[Grovenet] mean people still suck

[Walt Wentz]

Bravo, very thoughtful and cogently reasoned!

On Mar 13, 2009, at 12:53 AM, jo.david wrote:

>
> 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.
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