Tom replied back:

the idea that ideas have no consequences but that actions do is absurd, since actions are usually always undergirded and motivated by ideas. This process might not be explicit.... When actions are not undergirded and motivated by ideas, they are called reflexes. The actions that Jody writes about [equality of gay people], though, which presumably have to do with activism, especially something like the search for equality, are never reflexive and always undergirded and motivated by ideas.

Nice, but I still disagreed:

Tom, ideas don't fire bullets, fly space-ships or march Jews off to gas chambers -- people do. While ideas are used as inspiration, guidance or justification for many, many things, they aren't culpable for our misdeeds or honored for our victories. All the kudos or condemnation is ours and ours alone.

Another writer chimed in with

There's a gray area in which one INCITES with expressed ideas and is much more culpable. However, whether or not the person who speaks them is criminally culpable, ideas do have consequences because 1) one must suggest building a rocket before it can be built or launched, and 2) ideas influence our perception of reality and thereby influence all of our actions.

And I responded in kind with:

I allowed ample room in my comments for the fact that ideas inspire, incite and influence. You can critique ideas, fear them, hate them or love them precisely because of their ability to inspire and all the rest. But ideas never do anything. They don't act. We act based on our ideas, based on contradictory ideas and even as Tom suggested, reflexes. Yet an idea itself? It has no literal power within the world. Figurative and metaphorical? Yes, of course. But we take our ideas and put them into practice, they don't slip out at night, steal the car, get drunk and wreck it on their own.

So that is where I'm at right now. I can see the other point, that it is the idea of Freedom that is responsible for all of the liberties that we currently enjoy. But the idea of Freedom never acted to create or maintain those liberties. We did. We did the hard work to write laws, establish precedents and achieved, for good or for bad, everything "free." Responsibility, to me then, entails the accountability for a choice made between one or more possibilities.

Websters defines responsibility as "1 a : liable to be called on to answer b (1) : liable to be called to account as the primary cause, motive, or agent (2) : being the cause or explanation c : liable to legal review or in case of fault to penalties....2 a : able to answer for one's conduct and obligations : TRUSTWORTHY b : able to choose for oneself between right and wrong 3 : marked by or involving responsibility or accountability ..."