[Grovenet] mean people still suck

[jo.david]

On Mar 12, 2009, at 1:38 PM, Zip Digity wrote:

> The question here is not how or why someone is the way they are; it  
> is easy to assume- that's one of the problems.  Everything happens  
> for a reason.
> And there is no reason not to treat people how you want to be treated.

Yes, "Do unto others as you would have them, do unto you" is the  
Golden rule.

The Gold Rule, by contrast, is "Do unto others as you please, because  
those with the gold make the rules."

A college professor offered the Platinum Rule: Do unto others as they  
would have you do unto them."

It presupposes that people are different, and what I may enjoy may  
cause you grief.  Before we can "do unto others", we will need to  
gain some understanding of how they want to be treated.  Which is  
significantly more difficult than the Golden Rule.

As we see people, we can and should see the similarities.  We can  
also acknowledge that there are important differences,  even when  
dealing with those in our community without a permanent address.   
Some are homeless, others displaced, a few may be fugitives, while  
others are wanderers.  There may be violent felons, gypsies and  
religious missionaries in the mix.  Our response may be to trust them  
all, to fear them all, or somewhere in the middle.  And I expect that  
they carry a trust or distrust toward each of us based upon their  
prior experiences inside and outside of our community.

If you have twenty of these humans in a group, you may have twenty  
different stories and twenty different situations asking for a  
response.  It may be appropriate to give an apple or candy bar to  
someone.  It may be appropriate to escort another out of town. We do  
hire and hopefully train people to assist us in separating the needy  
from the sinister.   The professionals we hire are paid by our taxes.

Do we want to assist the displaced and homeless?  Do we want to  
incarcerate the thieves, predators and charlatans?  Or do we want to  
turn our back on all of them?  That is a large scale political question.

I personally don't want thieves running loose in my neighborhood  
while I am away from home.  I don't want predators targeting children  
of our community.  I don't want charlatans preying on the resources  
of the poorly informed.

And, I do want to make efforts to keep the displaced and homeless  
from choosing to become thieves or charlatans.  If they are going to  
make good choices, than they need to have some options that they and  
we can agree are "good".  It makes no sense to decry that someone  
made a "bad choice" unless we know that they had a good option  
available to them.

We can choose to do this for religious reasons.  Or we can do it for  
self preservation.