Collective Responsibility -v- Individual Responsibility.

[Radar]

UT, Society is nothing but a bunch of individuals. The only responsibility any individual has to other individuals is to not to endanger them or violate their rights.

If I overhear my neighbor plotting to shoot up a major university, I most certainly don't have a responsibility to tell people, though morally it would be the right thing to do.

Dumping Sewage onto the property of others is trespass. It's a violation of the rights of others and endangers others. I don't have a right to do this. As I said, the only responsibility I have toward others is that I don't endanger them or violate their rights.

As to the flagpole. I don't have a responsibility to save the man, but I do have a responsibility not to further harm or endanger him. Taking a hammer to his hands is wrong, but asking him not to hang from your flagpole again is not.

All "society" really is, amounts to a bunch of individuals who have agreed not to fuck with each other and to offer a "common defense". When there were no governments, villages rose up because murderers or thieves would prey on those who were alone. By sticking together and agreeing to not fuck with each other, but to defend each other when someone attacks, they were able to live longer. There is strength in numbers.