We No Longer Have A Moral Compass

[BrentAllen]

This article doesn't mention Scouting or the BSA. After reading it, I could only think "Thank God for the BSA." Hopefully we are making a difference.

 

http://www.ajc.com/pets/content/news/stories/2008/06/05/hartford_hit_and_run.html

As hit-and-run victim lies in street, bystanders gawk

 

Chilling surveillance video sparks outrage, soul-searching in Hartford, Conn.

 

By STEPHEN SINGER

Associated Press

Published on: 06/05/08

 

HARTFORD, Conn. A 78-year-old man is tossed like a rag doll by a hit-and-run driver and lies motionless on a busy city street as car after car goes by. Pedestrians look on, but appear to do nothing. One driver stops briefly but then pulls back into traffic. A man on a scooter slowly circles the victim before zipping away.

 

The chilling scene captured on video by a streetlight surveillance camera has touched off a round of soul-searching in Hartford, with the capital city's biggest newspaper blaring "SO INHUMANE" on the front page and the police chief lamenting: "We no longer have a moral compass."

 

"We have no regard for each other," said Chief Daryl Roberts, who on Wednesday released the video in hopes of making an arrest in the accident that left Angel Arce Torres in critical condition.

 

However, Roberts and other city officials backtracked on Thursday. After initially saying he was unsure whether anyone called 911, he and other city officials appeared at a news conference in which they said that four people dialed 911 within a minute of the accident, and that Torres received medical attention shortly after that.

 

"This moved too quickly," said Calixto Torres, City Council president. "People were putting information out too quickly."

 

Roberts said his initial angry reaction was based on what he saw in the video. "The video was very graphic and sent a very bad message," the police chief said.

 

The hit-and-run took place in daylight last Friday at about 5:45 p.m. in a working-class neighborhood close to downtown in this city of 125,000.

 

In the video, Torres, a retired fork-lift operator, walks in the two-way street just blocks from the state Capitol after buying milk at a grocery. A tan Toyota and a dark Honda that is apparently chasing it veer across the center line, and Torres is struck by the Honda. Both cars then dart down a side street.

 

Nine cars pass Torres as a few people stare from the sidewalk. Some approach Torres, but most stay put until a police cruiser responding to an unrelated call arrives on the scene after about a minute and a half.

 

"Like a dog they left him there," said a disgusted Jose Cordero, 37, who was with friends Thursday not far from where Torres was struck. Robert Luna, who works at a store nearby, said: "Nobody did nothing."

 

One witness, Bryant Hayre, told the Courant newspaper he didn't feel comfortable helping Torres, who he said was bleeding and conscious.

 

The accident and bystanders' apparent callousness dominated morning radio talk shows.

 

"It was one of the most despicable things I've seen by one human being to another," the Rev. Henry Brown, a community activist, said in an interview. "I don't understand the mind-set anymore. It's kind of mind-boggling. We're supposed to help each other. You see somebody fall, you want to offer a helping hand."

 

The victim's son, Angel Arce, begged the public for help in finding the driver. "My father is fighting for his life," he said.

 

The hit-and-run is the second violent crime to shock Hartford this week. On Monday, former Deputy Mayor Nicholas Carbone, 71, was beaten and robbed while walking to breakfast. He remains hospitalized and faces brain surgery.

 

"There was a time they would have helped that man across the street. Now they mug and assault him," police chief said. "Anything goes."

 

 

[packsaddle]

While I agree with the sentiment that scouting helps prepare young persons to respond and helps give them a sense of duty, I disagree with the premise implied by the title of this topic.

It implies that 'we' presently have no 'moral compass', whatever that means, but that 'we' used to at some indefinite time in the past, and that for reasons undisclosed in all the hand-wringing, we are no longer in possession of that so-called 'moral compass'.

I respectfully suggest that unless most of the members of this forum do not qualify as being part of the 'we' (just for example, there are plenty of other good people out there), there is plenty of 'moral compass' available.

 

While it is sad, this event is hardly new to human experience (need I mention the story of the good Samaritan?). I know of a similar event over 40 years ago in which a boy who had recently been awarded eagle scout, finishing up driving his afternoon school bus route, saw a nearby single-vehicle accident with lots of people gathered. He went to it and the people (of all ages) were just gawking at the driver who was severely injured and lying unconscious on the shoulder of the road, bleeding from mouth and nose with internal injuries. The scout asked if anyone had called for help, they hadn't. So he told someone who lived nearby to run and make the call. They did. He then asked for blankets to use for first aid (there wasn't much else he could do for those injuries). Other people brought blankets and he stayed with the victim until the ambulance arrived. Then he helped the ambulance person place the victim on a stretcher and then rode in the ambulance to the hospital, holding the victim still as the ambulance lurched over the highway. After they got to the hospital, he hitched his way back home and washed the blood off before supper late that night.

 

Those people who were gawking were doing nothing because they had no idea what to do, or were simply stunned by the spectacle. They weren't bad or immoral people. As soon as the scout told them what to do they quickly responded. Leadership is also needed in these situations, even if in a lonely rural setting. But the general public, I think, are well-meaning, most of them. They just aren't necessarily prepared.

[fgoodwin]

Two thoughts:

 

(1) Kitty Genovese all over again. People, no matter how "nice" they are simply don't want to get involved.

 

(2) Lack of a moral compass? Of course not -- the moral compass is simply look out for No. 1, do whatever feels good and the heck with the other guy.

[Bob White]

I tnink what we lack today is the sense of a community moral compass.

 

The have always been individuals in nearly ant society who did not care for their felow man and even went out of their way to harm them, just as we have today. The difference is that as the population has grown so has the number of people who ignore the value that many know communities emberace, the Golden Rule.

 

As a result, our sommunities are less not because there still are not individuals who have a definable moral component, but because it has been allowed for people without it to dictate changes in ordr to comfort them for their lack of a moral structure.

 

In trying to be all things to all people we have lessened our national character.

 

 

[packsaddle]

"the moral compass is simply look out for No. 1, do whatever feels good and the heck with the other guy."

While I do not doubt this to be true for some people, I can't think of a single person in my circle of friends and acquaintances who I believe would practice this approach. Perhaps I'm just lucky but I see most of the people around me in this same light. I feel a very strong sense of community around these parts, heh, heh, even during a heated political season. People genuinely care about other people around here.

I'm curious to know what makes someone feel the way described in the quote about people in general.

[Gold Winger]

" Leadership is also needed in these situations, even if in a lonely rural setting."

 

Would that be "servant leadership"? :-)

[hops_scout]

"People, no matter how "nice" they are simply don't want to get involved."

 

Too much liability. Even with Good Samaritan laws, if somebody helps out they are at risk of lawsuit. It's quite sad everything is a lawsuit now..

[fgoodwin]

pack, you read the article, right? You posted your own example, right?

 

And you ask me why I feel this way?

 

Like you, I think most people are not immoral, but I still think the vast majority of people would do exactly what those in the article did -- nothing! Four people thought they did their duty by calling 911; other than that, they didn't get involved.

 

It is truly a sad commentary on our society today, and our lack of compassion for our fellow man.

 

I do hope and pray that BSA is making a difference. If I didn't feel that way, I wouldn't stay involved.

[fgoodwin]

pack: my apologies; after re-reading your last post, I think you were asking about the why source of the original quote (Chief Roberts) felt the way he did, not me, right?

[packsaddle]

Oh that's ok, I was asking in general but it could also be interpreted as me wondering why I often seem so out of place among the general thought patterns of most people.

 

To me, in order to maintain such a negative view of the motives of other people, the only way I could maintain such a view is to have much darkness in my life. I don't automatically assume that other people are uncaring or perhaps harbor sinister motives - in fact my experience has been the opposite. I am wondering why anyone would feel differently unless they have had worse personal experiences than I have had.

[evmori]

The looking out for #1 is where all the problems start! That and the attitude "if it's OK for me, then it's OK." Total disregard for others. Self-centered & the feeling of being entitled to whatever!

 

Yeah GW, maybe servant leadership is what's needed! I'd still like to go with leading by example, though.

[Beavah]

Yah, well, maybe we all traded in our moral compasses for a new moral GPS! Way cooler, but yeh do have to remember to bring extra batteries.

 

I'm with packsaddle on this, eh? Whether yeh point to Kitty Genovese all those years ago or to the Good Samaritan, I believe my fellow citizens are good sorts, but not always knowledgeable or brave sorts. I've been at lots of accident scenes. They've never been short of people who were standin' around willing to help. Those folks just didn't know how to help.

 

That's a failure of education, not of morals. Worth askin' your scouts who have First Aid MB what they'd do (or better yet, set it up as a scenario somewhere safe and see!). Hopefully they'd know how to secure the scene, care for da victim, and direct bystanders. If not, time to work on how yeh teach First Aid!

 

We need more scoutin' and more Red Cross courses and whatnot to empower good people, not groanin' about people bein' "bad."

 

Beavah

 

[Eagledad]

I agree as a society we are loosing the moral compass. I think we have been for a long time. Until the 1940s, many if not most families had a bible laying around because it was an easy common book to own. Most folks before that time actually learn to read using the bible. It didn't mater is you beleived in God or not, you learned a moral direction based from one main source. That gave society as a whole a basic moral direction that most everyone agreed. We don't have that common source today for moral guidence. There is not one basic direction that society as a whole can point and say that is the right thing to do.

 

Barry

[BrentAllen]

Beavah and pack, I wish I could agree with you, but the article won't allow me to. 9 cars drive by. A guy on a scooter circles the victim before driving off. Even if they didn't know First Aid, they could have at least stopped and warned any oncoming traffic. He was lucky he didn't get run over. Hopefully this was just a very isolated incident, and you guys are right.

[GernBlansten]

This story has been told before, nothing new....

 

A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who robbed him, stripped him of his clothes, and, wounding him, left him on the road half dead. By chance there came a priest that way, and, as a teacher of religion to men, he should have stopped to help the poor man. Instead of this, he pretended not to see, and passed by on the other side of the road. Then there came by a Levite, who also, as an official of the church, should have given help. But he merely came and looked on the injured man, and passed on the other side as the priest had done.

 

Afterwards there came by a Samaritan, and, when he caught sight of the wounded Jew, he went over to him and was very sorry for him. Now the Jews hated the Samaritans, and were their enemies, so that it would not have been surprising if he, also, had done as the priest and the Levite did. But, no! Though it was his enemy, he could not pass him by and leave him on the road, perhaps to die. He examined his wounds and bound them up; doing all that he could to soothe them. Then he lifted him carefully on his own beast, and brought him to the nearest inn, and took care of him through the night. The next day, when the Samaritan departed, he paid the man who kept the inn, and said to him, "Take care of this poor man until he is well, and whatever it may cost for his lodging and food, that I will pay thee when I come again."