Defending the Abused

This will be a relatively short post today, since it's my daughter's 17th birthday and there's much to do in preparation. (BTW, neither title nor topic of this post has anything to do with her birthday, only its brevity.)

I just read a post on another blog (Violent Acres) that got me thinking about how passive we can be when we witness one human being abusing another. I'm aware that it's way too easy to draw false conclusions when we don't know the circumstances between two people. However, as in the cases described by the author, we are often in a position to witness the entire relationship and interaction. Now, many people who receive abuse give as good as they get, or are strong enough and confident enough not to be hurt. But what about the times when someone is being hurt? When there is a significant disparity of power between the people involved? In this age of being shot dead over the smallest of slights, we are justifiably concerned about the possibility that we might be agitating a lunatic. But isn't it time we shake off some of our apathy and/or fear? Just enough perhaps to give a bit of comfort to someone who's just received the undeserved lashing of some jerk's tongue? Something to think about.