Click for video of a simulated child abduction.
HT: Caimlas of Boiled Frog

Before I left Lubbock for dubious educational opportunity in the northeast, I might’ve been shocked by this video. I would have asked how this might happen in a society as great as ours. 5 years older I’ve had enough contact with big cities, their people, and their politics to understand it all too well. What saddens me is that the very big city people who helped me come to my conclusions are just as incredulous as that 17 year old boy was what seems like eons ago.

The guy who ran the simulation on the streets of New Rochelle, suburb of NYC, gave two pretty much stock responses to why hours would pass before someone–anyone–would respond to a screaming 7 year old girl being manhandled by a man who was definitely not her father:

1. The Bystander Effect. It’s a well known psychological principle. The more people around, the more likely someone will assume ’someone else’ will stop and help the person in need. The classic experiment tested how many people would drive by a person with car trouble on the side of the road. The busier the road, the less likely help was to come. In one case, they actually gave up they had been waiting so long.

2. Fast Paced World. Everyone’s got tunnel vision. Everyone’s got a busy day and they just don’t have time for something that’s ‘none of their business’.

Both of these are valid, and to some degree, they are definitely part of the reason for this situation. Much as it sickens me, duty to your fellow man is not high on our list of priorities these days. But the growth of government–specifically the Nanny State–exacerbates these problems to a frankly dangerous degree.

As a Hindu, I was taught that the highest form of prayer was to help those around you. To protect the weak and help the poor with your own hands and your own pocketbook. I try to live up to this. It was the reason prayer scarcely passed my lips in my teenage years, and why today–though still Hindu–I consider myself agnostic. If god is the pure omnipotent being he is supposed to be, my works–not my belief–will be my path to salvation.

But I digress. In Lubbock, and here in Oklahoma City, I test the Bystander Effect constantly. I stop when I see a broken down car. I’ll spend 30 minutes chasing down a dog so I can return it to its owner. And half the time I stop at one of those broken down cars, someone else has already stopped to help them. And every time my literally incorrigible Miniature Pinscher gets loose, a phonecall within 10-15 minutes is inevitable with a “I have minnie. I can drive over there or you can come pick her up.” And while I hate to be the sentimentalist singing the praises of the heartland, my experience with people and their political ideologies leads me to the conclusion that people here are more likely to take care of our own because we don’t see it as Government’s job.

Several years ago, when I had more time and was less lazy, I instituted The Nick Challenge when formally or otherwise debating leftists who called into question my ’social conscience’ or ‘compassion’. If one dared use the ‘heartless conservative’ moniker, I’d get an evil little grin on my face and ask them how much time they spent volunteering. Having amassed several hundred hours working with children, vets, and animals, I was fairly certain they’d come up short. And you know, in the 4 years since I instituted it, not one leftie has taken me up on the challenge. Not one. They’d waffle. They’d say ‘that’s not the point’. Or ‘Good for you. But what about everyone else?’ Or natter on in some other inane avenue of idiocy.

I’m not trying to imply anything about the innate moral superiority of statists versus libertarians. Rather what I’m attempting to illustrate is that with the Nanny State comes a poisonous combination of the bystander effect and ‘I’ve already done my part.’ To the leftist, voting on a more progressive tax rate, for more social welfare, for civilian disarmament, and increased police power is equivalent to actually going out there, getting their hands dirty and actually helping the poor, protecting the weak, and acting on your conscience.

To the leftist, voting for government involvement in something replaces actually doing it. And so they judge others not by their works as the Hindu pantheon–should they exist–will judge me, but by how much government involvement they desire. They scream ‘You Shouldn’t Legislate Morality’ like it’s their anthem, yet their language shows they judge morality on how one votes. Both their own and others’.

Those in search of limited government are often accused–sometimes fairly–of being selfish jerks who ignore the poor and the weak. This charge may hold true for the Anarcho-Capitalists and the Neo-Randians who seem to have invaded the Libertarian Party making it hostile to individuals like myself. But all that a belief in limited government means is that we see the role of protector and nurturer to be played by individuals.

It’s ironic that the Party of Science and Defender of Evolution ignores what evolutionary biology and ecology tells us about reciprocal altruism, signalling honesty, and the protection of the weak. Behavioral ecologists like myself are enthralled by self-interested individuals cooperating with each other and sometimes helping others to their perceived detriment. We talk about the ways self interest manifests itself and ‘cheater detection mechanisms’ that ensure that individuals who aren’t helpful are chastised, change, or are thrown out of the group.

In Lubbock, a town large enough to have much of what the big city does, but small enough that the cop who pulls you over probably knows someone you know, these mechanisms are at play. As habitual designated driver due to religious beliefs, more than once, a policeman ignored the clearly underage raucous drunks in my car, happy that we were responsible enough to be using a DD. I never saw that play out in New York. And although my neighbors wore bemused expressions on their faces when we became the first minority family in our subdivision, now they know me as the terrorist-looking kid who despite driving a 2006 Mustang GT never speeds in th the neighborhood, slows down to a crawl when kids are playing on the sidewalk and the street, and brings their dogs back whenever he catches them. And unlike many of the younger people in our area, I get friendly waves and a lack of annoyance at the antics of my idiot dog. I’m similarly courteous to those who behave in the same manner. In short we have reputations. Not judged by how we vote, but what we do. And so we can rely on each other to check our mail and bring in the newspapers when we go out of town. To feed the dog when we can’t. To watch each others’ kids when we can’t find a babysitter.

When politics replaces personal action, when a vote replaces a pair of hands, you lose this. You lose the ability to judge both others and yourself. You’ve ‘done your part’ by authorizing someone else to do it. So if it doesn’t get done, it isn’t your fault is it? It’s government’s. Situations like the girl found herself in are the inevitable result of what happens when duty and obligation are transferred away from individuals to government. Obligation to others is an inherently individualist value. And when society forgets this, it abandons the individuals most in need.