Would You Stand?

[MacWage]

Would you stand up?

Many of us (people) talk big, hold “high ideals,” fight for “good” causes, and say how we would stand for what we believe.
However, when time comes in which that stance is called for, people back down, keep their trap shut, and remain where they were, watching events unfold before their eyes.

How many times have people been killed in plain site of a large crowd, yet NO ONE intervenes or comes forth as a “witness?”
Crowds have a certain dynamic that hold people’s individual hesitations and fears. In crowds comes comfort (safety in numbers). In crowds comes influence (a “crowd mentality”) wherein people do, say, and think things they would NEVER had said as individuals. In crowds people “hold back” when injustice is being done, as the “popular opinion” seems against whatever is just and right.
One phrase I have seen says: “What is popular is not always right, what is right is not always popular.”

Recently, there have been a number of conversations on cruel and inhuman things done by crowds and in front of crowds, when NO ONE stepped in to stop the acts.

A picture: some nameless person is being beaten to death in front of a bar (with an open patio). The general crowd is callously cheering the attackers, as the victim CRIES for help. Now, you are on that patio. What do you do?
Do you risk your own life to defend someone you don’t even know?
The crowd may “wake up” and help you. It might not.
Would you stand up and defend the abused?

It is EASY to stand in a crowd or a march down a public street. There are dozens, if not thousands who think like yourself around you. You know that, come what may, they “have your back.”
To stand on your own is MUCH harder, especially if the “group” is against you.

Also, the only real difference between a “hero” and a normal person is that they stood when faced with the choice, and tried to right the wrong or save the ones in need. Otherwise, they were just “normal” people. Ask ANY “hero,” they will tell you the same. (Actually, THAT was the main message of “Flags of Our Fathers.”) There are MANY heros around that have never had that choice to make in a major event but have done so hundreds of times in daily life. No one knows there names (and few care), except those that that they have helped.

Do you know why the gladiator games ended in the Colosseum of Rome. Was it the coming of the “Christian moral value system?” No, they continued for decades after Constantine. They ended when 1 man, walked into the arena, between the gladiators and called for the violence to end. At the cheering of the crowd, the gladiators KILLED that man. However, once they were out of the crowd, the people who were there THOUGHT about what was said. One by one, they didn’t go back. In a VERY short time, the games that were over a thousand years old (not all that time in the Colosseum, which was built AFTER Nero’s death on Nero’s palace) ended.

We all talk big and with moral pride and outrage.
Yet, when time comes, will you stand.

(Now, let's keep religion, politics, and hate groups OUT of this)

[Mike1]

Sorry MacWage, but this one is a train wreck looking for a place to happen.

We really don't want to go this far afield on a kilt forum, do we?