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Steve A.'s avatar

Your essay is spot on! When viewing the video and reading the details of the story (details is now a loose term), I was shocked and saddened. The response from the bystanders was alarming, as much as the actual attack. We are not only losing our freedoms, but we are losing our humanity! "Liability"......I would be worried about the "liability" that I'm going to be judged on for not helping another human!

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Madjack's avatar

Morally disgusting to hide behind liability.

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Lynn Peters's avatar

If losing your job is the risk to help another human being, I would hope that is the hill worth dying on. What are we becoming? Or, unfortunately, what have we become?

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DarkWhite's avatar

It is literally a hill one can die on. Thanks to some crap DNA, I require a very expensive medication to avoid having a massive risk of stroke or heart attack. Without health insurance, I'm not getting it. That one thing alone keeps a lot of Americans in indentured servitude, and I'm sure TPTB know it. If they solve that problem, a lot of Americans could open our mouths and say what we think.

And I didn't even touch the issue of dependents. Sure, I might not mind dying on that hill. Do I want to risk my elderly mother who lives with me becoming homeless along with me as a consequence of me sticking by my principles? Suppose I had young kids?

One shouldn't be so blithe about unemployment.

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Neil Kellen's avatar

Two words: Kitty Genovese. Unemployment and insurance have nothing to do with people keeping their mouths shut. People just don't want to get involved and have been that way "forever", and nothing we can do will change that. Having dependents could very well influence individual reaction. But I doubt that is a very strong correlation, too.

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DarkWhite's avatar

I'm not talking about helping someone in the thick of a fight by calling the cops. I'm talking about the more nebulous issue of "speaking your mind" or "saying what's what," which is what this tends to spiral down into. Calling 911 if you see someone getting stormed? Yes, do it. Pointing out on social media that this can't be blamed on white supremacy? Depending on where you work, you could end up out of work and blackballed.

I'm sort of skating ahead of the puck here ... probably too far ahead if it was unclear. I think I'm also too used to conversations with progressives who leap to the further possible conclusion the second they can.

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Neil Kellen's avatar

I think what I'm trying to say is that we really have to accept the unflattering parts of human nature - because they are in all of us. We need to stop demanding a perfection which can never be reached (because the scale is infinite - ALT) and trust that each of us will, on our own, consistently try to do better. If we applied that same forgiveness to others that we apply to ourselves, the world would be a much better place. It's ironic that, over the last decade or two, an entire industry has developed about helping people forgive themselves, but that seems to be lost when asked to forgive others. One cannot learn to forgive themself until they learn to forgive others.

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DarkWhite's avatar

That's VERY true -- agreed 100%. If you aren't willing to look your flaws in the eye, you can't ever mitigate them.

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Lynn Peters's avatar

We do more to help dogs.

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LosPer's avatar

Dog's don't have the support of the plaintiff's bar

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Georgia Sand's avatar

We do so much to torture, abuse, kill humanity’s best friends. No, they do not have legal recourse. We close the door on their mass suffering because honestly, even for those of us who live them, their terrible plight is too much. But yes, relief might come in a legal form, personhood granted or no. Free spay/neuter as needed, mandated everywhere, enforced! And no-kill shelters.

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