Unfortunately, there is a principle that exists in business, and society, and in the family. "What gets rewarded gets done." Let me say that again. "What gets rewarded gets done."We have actually created rewards for anti-social behavior. Drug addicts and alcoholics have been granted "disability" to enable them to qualify for disability checks. People who didn't qualify for "government assistance" were actually taught how to lie to get their "entitlements." No less a figure than a former candidate for the presidency of the United States declared that for many, prisons are preferable to living at home. After having visited some of the prisons where, indeed, the prisons look like college campuses, with the best gyms, superb cafeterias with nutritionally balanced meals, color television, college courses, superior libraries, and where it costs more to keep them there than to send them to Harvard." I can only concur. 


While I am not advocating a return to whips and chains and confinement in public stocks, I do wonder if perhaps we should not at some point be held at least partially responsible for our own decisions. God holds us responsible. Perhaps we are rapidly reaching the stage where society (read that:  the government, bureaucrats, and professional social engineers) might want to consider that individuals should be treated as though they have a modicum of intelligence and are, therefore, capable of making decisions for which they should reap the rewards, or the consequences (read that: "choose Ye this day whom Ye shall serve.")