When assigning blame for the sorry state of the world and country today, citizens are prepared to point fingers at government at all levels, big corporations, religion, today’s youth, greed, and a variety of other factors.

However, like the old saw which says that anytime you point your finger at someone, there are three fingers pointing back at you, those three fingers are actually right.

It IS our fault. All of us.

Especially in this country.

And most of it boils down to one truth:

We continue to reward bad behavior.

It’s easy to bash our faceless government, whether talking about the president, the feds, state offices, county agencies, or City Hall.

The “bad government” even trickles down further, to agencies like water districts, and even wayward homeowners association boards.

And yet in nearly every level of government, at least in a democracy, the ones who are most culpable for the bad behavior are actually the people who elect the numbskulls who often take up permanent residence in those positions.

We compound our own bad decisions, or in too many cases our apathetic lack of any decision, by lazily re-electing those who have helped create the train wreck that is our government.

If we held these people to a higher standard, demanded more, then voted out those who can’t meet the mark, it stands to reason that we would have a better government.

The same is true in business.

We often reward bad service at some fast-food restaurants by continuing to frequent them.

Our argument is always the same: “one little boycott isn’t going to make any difference.”

Yet, if you could find an honest multi-national CEO, they would tell you that their mega-corporations DEPEND on every single little purchase, because they eventually add up to billions.

We as the consumer simply aren’t smart enough to have figured that out.

This nation has also surrendered our right to demand better products and better service because we continue to accept shoddy workmanship and horrible customer service because a product happens to be priced lower than a more dependable product sold at a friendlier business.

Mom and Pop stores weren’t run out of business by corporate goliaths, they were thrown under the bus by customers who believe that price is more important than quality and service.

They’re usually the same people who then want to carp about a product that breaks after five uses and the underpaid zombies behind the misnamed “customer service” counters who could care less when you bring it back and complain.

If we were to all get serious about rewarding good businesses and retailers with our business, those with lousy ethics would soon have to change their ways or go out of business.

This includes the soul-less oil barons who continue to rape the American motorist with gas prices that are far above the cost of production.

It also extends to television.

People complain about the vast wasteland of programming, a televised landscape that includes hundreds of channels, nearly all of them filled with insipid reality shows that do nothing but display humanity’s lowest common denominator.

Yet if you ask Neilsen, the reason those despicable shows continue to thrive is that we as Americans don’t change the channel, continuing to watch the disgusting activities of people like Kim Kardashian, the Jersey Shore crew, and other dirtbag divas who represent everything that is wrong in society today.

We continue to reward bad behavior at every level.

And that goes for the television networks themselves, where TV stations have become brazen in showing as little as four minutes of show for every minute of commercials. Yet we keep watching those stations, placidly absorbing the brainwashing.

So the next time you get ready to complain about something, stop and ask yourself whether you’re part of the problem.

Or if you are prepared to make a few sacrifices, and become a part of the solution by refusing to reward that bad behavior with your dollars, your votes, or your loyalty.