{"id":20,"date":"2009-05-15T09:29:33","date_gmt":"2009-05-15T09:29:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/everydayethics\/2009\/05\/recently-when-crossing-the-street.html"},"modified":"2009-05-15T09:29:33","modified_gmt":"2009-05-15T09:29:33","slug":"recently-when-crossing-the-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/05\/recently-when-crossing-the-street.html","title":{"rendered":"I Spy: When Does Civic Responsibility Go Too Far?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Spying.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>Recently when crossing the street with a friend, we both almost got flattened by a car taking a right turn on red – a no-no in New York City. My friend took a stand. “In New York City there are NO RIGHT TURNS ON RED,” he yelled into the window of a car full of women probably on a nice outing from New Jersey.  They looked back at us with bewilderment and fear on their faces. I took my scarf and covered my face in embarrassment.<\/p>\n

“What are you doing?” my friend asked as he tugged the scarf from my face.<\/p>\n

“What am I <\/b>doing? What are you<\/b> doing? Why did you yell at those women?”<\/p>\n

“They need to know! There are rules! I’m doing them a favor.”<\/p>\n

“You’re giving them a heart attack. They’ll never come back to New York.”<\/p>\n

Civic responsibility. A good thing, yes? Most of the time, I’d say. Voting, not littering, and yes, following traffic rules are all innocuous examples of civic responsibility. Just as my friend thought he was doing his civic duty to enlighten those women about New York traffic rules, people all over the country are entering a new age in which civic and individual responsibility are paramount.<\/p>\n


\n
I think that’s great. I really do. I’m a huge advocate of taking
\nresponsibility. One of my biggest pet peeves is hearing excuses or rationalizations for not taking part in the world around us. <\/p>\n

Still, even the word “responsibility” can take on sinister meaning when taken to an extreme – extremes such as vigilantism.<\/p>\n

Take, for example, the Explorers program, a co-ed program affiliated
\nwith the Boy Scouts of America. The program is training young boys and
\ngirls to fight illegal immigration and terrorism – children as young as
\n14<\/a>. And they’re not messing around.<\/p>\n

Then there’s the live video feed of the Texas-Mexico border<\/a>, allowing any of us to become “virtual deputies”. <\/p>\n

I understand that the argument for these programs is that every citizen
\nshould be proactive in their own safety and the safety of their
\nneighbors.<\/p>\n

However, programs such as these make me uneasy; the Explorers program
\nno longer simply trains young people in law enforcement. They are
\nspecifically training them to deal with the big-ticket issues at an
\nimpressionable age. I can’t help but feel that it’s a training field
\nfor paranoia.<\/p>\n

At what point do we go too far in our civic duty? At what point are we
\nencouraging vigilantism? Personally, I think both these programs come
\nfrighteningly too close to the line. <\/p>\n

I prefer reminding people about traffic rules.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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In addition to writing for a various print and online publications, such as Parenting Magazine and iVillage, she was the Website Manager for the Henry Street Settlement, a social services and arts organization serving Manhattan's Lower East Side. Most recently, she worked on the Thai-Myanmar border as a writer for the Burma Human Rights Yearbook. Her curiosity about human nature, coupled with duel streaks of idealism and Midwestern pragmatism, developed into an ongoing discussion with friends, family and strangers on ethical quandaries. When she's not asking \"Why?\" you might have trouble finding her, as her hobbies include nosing around used bookstores, exploring the world (near and far), meeting new people and occasionally twiddling her thumbs while daydreaming.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/author\/pmangunta"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/198"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}