Perhaps an analogy would help. What happens when a trusting couple decides to take a well-deserved vacation and leave their teen-aged son at home for the first time? We all know the answer, don't we? Party! The real question is: Can we be trusted to police ourselves? The private market, that is. Or is this just a case of the fox guarding the henhouse — when we ease up on the regulations with the assumption that big companies will do the right thing, is the temptation to abandon our morals and put personal gain ahead of everything else simply too great to resist?

The idea that nobody at any of the failing financial institutions could have possibly anticipated the results of their poor lending practices is a little tough to swallow. So perhaps some of the executives who are responsible for this mess need to be put in time out. Or, at the very least, maybe it's time to shorten their leash a little. Yes, you heard right, I'm actually considering the merits of more governmental involvement.

Now, I'm by no means arguing in favor of socialism. But I do think that since a lot companies in the banking industry and several others have shown that they can't play nice, they need to have some of their privileges taken away. Sort of like what happened with Britney Spears. Britney is very intelligent, very talented and very marketable, but she somehow lost control, and in order for her to get back on track her father had to rein her in and take over. It seems to have worked — after a few months in therapy and out of the spotlight, she's doing much better. And because America loves a good comeback story, she's likely to find herself back on top again.

So, yes, I do think that there is a place, temporarily, for more regulation. As companies show that they can play by the rules — which the government should definitely start enforcing — then they can get some of their privileges back.

So in some ways I can see the benefits of the bailout. The problem, though, is that once you start handing out government cheese to the people who need it, everyone else seems to line up to get their handout, too.

Take the auto industry, which has been struggling but somehow still surviving for the past several years. Suddenly they need a bailout, too — so badly that they can't even wait for a new administration. On a recent Fox News segment, an auto industry executive was debating with another guest who opposed the bailout. The guest argued that we didn't get the auto industry into this mess; it's not our responsibility to get them out. The auto executive fought back, saying that his opponent, who drove a Nissan, should have been more patriotic and bought American. His response? American companies should have predicted higher fuel costs and built a car with better gas mileage. Good point. Apparently the American auto industry also has had trouble anticipating another winter.

I'm all for allowing people to make their own decisions. The alternative is to let the government decide for us, and I don't think anyone wants that. So if you want to act irresponsibly, God bless you. If you want to borrow money you can't pay back — or lend money you know you won't get back — more power to you. If you want to abuse your body and go without health insurance, hey, who am I to stop you? If you choose to make poor decisions and you're willing to suffer the consequences, then I'm willing to let you suffer those consequences. But in America, your right to swing your fists where my nose begins. If you're gonna do the crime, you better be willing to do the time. It's not my responsibility to feel sorry for you and it's definitely not my responsibility to bail you out.