General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Passengers watched killing on Metro car. Should they have intervened? [View all]daredtowork
(3,732 posts)Outraged bystanders frequently called on the "peaceful protesters" to prove themselves somehow by intervening when vandalism or violence occurred. Yet on occasions when they did intervene, they were often injured: one guy was hit in the head with a hammer, and another guy lost some teeth. The problem was the protest was against police abuse of authority so the police often hung back pretty far and didn't intervene themselves. There was often a "see what you did!" attitude that allowed vandalism to occur. Conservatives wanted to show the protests were violent, provocateurs wanted to provoke the violence, police wanted to show they were needed after all, and the peaceful protesters preferred not to get injured.
I don't think normal citizens should be obliged to throw themselves in front of knives under any circumstances. If someone does have an opportunity to save someone's life, I think throughout history, people have always used their good moral judgment about that, and all our legends and literature encourage people to try to help others if they can. But it also helps if there is law enforcement on hand doing their job.