Well, not so much ignoring the victim as standing, gawking and generally doing nothing to help.

HARTFORD, Conn. - A 78-year-old man is tossed like a rag doll by a hit-and-run driver and lies motionless on a busy city street as car after car goes by. Pedestrians gawk but do nothing. One driver stops briefly but then pulls back into traffic. A man on a scooter slowly circles the victim before zipping away.

The chilling scene — captured on video by a streetlight surveillance camera — has touched off a round of soul-searching in Hartford, with the capital city’s biggest newspaper blaring “SO INHUMANE” on the front page and the police chief lamenting: “We no longer have a moral compass.”

“We have no regard for each other,” said Chief Daryl Roberts, who released the video this week in hopes of making an arrest in the daylight accident last Friday that left Angel Arce Torres in critical condition.

I don’t really think it’s so much that we have no regard for one another, but rather that we’ve lost a sense of personal responsibility.  Rather than acting, these pedestrians stood around and waited for someone else to act.  Some authority figure, most likely a government agent like a police officer and/or rescue worker.

Just like the victims of hurricane Katrina sat around and waited for someone else to rescue them instead of doing what they could to get out of harm’s way.

This is the society we live in now.  Every problem, up to and including those problems that afflict is personally, is someone else’s problem.  Are you fat?  Clearly that’s McDonald’s fault for making tasty hamburgers.  Are you poor?  Clearly that’s Wal-Mart’s fault for not paying shelf-stockers $18/hour.  Can’t pay your mortgage?  Clearly that’s the lender’s fault for giving you a loan you couldn’t afford to pay.

Some poor old guy just get nailed by a hit-and-run in the street?  Heck, that’s the police department’s problem.  Not yours.

We have become a nation of victims.  People who do not act, but instead wait around until they are acted upon.

I’m probably speaking too generally.  Not everyone in this country is like that, but enough are these days and it’s becoming a problem.