Thirty-seven years ago, the motto was, “If you build it, they will come.” Today, Kevin Costner won’t have to work so hard. All he has to do is sit on the porch, think about a baseball field for a while, and someone’s ghost will build it for him.

The American Dream has been replaced by the American Dreamer. There’s no longer a work ethic, because hard work has become passé. Now, you simply need to “manifest” something and reality will be bent to your admittedly passive will. The Cambridge University Press defines manifesting as “the process of bringing something into existence by focusing your thoughts and intentions on it, often involving techniques like visualization and affirmations. It is based on the belief that your thoughts can influence your reality and attract what you desire.”

Psychology Today explains, “Manifesting is the idea that, through the power of belief, we can effectively ‘think’ a goal into becoming reality. It’s a form of ‘magical thinking,’ or our belief, a need to believe, that one’s hopes and desires can affect how the world turns.”

A quick internet search will bring up at least 10 websites with “expert” advice on how to manifest everything from love and money to making all your dreams come true. There was even a feature documentary called “The Secret” devoted to the concept that the universe “wants” to give you everything you want.

Goodness knows, as a kid I got a lot of stuff I wished for, but that new bike or the Roy Rogers gun set was provided to me not by the “universe” but by my father’s hard work in the U.S. Navy. He would tell me, “If wishes were horses, all beggars would ride.” I was taught that the way to get what you want is to work hard for it.

If sitting at home, getting high, watching cartoons, and wishing for great riches and a new Ferrari in the driveway is enough to allow the “universe” to give you everything you want, what happens when you actually do something? Well, of course good things always happen no matter how badly you act — after all, the “universe” has your back, and it approves of you.

So where, you might ask, is personal responsibility? My grandmother taught me that “God helps those who help themselves,” because people from her generation knew that actions have consequences, bad decisions have bad outcomes, and it’s your fault for making the decision in the first place. When I was a kid and got in trouble, no one blamed the school, the teacher, the circumstances, or the federal government, they made me take the blame and suffer the consequences.

These days, kids are encouraged to say or do anything, act however they want, and there will be no consequences. But, of course, consequences inevitably arrive — and when they do, we have a whole symphony of excuses ready: injustice, racists, fascists, a rigged system, anything that will redirect the responsibility.

We have now raised generations of kids who believe that whatever they do, there won’t be negative consequences, that if things go wrong, it’s someone else’s fault, and they are simply misunderstood victims. We even coined a new term for this, “victim-blaming,” so people never need to take responsibility for anything.

I grew up in the generation whose motto was “If it feels good do it.” I guess somewhere along the way feeling good became important and doing good got lost. Then we changed our whole society to make sure you always feel good. You didn’t win? No problem, here’s your trophy anyway. You failed? Well, you get an A for effort. It used to be that “showing up is half the battle,” but now, it seems that showing up wins the war. You don’t actually have to do anything.

This played out in court recently when a mom admitted to taking her three young children to the basement and strangling them to death. Lindsay Clancy was found not guilty by 11 members of a 12-person jury, even after confessing the murder to police. In fact, the one holdout juror has been the subject of unrelenting public abuse after his position that she should be held responsible for murders she admitted she’d planned and carried out on her own. The majority, however, said she shouldn’t be convicted because she suffered from postpartum depression and the “system” had failed her. So even when you plan and carry out the killing of three children, aged five, three, and eight months, you don’t need to take responsibility.

I have to wonder if the attitude has infected the halls of Congress. Where is the courage to stand up to a colleague who has lost their way? How many times have we heard, “I believe in the right to life, but don’t feel like I can tell someone else how they should feel”? Every Republican should be proud to be a member of the pro-life party, especially now that Democrats have gone off the reservation and passed laws allowing abortion right up to the moment of birth.

An unrecognizable Democratic Party now allows members who advocate for the overthrowing of the American government. It seems there are no boundaries for behavior anymore, and few people, even those in power, want to hold anyone accountable.

At the very least, we need good leaders who will stand up for what they know is right and call out those whose ideas and behaviors are dangerous to us all, not leaders who stick by anyone who says they are members of the club.

Bob Bowdey is a former high school government teacher and contributor to The Washington Stand.