Who is to Blame for the Cause the Government or the People?

By: Tyler Ingley

When considering who is to blame for the cause of something I believe that the higher order or the government is to be held responsible for whatever cause happens whether it be positive or negative. They are the ones who make the causes whether they are unguided or purposeful. Stone stated that whenever an action is committed there is an outcome and it may be positive or negative. Since the government makes these decisions then they are to blame for the outcome or be praised if it is a positive outcome. Stone discussed for types of causes and I will elaborate on each of them to prove how the government or the higher authorities are responsible for the causes. The first is mechanical cause. It is defined as things that have no will of their own but are designed, programmed, or trained by humans to produce certain consequences. For example, the media often displays advertisements on unhealthy foods. When we as a society watch television many people buy into this and it causes us to go out and by the unhealthy foods which ultimately leads to malnutrition. The higher authority here is the people who allow these advertisements to be aired, therefore they are to blame. Mechanical causes try to brainwash people and the government try's to in a sense brainwash its voters into buying into their policies. The second cause are intentional causes. These are defined as when causes that lay the blame directly at someone's feet. Either someone acted in order to bring about the consequences, or someone acted even though they knew what the outcome was going to be. This cause again proves that government is solely responsible for the causes that happen because they have the power to intentionally put into effect what they want, whether the outcome is positive or negative is 100% up to them, not the society. The third type of causes are inadvertent causes. At first they may not seem like the government is responsible for them because they often are unforeseen side effects in a policy, however it is due to their carelessness that the side effect came to be so again they are responsible for what has occurred. A well constructed example of this is a policy that at first was well intended but the consequences came about later and ultimately the policy turned negative and the government is blamed again. The fourth and final cause is accidental. The reason I chose to do this one last is because it is the only cause that has the least amount of blame on either the government or the people. Accidental causes are natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, and hurricanes. Stone states that politically this is a good place to retreat if one is
being charged with responsibility because accidental causes are that of fate. No one can control fate, only God and most of the time it is not a wise decision to include God when you are introducing policies or are running for a campaign, simply because the idea of religion and government mixed together is something that is fading away more and more. Anyways, back to the reason the government can still be held responsible for accidental causes is because they are responsible for the aftermath of the tragedy. Many people blamed the government for not acting quick enough when Hurricane Katrina hit, later reports confirmed that the government knew how big the storm was and should have evacuated the entire area, but did not. In this example they are to blame for the cause, even though Hurricane Katrina was an accident. A question that came to mind when reading about all the causes is what "caused" the economy to be in the state that it is currently in. Was it intentional cause? Or was it a complete accident? Or even inadvertant? In my opinion I think that it was a matter of avoidable ignorance. I think they could have taken precautions to avoid it like, stopping the funding for Iraq way sooner. It has cost us a ridiculous amount of money which has put into a massive amount of debt. The housing market is another reason as well, shady loan sharks gave out loans that at first seemed like a viable option for American families to buy their first homes, but later were screwed because of it. In the end our government is solely responsible for the causes that are implemented into our society, that is why we vote to put them in office, because we expect them to perform so that our country stays on top.