Dilemma: Right vs. Right
A Parent's Dilemma: Personal versus Principle?
George simply wasn't paying attention. It had been a long drive back home from the family's winter vacation, and he was on the Interstate coming through the downtown area of the city. His wife was with him up front. In the back seat were his young daughter and her younger brother, who was feeling sick and needed to get home. And on the radio were the riveting final minutes of the playoff game with his favorite basketball team.
So when the familiar blue lights began flashing in his rearview mirror, George's heart sank. As he pulled over to the side of the highway, he knew he'd been speeding--partly to get his son home, and partly with the excitement of the game. Because it was cold, the officer suggested he bring his papers and come sit in the front seat of the police cruiser, while the other officer in the car took the back seat.
They exchanged papers, and the arresting officer wrote up the speeding ticket. And then began a conversation that George found increasingly troubling. The officers told him he would need to come down to the police station to settle this ticket. Unfortunately, the station was quite a ways away. What's more, as it was Sunday evening, there were few people on duty, and processing the ticket could take several hours.
If, however, George simply wanted to pay the officers right then in cash, they would be happy to do the necessary paperwork when they got to the station and let George go on his way with no delay.
The more George listened, the more his blood began to seethe. This was the United States, he reminded himself, not some backwater nation with a corrupt police force. Yet here he was, being asked (he felt sure) for a bribe. Yet there was his young son, feeling sick and increasingly desperate to get home to his own bed.
What should George do?
Note: This and other dilemmas on this site come to you without their real-life resolutions. We encourage you to think for yourself about how you might resolve them, since the nature of each dilemma is highly individualistic. In sharing these dilemmas, we do not endorse them in any way, but rather offer them for your consideration.
