Thoughts on Personal Accountability

My wife is pretty sure that some of our Southern California neighbors are the most stupid people in the world.
She was sympathetic toward the families whose homes were buried in mud in La Conchita yesterday... until she learned that the families had refused evacuation the day before... and that the same thing had happened eight or ten years ago.
She was sympathetic toward the family trapped in a cabin up in San Dimas Canyon... especially when the rescue inflatable flipped the six-month old into the water... again until she learned that the parents had refused evacuation the day before... at which point we pretty much agreed that society's responsibility ended with saving the child.
The guy whose mobile home fell into the river... who was angry that the mobile home park hadn't been allowed to put up a retaining wall eight years before... and who was angry that he was uninsured for flood damage because he lived on the bank of a river expected to flood?
The Palmdale residents who drove around and through road closure signs and barricades because "that's the way we do things in Palmdale?"
The guy who disappeared while attempting to swim the flood channel on a dare?
By the way, the remaining homeowners in the La Conchita area... under the hillside with a great big crack in the earth at the top... are still refusing evacuation.
In fairness, my wife's family does have a small mobile home on the water on the Florida gulf coast... but they weren't actually in that mobile during any of the four hurricanes that came through last year.
Okay... she's right again. It would make a lot more sense to just have those people sign waivers that public safety personnel don't have to risk their lives to try to pull them out the next day and then give them their signs... you know Bill Engvall's signs?
Okay... having said all of that... we don't do what's right because of who they are. We do what's right because of who we are.