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Families are an important part of all the equations of life, doubt it not. It's one of the reasons why they're under assault by the Left and by the Omnipotent State. But responsibility, strictly speaking, is something only an independent moral agent can possess -- and a family is not a moral agent; it's an aggregate.

All families that function properly are somewhat socialistic, in a voluntary fashion. We don't practice strict personal responsibility with our kids; they'd starve to death. When a sufficiently limited group is united by bonds of love that are sufficiently strong, we can eschew the rigid allocation of responsibility for one's health and welfare to oneself, and ask that others in the group help out. But that model is not appropriate to a whole nation. It wouldn't even be appropriate to a small village.

All in all, the politicization of health care and retirement has had the same effects as the politicization of everything else that's properly a matter for private decisions; it's destroyed the rights of privacy, increased our costs, weakened voluntary relationships, muddied the waters of accountability, given the unscrupulous lots of ways to rip us off while hiding behind a veneer of public service, and created intense interest-group warfare that threatens our social cohesion. Apart from that, it's perfectly all right.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

All families that function properly are somewhat socialistic, in a voluntary fashion

Disagree.

All families that function properly are authoritarian.

I wish I had my Keunnelt-Leddihn with me ... I'd quote him on the "experiment in democracy" taking place in American families (c. late 60's) that was such a dismal failure.

The family is the perfect relationship on which to draw the exact distinctions between equality and liberty which confuse so many people who mistakenly equate communism with Christianity or state-enforced altruism with the human virtue that is charity.