(#4982) Move past fear and confront the unacceptable

      A friend on Facebook gave us all a little reminder about how to confront wrong head on. He stood up for a weaker soul who was being verbally abused by a racist. He stuck his nose in and forced the offender to focus on him. that is what courage does. He took the heat off the victim and put it directly on himself. A fine example of what to do when confronted with the darker nature of life. Sure the thing he did could have all gone haywire as I was informed that the offender pulled a pistol. Yet it didn't likely because the hero in this story also had a pistol ready for use.
     Regardless, whether guns are present, doing what is correct is the solution and however that plays out is our fate. We can either shy away from our duty to be honest decent persons and let the bullies of the world overtake our societies or we can stand up and not give an inch in the defense of democratic principles. None of us knows the fate we are slated for when the time for our lives is recounted. Yet we also cannot put ourselves in some kind of safety bubble that mostly ensures that our lives will be as sedate and secure as we would like. Life is not like that. Life is safe most of the time but it is also a gamble, frequently enough to require us to prepare for those times when we are needed to protect and be dutiful to honor and respect.
     None of us deserves to be accosted because we are not all the same skin color, wealth, gender, or nationality. None of these differences allows for us to be diminished as human beings. So when someone is bullying someone else who cannot fight back then we must offer ourselves as an alternative to the bully. Most times we find that the bully will back down because bullies don't like fair fights. That is why they are bullies. They only pick on those who are weaker than themselves. So move past fear and do the right thing even if by doing that right thing lands you in a difficult situation where life and death outcomes are not known. I am not telling anyone to do anything that my Facebook friend Steven did but his example should be our first choice when facing the same circumstance.