Americans Are Innocent Bystanders
By Dan Proft, Kass News
March 29, 2024
Several years ago, I wrote a column for the Chicago Tribune about the death of a young man named Marquis Gaines that occurred on State Street which isn’t such a great street these days.
Gaines stopped at a 7-Eleven to get a snack after his shift as a bartender at one of the gin mills in the popular River North neighborhood. There was a guy loitering outside of the store who said something to Gaines as he walked passed. When Gaines turned around to acknowledge the comment the loiterer sucker-punched him leaving Gaines laid out on the street unconscious.
Surveillance video showed more than a dozen people nearby failing to come to Gaines’ aid. At least one person, reportedly an employee of the 7-Eleven, called 911. But no one outside even bothered to shield Gaines from traffic, though two predators swooped in to pick Gaines’ pockets while he was unconscious. Nice city. Eventually Gaines was accidentally run over by a taxi, and he died after finally being taken to a hospital.
About that time, a study by Cornell University sociologists found that only 1 in 39 Americans would respond to help their fellow man in a health emergency. That’s fewer than 3%.
The so-called “bystander effect” of not wanting to get involved is not a novel failure of the human condition but it has mutated beyond health emergencies and, unlike COVID, this virus is getting more lethal not less.
Contenting ourselves to be our brother’s sugar daddy rather than his keeper is no longer just our posture with strangers. Now we behave the same way when it’s our loved ones.
America is rotten with “mediocre men”–the term former All-American University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines uses to characterize dads who let their daughters be physically dominated even to the point of serious injury by male interlopers in their sports.
Once we conceded the stranger and then our kids, our institutions went up in flames. COVID was the perfect cultural accelerant.
The 6-feet-apart social distancing so-called mitigation “just sort of appeared,” Tony Fauci testified. We learned from a new documentary entitled, “It Wasn’t Fauci,” that the other public health quack, Deborah Birx, was the lockdown architect. She manipulated VP Mike Pence and took advantage of dilatory Trump staffers who didn’t even bother to read the guidances (which were received as mandates) she was sending to the governors promoting the Draconian lockdown policies.
Tony Fauci didn’t close any schools. Deborah Birx didn’t impose any lockdowns or vax mandates. They just made recommendations. Trump and Biden didn’t close any schools or impose any lockdowns or vax mandates. They just followed the advice of the public health professionals. All have cleared themselves of any professional failures.
Hundreds of millions of Americans who enthusiastically served as COVIDian sentinels are playing right along with the innocent bystanders they obeyed without pause or question. To do otherwise would be to implicate themselves. No accountability for thee means no accountability for me.
And now it’s everywhere.
The parents in Edmond, Oklahoma, high schools that allowed officials to set up a hazing culture under the auspices of raising money for charity that turned high school gyms into scenes from a Gore Vidal movie with 14-year-old girls sucking peanut butter of the toes and licking chocolate out of the armpits of men.
The Uvalde, Texas, police who took 77 minutes to breach the elementary school where 19 children and 2 teachers were murdered. They dithered while they heard gunfire they knew was taking out grade-schoolers. Two years later and 21 bodies later, they have officially been cleared of any professional failures.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wanted to keep his health and a medical procedure he underwent hush hush. That was a no-no he ultimately acknowledged. A review was done that officially cleared Gen. Austin, despite his admission, and the Pentagon of any professional failures.
For the last four decades, America’s two major political parties presided over permissive border security that has now metastasized into full-blown lawlessness. Now sanctuary city politicians and their constituents don’t like the welfare state’s spigot being turned in the direction of the Biden buddies by other sanctuary city politicians and their constituents. In lieu of self-examination, they just call Republicans “racists.” It’s easier. Republicans run around blaming Biden for a migrant “invasion” but refuse to use their power over the purse in the House of Representatives as leverage to repel said invasion.
Accountability is one of those attributes like “fiscal conservative” people like to ascribe to themselves to sound civic-minded. The accountable fiscal conservatives have turned America into a country with $35 trillion in debt that eschews personal responsibility.
I know what you’re thinking. What have I done with my little perch as a Chicago morning drive radio talk show host and podcaster. I have platforms. Where are my results?
Who, me? I’m just another innocent bystander.
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Dan Proft is the co-host of the radio program, “Chicago’s Morning Answer” on AM 560 and the host of the “Counterculture” podcast at AmGreatness.com and the usual podcast platforms.