What are the responsibilities of society to an individual? I remember in some clever movie review analogy Roger Ebert (who i love like Santa Claus) compared something to sitting in a McDonalds and seeing a guy smack his kid around. "...It bothers you, but you do nothing, it's none of your business." For some reason this stuck with me. It bothered me, almost more than the image of the kid getting hit. If nobody stands up and says that's wrong, will the kid grow up thinking it's right? Is it anybody's business what you do with your kids? I can understand occasional moderated punishment when necessary, but there is a very large difference between a spanking and ABUSE. It's a very unclear area. And one which I am not anxious to get into, but sometimes things aren't just analogies.       

I was walking down the toy aisle of my neighborhood Target when I heard the familiar annoying sound: a child crying. I generally greet this sound with bemused cynicism. I roll my eyes and lament that children are selfish and unreasonable, wanting everything in the entire world. Out of morbid fascination I headed towards the sound, curious what the little brat wanted. I walked towards the sound, and see that the source is a little boy, who was about six or seven, followed by his twelve year-old brother.

The kid's face was flushed and wet from crying, his brother tugged roughly at his hand, and looked at me in an odd sort of way which gave the distinct impression that he was picking on his brother pretty badly. The little one said "leave me alone... I'm not talking to you anymore..." His brother grabbed him on each shoulder and displayed the sort of frustrated resort to violence that is the hallmark of someone ill-prepared to be placed in a position of responsibility. He noticed me, looking over his shoulder like I'd caught him looking at dirty magazines, and he took his brother somewhere no one would see them. I glared darkly at the older brother as I passed him, trying to scare him or something. I'm a pretty frightening fellow, I'm just under six feet tall dressed in black leather with spikes and knee high boots. But I wasn't sure if that would do anything. So I waited a second, then turned around and looked down the aisle they'd gone down. They were standing there right around the corner, and the older one was pushing his brother's shoulders in, twisting his arm.

Like most people, I do not want to pursue conflict.  I do, however, have the responsibility to tell someone not to abuse another human being, especially a child. But that's a bit melodramatic isn't it? Older brothers are practically designed to make their little brothers miserable. It's easy to walk passed, saying it's not my business, and let the kid get away with being an asshole.

But here's what I did:  "What the f*ck are you doing?!!"

The kid turned around, frightened and shocked, caught with his hand in the cookie jar, or rather, with his fist on his brother. "It's okay, I'm his brother..." he stammered, as though that gave him the right to harm him.

"That doesn't mean you can do that to him!" The kid then tried to make it look as though he was simply disciplining him, but this was like spanking a child with a baseball bat. Even if the

kid was misbehaving, his brother was delighting in hurting him. That's the difference between stern punishment and abuse. The brother was taking things beyond the bounds of what is right.

The kids left, the older one yelling that I couldn't MAKE him do anything.  He was right. The younger brother looked scared of me, like I was picking on his big brother, like I was the one doing something wrong.

I was left alone feeling confused and a little disillusioned, as though the fair maiden I went to save had decided maybe she liked the dragon after all. Was I defending the rights of a child, or was I just being a jerk? What would you have done?