What the Hell is Wrong with People?

At the beginning of today, I was prepared to come home and write a sad, sad tale involving supermodel Adriana Lima and the further thinning of my "Approved List." However, something on CNN.com today captured my attention... and the word "outraged" doesn't even begin to describe what I felt. This story comes straight to you from Turlock, California, courtesy of CBS13.com:

The Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department began receiving calls late Saturday night from motorists witnessing a man beating a young baby. The suspect had a child's car seat in the back of his four-door pickup truck, which caught the attention of an elderly couple at 10:13 p.m. Saturday because it was stopped in the two-lane road facing the wrong direction, Singh said.

"What we got from witnesses is he was punching, slapping, kicking, stomping, shaking," Singh said. "They tried to intervene and get involved, but their efforts really didn't have an effect. The suspect was engaged in what he was doing. He just pushed them off and went back to it."

The story paints a picture of a man convinced that the child had been possessed by demons. From all accounts he stopped on the side of the road, removed the child from his carseat, and proceeded to beat, stomp, kick, smash, and otherwise pummel the child into a form so unrecognizable that they will have to perform DNA tests to determine the child's identity. If you can stomach to read the details of the story, you can find it here.

A gruesome, horrible tale. Make no mistake. This POS deserved what he got. However the part that outrages me isn't the act itself... it was this part, as I re-read it:

"They tried to intervene and get involved, but their efforts really didn't have an effect. The suspect was engaged in what he was doing. He just pushed them off and went back to it."

Read that section again. He just pushed them off... just pushed them off and went back to it. How in the name of all that is holy could these people allow this to happen? How could they stand by watching a small child, one or two years of age, face this type of death and more or less give up trying to restrain him? What the hell have we become as a people, as a nation, where we will stand by and do nothing?

If I may loosely quote Sir Edmund Burke, "All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

To me, this is more than a story of a child. This is more than a story of some sick, sick man. This story is a dark stain of blame on whoever it was that stood by, did nothing, and allowed 'evil' to triumph. I hope and pray that the people who were the witnesses, the people who stood by and made this half-assed attempt to stop this man, I hope they live every night of the rest of their lives with the memory of the crushed, unidentifiable child laying dead on the road.

I believe in the power of the individual. I believe this man could have been stopped. If he could have been stopped 'in time' is a matter of debate, but to not fight for the child's life I feel speaks volumes about the current state of our society.

Those of you who feel like I do, take the time now to burn this situation into your memories as a time that you would not have stood idly by.