You are responsible for yourself. No one else can be as responsible for yourself as you are, nor can you ever be completely responsible for anyone but yourself. Please do your best in the case of babies and others who are totally helpless, though.
When your own responsibility fails-- and all of us have been there-- you can ask others for help. Friends, family, and charity are there to fill the gap when you fail to be as responsible as you should have been. The non-consensual institution of political government is also there for you to lean on, but this only creates more irresponsibility.
If you won't be responsible, no one else can force it on you. Not governments and their legislation, nor churches and their morals. No matter how hard they try, they're going to fail. It's up to you.
While you are responsible for everything you do, some people will try to convince you of a responsibility to do things which aren't your responsibility. This is one of the biggest tricks government plays on you.
This kind of person will make up an imaginary responsibility-- one which advances their agenda at your expense-- and try to convince you it's real. They will try to shame you for not doing what they want.
Among the false responsibilities which will be imposed on you is to "pay your fair share" in taxes for things you don't want and probably don't need. Just because someone else imagines it's a good idea.
You are also told to follow illegitimate orders which will harm someone; if you don't, you'll be called irresponsible.
A fake "social contract" is a great weapon to use to shut down rational thought and create imaginary responsibilities out of thin air.
You are responsible for not violating the life, liberty, or property of any other person. All your real responsibilities grow from this root.
You are responsible for supporting yourself, because if you don't, someone else may be forced to support you against their will. This violates their property rights.
You are responsible for keeping your nose out of other people's business, as long as they aren't harming anyone; to do otherwise violates their liberty.
As long as you have a conscience and can see the consequences of your actions, you'll know when you are being responsible and when you aren't.
Don't violate others. This is the foundation of responsibility. Anything less is irresponsible.
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The topic of this post is on a subject that you have most accurately and correctly described and also one that only an embarrassingly small minority of the human race acknowledges or for that matter, even is capable of seeing. Personal freedom is only possible for those individuals who have accepted the concomitant and necessary corollary of personal responsibility. Regrettably the vast majority cannot comprehend this fact or otherwise fear or even hate it if they are aware and willfully shirk and avoid accepting the difficulties of responsibility, some to the extent of forfeiting even freedom to escape it. I truly believe this is the primary and most harmful character deficiency of the human species.
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