I recently listened to Dan Carlin's latest Common Sense podcast in which he suggested that someone needs to go to jail for this economic mess we've gotten into. This is my response.

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You're right Dan, someone SHOULD go to jail. But it shouldn't be the bankers and their minions. It should be us; we the American people. We should go to jail for being so blatantly short sighted. We enabled the bankers to make the mistakes. They didn't brainwash us, we were greedy. We saw that raise in social status staring back at us and we took it.

"Oh but it wasn't me, I wasn't one of those people.", we say as we stand beside our $50,000 SUV. "Well we needed a big truck for the kids." Is thirty thousand dollars and 9 mpg really worth the inconvenience of taking an extra 15 minutes to get your kids into a smaller vehicle? Or did we buy that $50,000 truck with a big V8, mag wheels, pin striping, leather seats and a bose hifi stereo because it raised our social status? I think so.

We should go to jail for being stupid enough to allow our mortgage lender to talk us into an obviously unaffordable mortgage. For not reading and understanding the fine print before we placed our signature next to the red X.

We should go to jail for racking up 30, 40, $50,000 in credit card debt instead of simply lower our lifestyles a little bit. "Well, those $150 jeans and $70 shirts from the mall are manufactured better and last longer." Are they really worth the lifetime of servitude we've bought ourselves into?

We should go to jail for thinking we could go out to eat three times a week instead of saving that money and inconveniencing ourselves a little to prepare dinner at home. "Well, I worked a 12 hour day, I have no time to make dinner." Yeah I'm sure, between reading the newspaper and watching 4 hours of that brain numbing box.

We should go to jail for shopping at the upscale grocer instead of one more reasonable. For feeding our kids nothing but preprocessed, preservative laden crap instead of taking the time after work to prepare and make a nutritious dinner.

We should go to jail for blaming the big corporations for making America the most obese nation in the world. It's us who take our kids to McDonalds and stuff their faces with happy meals because we're to inconvenienced to cook breakfast or lunch, not them.

We should go to jail for having 4 cell phones in the family and a local home phone to boot. "But my kids need that phone in case there's an emergency!" Where's the emergency in 1400 text messages and $400 cell phone bills?

We should go to jail for having a flat panel HDTV in each room of the house and one in the rec room, for paying over $200 for cable and for thinking it makes a great babysitter.

We should go to jail for mismanaging our children. Aren't they the most important things in our lives? Then how come the high school drop out rate is so high!?! How come we have so many dead beat dads?

We should go to jail for paying $700 on a PS3 game system or $600 on an Apple iPhone, and umteen million $6.99 apps, $1.99 songs and $50 video games. All on the credit card, at 14% to 36% interest no less. Oh, that's right, we always pay that bill off at the end of the month. Right?

We should go to jail for not first comparing the prices of our medical and drug providers before we chose them. For not asking the important question, "What's this going to cost me AND my insurance company?"

We should go to jail for thinking it was OK to take that $5000 vacation on the dime of our mortgage lender, "But you know what, I really wanted to get over to Europe before I couldn't any longer."

We should go to jail for enabling the polluters of the world by powering our umteen million over priced electronic devices. "But hey, I'm going green with this device!" Tell that to the coal industry who flattens mountains and delivers up endless train loads of coal to your local power plant.

We should go to jail for not protesting $100 trips to the movie theater, $300 baseball games, and $500 family trips to the amusement park. No wonder families never leave the home, it costs 2 weeks disposable cash to afford taking them to a ball game. Their salaries have priced their largest customer base right out of the market.

We should go to jail for waving the finger at a few people for taking something that not one of us would decline. "Oh no, not me! I wouldn't take that $400,000 company sponsored trip to the spa, not me." No wonder no one knows the value of a hard days work anymore. Incentives to work harder then the next guy have become taboo!

We should go to jail for pointing the finger at a few unlucky wealthy people for wanting to raise their own social status a bit more. Not one of us would have declined the kind of money they were being given. NOT ONE!

We should go to jail for fighting our employers for more benefits, more vacation, and more pay, then complaining about the products we make which more benefits, more vacation, and more pay have forced our employer to price out of our reach.

We should go to jail for claiming that we weren't the ones who made the mistakes.

We should go to jail for thinking that the government owes anyone anything.

And most importantly, we should go to jail; for allowing our government to give the executive branch power over the checks and balances placed into the constitution by the framers, for allowing our government to shortsightedly enable the abuse of our 4th and 6th amendment rights through the patriot act and cripple our first and second amendment rights through endless legislation and regulation, and for allowing our government to enable the private sector to dictate law.

We should go to jail, Dan!

And you know what, Dan? Now that change is afoot, some of us may actually go to jail, but not for our mismanagement of money or crimes against persons and property. Oh no, Dan. We will go to jail for our assumed unconventional thoughts and ideas.

It saddens me to think that "We the People" have allowed all this to happen to us.

"It wasn't me, I wasn't one of those people." Keep saying it, you might start to believe it.