Mr. Cat has an epiphany

This morning I came to a realization. It brought together a wide number of observations on all sorts of things ranging from environmental degradation, American foreign policy, the punctuality of college professors, and my job search here in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

One significant attribute of social power is the right to be irresponsible with impunity, while simultaneously demanding full responsibility as a matter of principle from those lacking in power. In this way, rules of responsible behavior, i.e. doing things in a timely manner, working towards a reasonable balance of one's own needs with the needs of others, "cleaning up one's own mess" etc. are set up as universal obligations by which all need to abide in order to make it in the world. But these supposedly universal obligations are only enforced or recognized as such at the convenience of the powerful.

I'd go into more detail, but I think anybody who would ever read this can probably think of plenty of examples when double standards are used by the powerful to entrench their own positions.

Rant over, and quite briefly at that.