Do You Speak Up?Follow

When you know someone with power is in the wrong and abusing his power over others and you witness it?

I ran into a situation Friday which I am still currently involved in, and will hopefully be resolved by Wed afternoon, which includes a personal escort by a Federal Protection Service Agent, and the Manager of a Social Securities office, and a thorough investigation of the Security Guard employed at said office. Should be interesting to say the least this Wed morning. Anyways it all started when the guard began to abuse his power of authority by threatening parents in the office and after he was done with them, verbally turned on me personally despite the fact I (and my kids) had done nothing except for the fact that I was a parent with children in tow. What ensued was quite an interesting adventure which included several people from all walks of life to come to defend and stand up to the guard. A lot of other stuff went down which I wont bore you with (if you're really interested in the full story my blog is in my sig) but in the end the guard and I had our own mini stand off, and after a lot of researching and phonecalls the final sundown stand off happens Wed morning.


I'm not the kind of person to get involved in the more abstract atrocities that happen in life (too lazy, busy elsewhere with 3 kids now), but if I personally see something thats pointedly wrong I tend to have a (very) loud mouth about it. Especially when it involves authority figures taking advantage of the normal every day person.

So I thought Id poll. If you saw someone with power who is supposed to help others but abuses their power because they can, do you speak up? Do you wait until after the fact and try to find someone to complain to? Or do you stay quiet?

Edited, Mar 8th 2010 7:02pm by DSD

I didn't vote because there are just too many variables. For the most part, yes, I'd do whatever I thought appropriate at the time.

Added in a new option for you whiners

Hell yeah.

Voted depends on circumstances. If it's minor and just some twit on a bit of a power trip, then no. If it's major or involves some ********* embarrassing an employee, then yes.

Well, I figure my chances of teaching my child(ren) to respect himself/themselves and to expect and insist upon respect from others are significantly diminished if he/they witness Mom allowing herself to be treated like a doormat, so no one gets away with disrespecting me in front of my kid. I will make sure the offender understands that their attitude/treatment of us is unacceptable and I WILL take it to higher authorities.

When I'm flying solo (yeah, like that ever happens!) or when it doesn't personally involve me, I generally attempt to stand up for what is right, but my willingness to get involved in a scene is limited by my available time and just how badly I'm spoiling for a confrontation. In some cases, I'm much more likely to just go over the head of the offender than force the issue when it might result in a confrontation.

The most I would have probably done is give some snarky remark about how his yelling was far more irritating than a child laughing.

Edited, Mar 8th 2010 9:03pm by Sweetums

I do the exact same thing. If its nothing big I get snarky and sarcastic. If it's serious though my voice gets really quiet and I verbally go for the throat.

I'll speak up, but am too liberal to be bothered to actually do something about it.

Well, besides *****.

The problem with jumping in without knowing the persons involved is that you don't know if there is a long running history between the party's and the authority figure is getting his attitude in before the other person creates a sh*tstorm.

Things are often not as cut and dried as first impressions make them out to be.

Besides it's America, at any point anyone could pull out a gun and turn a verbal altercation into a homicide.

I can just see the guard standing there with his reflecting sunglasses, saying, "Respect my authority!"

Way to stand up for reason, DSD

--DK

sweet, let us know how it turns out if you hear anything :D

Hope Wednesday goes smoothly anyway.