of politically-motivated lip service, while avoiding most of that pesky substantive support.

Choose not to become a parent and rejoice in your lesser social status and higher tax burden, taking comfort in mandatory overtime when your co-workers’ children get the flu.

Who cares if, under the current system, parents must choose between frequently inadequate, unsubsidized daycare and the loss of vital income? After all, it was their “choice” to have children. No one made them do it!

Who cares if the child free have to pick up slack for harried parents, when they’re not busy defending a responsible lifestyle? After all, it was their “choice” not to have children. They really shouldn’t be complaining.

The same goes for those who “choose” to give birth in hospitals rather than at home with midwives. Or those who “choose” to eat meat, rather than become vegetarians. And let’s not forget the people who “choose” to live in dangerous neighborhoods or “choose” drug addiction.

Blame the other guy! Funny how such a fixation on Personal Responsibility quickly becomes its abdication.

If we honestly acknowledge that we have not yet achieved a level playing field, we must also acknowledge that Personal Responsibility isn’t the panacea it appears to be. The most pressing problem in the Land of Opportunity may not be the mythical unwillingness of its citizenry to take Personal Responsibility, but our narrow-minded obsession with it.

It’s time we made a better choice.

Michelle Bowen-Ziecheck is a Weinberg junior. She can be reached at [email protected].