This is both a line from a movie I’m passing the time with (I80 Wyoming is snowed out!) and something I hear too often in random discussions.
And more alarmingly, are the sheer number of people who ask “What is “right” anyway?” — meaning they’ve lost track of this critically-important social concept.
So do you think there are still people out there who strive to “do the right thing” in most of their daily dealings? Not just “right for them”, but “right for most”? Are you one of them?
And is others failing (or not even trying), valid reason to for you to stop reaching for it in your daily interactions?
© 2026 – SoulSequel
28 responses to “Nobody does “the right thing” anymore.”
When a man batters a woman in California, the police get called and that man gets arrested and help is found for the woman.
In Arizona one night, I was grocery shopping and heard a woman shout at a man to leave her alone. He slapped her as she tried to get away from him. I told him to leave her alone and he picked me up and threw me into an end display, knocking the cans to the floor. She ran towards the doors of the store. He caught her and threw her into the automatic doors before they could open. Several people in the store were carrying guns and had their hands hovering over holstered guns. They followed this fighting couple outside.
I paid for my groceries and went outside. The man had broken the woman’s arms and was still beating her with his fists and smashing her face into the sidewalk. The store manager and a clerk stood over them without touching them. The manager said that she was calling the police. The man stayed in his position atop the screaming woman. A few guns were drawn, but no one was going to shoot. They kept him from battering her further and kept him frozen atop his victim. The police arrived. Everyone stood back.
THEN….. her broken arms were forced behind her back and SHE WAS HANDCUFFED!!!
He was made to lay down and he was handcuffed, too. They BOTH were arrested.
I came home with the groceries and told Immortal Pirate how outlandishly crazy that was. He said, if a couple are fighting, BOTH of them will be arrested. There is no protection for a woman that is being battered.
From my point of view, that is not the right thing to do.
There was a lot there that was wrong in my opinion. Including so many hands hovering over holsters and none reaching forth to stop what was happening.
Is there no such thing as citizens arrest in Arizona?? People will threaten to remotely end a life but not to reach forth to actively save one.
If the police transgressed I am sure there is process to deal with that. But I wonder how many of the Armed bystanders went home and contemplated anything more than the wrongness in everyone else ?
There were enough guns present and the store manager to make him stop beating her and make him stay in the position he was in while committing the crime. —- like —- Hold it right there! —- kind of an arrest-in-place —- So, when the Police arrive, it is obvious what they were called about. I am sure he saw some guns pointed at him. My surprise was that police pulled her wrists together and handcuffed her, while she was crying out that her arms were broken. Then he was cuffed.
In California, the police would have pulled him off of her and wrestled him to the ground. Then they would get her some medical help, but she would not be arrested. She was the victim.
Immortal Pirate explained that she had done something to make the batterer angry enough to beat her up. The Police would sort it out. In California, it would not matter what the victim did to anger the batterer, the crime was the battering.
I’m sure that each person holding a gun — pointed at him to make him freeze-in-place — thought that they were helping. Perhaps they were because he stopped. Other than that, it was considered well handled. Everyone was fine with the arrest of the victim. That is the way it is done in Arizona. I am sure everyone went home thinking that it ended well.
I was the only one thinking that is not how it is done in California. Arrest laws in Arizona are weird.
As a visitor I could probably write a book about weird laws I’ve seen on my travels!
I was taught that even if a woman give you ample reason to strike her as in self-defense, there is no excuse for a man to hit a woman. But that is rapidly changing thanks to Modern incarnations of feminism. Is Whoopi Goldberg has said if you are crying for equality and hit a man you had better be prepared to be hit back.
Let’s not forget that liberated women are doing some increasingly crazy shit and trying to hide behind the shield of the princess victim. I remember reading about one case where a woman attacked her boyfriend and he never struck back but phoned the police before simply restraining her to keep her from hurting him more. The police arrived and she played the victim and because she had a bruise from where she swung at him and hit the door jamb the man was arrested and she was consoled.
In your case who knows? Maybe the woman was already known to them as a perpetrator.
I understand there are slime balls out there that assault women and the full force of the law should fall on them. But there are also an awful lot of women who initiate assault, who then play the victim and get off scot-free.
Equality has to mean equality. And increasingly the police are under pressure to arrest both parties and sort it out downtown
Yep, nowadays, if a woman hits a man, she can expect to get hit in return. In 1970, my husband beat me rather badly. I waited until he fell asleep, swaddled in a sheet. I took needle and thread and sewed the sheet closed around him, like a soon-to-be butterfly in a cocoon. Then I beat the crap out of him with a 3-ply stainless steel water-less cookware chicken frier frying pan. I can still hear the sound of it hitting his bones and head —– BONG!!! BONG!!! BONG!!! Then I got the hell out of there!!! I knew that when he woke up, that he would turn into the Hulk. It was best that I be 3 cities away at an unknown address.
Police were never called, but needless to say that the marriage was over. I knew that I would get hit if I hit him, and the sewed up sheet was my chance to get away. Hitting is never a good way to break up.
Hmm.
I am trying to wrap my mind around the image of the Hulk with butterfly wings!
I did not want to stick around and see him wake up and rip his way out of the sheets. He was a large (not fat) man, trained in combat, a boot camp Sargent type. Very hulk-ish when angered. I was 95 lbs of tall midget at 4’9″ short. I was pixie sized. I got myself 3 cities away and hid from him. He found me later on and beat me for that — and for taking his sons with me. He pushed his thumb through the roof of my mouth, into my nose, to break my jaw, break my nose from the inside, and crush my maxillary sinuses while trying to break my cheek bones from the inside of my skull. My nose and face had to be wired together and I got the ski-jump curve and a bump taken out of my original nose. My new nose is straight and quite pleasing. After I was able to open my swollen-shut eyes, I watched my face heal in a rather pretty way. I got him out of my life. The courts deemed him too dangerous to have any visitation with his son. So, he is one pissed off angry man. 40 years later, his son got a hold of him and wanted to visit him. Upon finding out that our son is gay, he refused to see him. He couldn’t even do the right thing by his only begotten son. His son, by then was 45 and the father was 70. So, I guess that meeting will never take place. It’s not right, but that is the way it is.
I think it was Benjamin Franklin who once said he preferred being a pessimist because in general he avoided disappointment and occasionally could be pleasantly surprised.
I think that is an indication that there are enough people not doing the right thing, all the time, that it isn’t considered unusual. Maybe the best we can do is know when we aren’t and then choose to consider reparations or not. Perhaps personal experience comes into play.
A loooong time ago I went to see a used trailer. We decided to buy it struck an agreement with the seller. I had to go and get the cash from a bank machine and when I got back the owner and another guy were in the trailer. He sold it to the other guy for a few hundred bucks more. I was dumbfounded that the guy reneged.
Recently I sold a car to the first guy that offered me what I asked. He lived in another city and needed a few days to make payment arrangements. Literally a few minutes later, another guy called. He want the car badly. He offered me another thousand. No. Two thousand? No, I had a deal. Three thousand? No. Sorry, I gave the guy my word. Five thousand, cash, would pick it up that night. Hmmmm, I will call the guy and ask him if he would let me out but if he said a deal is a deal, it’s done. I called. He said a deal is a deal and we finalized arrangements to ship the car.
Even now, I have no regrets. Money is a temptation that is hard to walk away from, but I have found, what goes around, comes around. People I deal with trust me and I don’t take that lightly. Maybe I have watched too many movies, but I place a very high value on trust. I believe I have set an example that my kids follow and although all of us have experienced getting screwed in one way or another we take ownership of the one thing that is ours and no one can take away unless we let them.
Yes, there are people out there that try and no, knowing that there are those who are too stupid to even know what the right thing to do is, is their loss. Not just in the moment of a specific issue, but in the fact that their life experiences are such that it has led them to be who they are. There, but for the grace of God, go I.
My solution is to not let my optimism over-ride my inherent faith in human beings to be human beings. That leaves them room to be who it is they have chosen to be. Any disappointment is in the choice not the person. Because they might choose differently the next time. And I am still blessed when they choose right.
In what you’ve shared you can see a person’s chosen Almighty at that point in time rising to the surface. And An Almighty of money is always a poor choice.
I believe it was Robert Roy MacGregor who said Integrity is the gift a person gives themselves so they can hold their head high when all others are bowing theirs low.
There often is no one right thing, but many; conversely there are not only one wrong thing but many. And we are left to our own devices as to what is right (or wrong). People pray about big situations, but even in the case of war, you don’t hear god shaking the earth with his voice saying “do this [or that].” And all we have is out own intuition and thought processes. So at day’s end it’s a problem without that type of guidance.
I’ve talked before about “the degrees of freedom” we have a God’s children. (Or as “children of Life” if the G-word still gets your goat!). Like children, we do our best learning, gain our best understanding of the “right” solution to a problem, through trial and error. Guidance and teaching is there: if we ask for it and IF we’ll heed it! But then, I was never that good at this. I had to wade in and make my OWN mistakes, thank-you-very-much! (And have the scars to prove it! But this doesn’t discount that there may be more “inspired” learners out there than I won’t won’t have to accumulate scars like me)
But it’s still a learning process . . . IF we will let it be. Christians pray. Other spiritual belief-systems meditate. What is the same about them, is a “quieting of the self” (the surging feelings, emotions, biases, games ,distractions) and seeking a “broader view”. Or a “purer view”.
You are right that for many issues, there may be many “right” responses; but almost always there will be one that is “best”. And there might be many “wrong” responses — existing in shades from “the worst” to one that “only does a few a little harm”. I find that the guidance I get from the Spirit at first, simply helps “handicap” towards the “good” and “right” responses. And then over time, as one learns to “recognize that voice”, one finds themselves more and more often, coming up (or being a part) of more and more powerful “right” responses.
It’s a learning process that remains more “guidance” than shaking you by the ears when you might get it wrong — or not as “good” as you could! Consider how God responded to the first-ever recorded murder (Cain vs Abel).
Just as my dealings with my brother found me in need of counseling, so too does this concept of right and wrong. If I abandon it — or conversely do as I feel is right vs what a book says is right and wrong (and at times can’t make up its own mind), I am less messed up overall. If the goal of life is to not be chained to anything, keeping my own ideas of how things should be (regardless of whether they actually are or not) is the best way for me to do things.
The Bible or the written word is never proposed to be a counselor. That is the Holy Spirit’s job. It sounds like you have been taught to seek and worship a book.
But we patently cannot receive the gift of the Holy Spirit while griping about the other gifts of life and freedom of choice given us.
Trying to put spiritual energy into others while our supplies are limited drains us: leaves us in need of counseling.
Having access to unlimited power from a Spirit that happens to be a counselor as well is the perfect solution.
But first one needs to learn how to graciously accept the gifts already given.
The holy spirit is an awful poor counselor in my experience. If it weren’t I still wouldn’t be so messed up in the head. Guess it’s not for everyone…
Religion and other “feats of flesh” cannot access the Holy Spirit.
Any thoughts on how you knew you were in fellowship?
That’s like asking you the same question. You can’t line yourself up statistically, comparing yourself against all of humanity, measuring your success (or lack thereof) in every area that makes life: relationships, money, health, worries, and so on.
What physical test do you propose assesses good spiritual process?
That’s like asking what scientific test assesses love. Because the same measurable processes that are triggered by true love, are also triggered by lust, fetish, dependency and other things having little or nothing to do with genuine love of the other person.
So I would pose the same question to you again. How did you know you were in spiritual fellowship with something other than just the common physical?
If you’re going to toss something in the trash you best make sure you know what it is you are tossing! One can end a headache by ending their life. But that is far from an ideal solution.
The physical is all we have to go by. Emotions/ feelings are an unreliable way to judge almost anything. And that’s all faith is at day’s end: A fancy term for an emotion, that we can’t quite place. And I have come to that realization after much problems not only in my own life, but the ones I see in the world. An emotion that is an unreliable indicator for anything. A person with faith can do X in one circumstance (… yet in a lab can’t recreate it, can’t control the feeling. Even Jesus’ faith was unreliable! In his home town he could do nothing.
I heartily disagree. There is far more to me than just what science can measure.
And whether you choose to believe it or not there is far more to you than what science can measure.
Faith is is less an emotion or feeling as it is a hypothesis one precedes upon. This is where we get to be our own life scientists; doing the experiments in our lives (aka “living”) rather than just watching TV for the scientist to tell us what is okay and what is “sacrilege”!
This is very related to @spitfire3dc ‘s thread currently about winning-by-proxy. But this is living-by-proxy: waiting for the scientists to tell you what is so rather than getting out there and determining and taking responsibility for) yourself.
What you see in the world represents other people’s choices to not live effectively and make use of all the life-tools granted them.
So at the end of the day what we have is outside agency totally controlling us limiting our choices.
Whether that is the failure of others; or letting priests and scientists tell us what is okay to think and believe.
You forget one thing: hypothesis/ hypotheses should be testable, infinitely repeatable, and quantifiable! If it’s not then of what use is it? And LIVING by a hypothesis (or multiple ones) that have their ultimate test in death… is bad.
The hypothesis of Christ is all of these things and more. But they are more in the realm of clinical evidence than a hard-and-fast equation.
Actually most of the truly important things in life do not exist as a hard-and-fast equation or sit well on a chart or graph.
Really?
Take every person who ever lived claiming to have had Christ in their lives (and who ever will live) and ask them the following questions
– How their health was. Compare with nonbelievers.
– How their family relationships were. Compare with nonbelievers.
– How their finances were. Compare with nonbelievers.
– How their friendships were. Compare with nonbelievers.
– How their level of job (since you don’t like happiness). Compare with nonbelievers.
– How their stress levels were. Compare with nonbelievers.
– What they worried about. Compare with nonbelievers.
– How they fared in times of war. Compare with nonbelievers.
– How they fared in times of famine. Compare with nonbelievers.
– How they fared in times of plague. Compare with nonbelievers.
– How much they were persecuted. Compare with nonbelievers.
Do you have a list of things that are spiritually important?
Ie, things that are not totally about the flesh and the realm that is dying?
Try asking them about their joy and peace. Their patience and long-suffering. Their strength in the face of trials and temptations. About their ability to overcome whatever is placed before them.
Did you ever read your Bible with intent greater than just seeing what candy it might “vend” to you for temporary enjoyment?.
Those things are completely and utterly useless if one can’t find gainful employment (in my case) enough to put a roof over one’s head, food in one’s stomach, or clothes to dress for the weather. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, if faith were such a good thing, the expression of “be warm and fed” if it were to come to pass is a LOT more useful than moving a mountain into the sea (which you really don’t see a whole lot of people doing to begin with!)
This doesn’t even begin to address those who truly have nothing: the people who are starving to death, those affected by wars, those who have no place to return home to, and so on.
Let’s remember that it’s far too often those “in the land of plenty” who try to use the plight of those in far worse shape than they . . . as their reason to hate on God! And a lot of time, those people in those situation are not using them to hate on God.
Indeed, that is why Jesus came to those who had little, and knew it. That is why He found the greatest reception in those who knew of their wretched state. And the most stiff-necked are those who are griping about life not performing according to their expectations.
Here’s a clue. If one cannot find joy and peace, patience and long-suffering and the ability to overcome any trial or temptation put before them without a job or a car or a pony or lots of money in the bank or all the right clothes for any situation or a full belly . . . they will still be unable to find them with all of these things.
Or if they do find some semblance of these things, they will all utterly vanish should these things be taken from them. (And that is when one needs these attributes the most!). A situation is created where these very good things are NOT a function of you that nobody or nothing can take from you . . . but they are more a function of outside agency. Freedom is supplanted with slavery.
To continue my line of thought (I don’t know whether this response will be posted above or below the other one, so this is a secondary response, when you read them, you’ll know). You talk about ‘experience,’ and while I know you can’t prove a negative. But, honestly, in my own life there has been absolutely positively no, zero, zilch, nada divine intervention, influence, or inheritance despite growing up in a household where I was exposed to it constantly. And as a whole, I don’t see anything of the sort anywhere. Let me point you to 1 Kings 18: 27-28 “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened… But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention” 30+ years of prayer about anything and everything that concerned me. 30+ years of no responses, no answers, no one paying attention. No more.
Years ago I attended a lecture where the speaker was trying to show how the modern Christian religion had far more in common with Baal worship than with what Jesus taught.
I didn’t have a lot of interest in it and promptly forgot . . . until your use of 1 Kings 18 brought it to full recollection! (Which in my case, with a “learning disability” is truly an act of “divine intervention”!)
Baal was a god founded on, and based entirely in physical senses and “sensibilities”. People “served” though acts of ritual, performance, religion for the sake of leveraging the right physical reward they sought. But they found in return, a “dead god” who often seemed to be sleeping or unconscious or pre-occupied. So it “made sense” to injure and abuse themselves and to wallow in that self-destruction, reasoning that a loving god would step in and stop it by giving them the candy-bar they wanted.
And Elijah was mocking them for serving such a god.
You have described to me over the years and in great detail, a god very much like Baal; and a church that either taught and endorsed, or remained silent as you developed the impressions that God catered to senses and our often greatly-ignorant “sensibilities”. And you’ve lamented at all of the religious work you did and received nothing.
It’s like you’re trying to use Elijah’s mockings against Baal . . . against a religious paradigm that is essentially Baal’s. And what the prophets of Baal did to their bodies with knives so long ago, you’ve done to your heart and mind and spirit HOPING God would pay attention and stop you by giving you what you wanted.
No “divine intervention”?? Both the moment and the process of Salvation is the “divine intervention” to end all divine interventions! And not just this, how it allegedly came about is “Divine intervention” on steroids!
When both the God sought and the process is holy (and not selfish), it creates a situation of “Divine intervention” in one’s life that is so powerful that even if there was never again a single manifestation of Divine interevention . . . that one experience would be enough.
But the beauty of the process is, that Divine intervention just keeps happening.
PLUS one starts to fully realize just how much Life itself . . . is Divine intervention. The “Big Bang” says that “something happened” to make “nothing blow up and create everything”. Everything that you take for granted is in many ways, Divine intervention.
To lose sight of this, is to invite what is gnawing at your heart.
Law dictates “right.” Anything beyond that is subjective. What is the universal “critically-important concept” that we are supposed to all adhere to?