Word of the Day: Bystander Effect

he bystander effect or Genovese syndrome is a social psychological phenomenon that refers to cases where individuals do not offer any means of help in an emergency situation to the victim when other people are present. The probability of help has in the past been thought to be inversely related to the number of bystanders; in other words, the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any one of them will help. The mere presence of other bystanders greatly decreases intervention. This happens because as the number of bystanders increases, any given bystander is less likely to interpret the incident as a problem, and less likely to assume responsibility for taking action. Of course these are statistics and may not fully represent actual occurrences, as there are percentages of error in any poll or statistic. We wonder if the American people are really bystanders in a political system that is on autopilot as it destroys our constitution, our economy, and our bill of rights. Has Barack Obama just let the criminals in our society loose to return and loot the crime scene some more as the rest of us look, placidly, upon the devastation?