Prickly City by Scott Stantis for May 01, 2021

Which is why so many have difficulties following it.

Perhaps there was a faith that was better at adhering to their concept of a golden rule, but with the Western European and US faiths spreading religion through genocidal conquest, we’ll never know. So much knowledge was destroyed that might have had the answers we’re looking for.

Every faith has a form of the golden rule, and yet the faithful (some, not all) believe every other faith is wrong.

What’s the phrase? "Undo others before they undo you?

The “real” golden rule is

He who has the gold makes the rules!

Maybe the concept that “The Rule” is made of gold is the flaw. Literally and figuratively, the quest for gold has caused much corruption and misery through the ages. Although gold doesn’t actually tarnish, and polishes beautifully, it often reflects the image of greed and evil of those who strive to possess it.

Always be yourself

Unless you can be Batman

Then always be Batman

Happy 82 Anniversary to The Caped Crusader

Or they just ignore it. Note the GOP/QAnon auxiliary political party for the last 40 years.

“I guess if the earth were made of gold, men would die for a handful of dirt.”

Gary Cooper – Garden Of Evil (1954)

Let’s not look at how the GQP has fallen…

Whattabout the golden rule?

~

Perhaps the most dangerous way that the right-wing addiction to whataboutism manifests is in the way it’s employed after every story about cops killing Black people in incidents that should not have been deadly.

Inevitably, right-wing media will settle on pointing the finger at the victim for being “no angel.” Apologists for Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Floyd loved to harp on how Floyd had drugs in his system at the time.

This argument, of course, makes no sense.

The right not to be killed by police should not depend on a person having a spotless history.

The percentage of Americans who can honestly say they’ve never broken a law or done a bad thing lingers around zero.

Being imperfect shouldn’t be a blank check for cops to kill you.

But whataboutism, of course, always embeds this double standard: People outside of the right-wing tribe are expected to be perfect, and if they are not, it’s blanket permission for people inside the right-wing tribe to do whatever they want, no matter how terrible.

The reason that whataboutism is increasingly popular on the right is obvious: They know they can’t defend either their behavior or their ideas, so they are laser-focused on deflection.

Whataboutism is crude and relies on false equivalences or outright lies.

Still, it often works, either by tricking liberals into changing the subject or by giving conservatives a thing they can say, no matter how nonsensical, that staves off the demons of self-interrogation.

As with other shady rhetoric the right is using to avoid talking about real issues, we can expect to see more of this, as they get more desperate in the face of their own failures.

~

https://www.salon.com/2021/04/30/whataboutism-the-last-refugee-for-republicans-is-on-the-rise/

Do unto others before they do unto you.

Have a great weekend my friends.

There are us, others, and infidels.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” …Except those ( !@$^*+)s. Is clearly expressed in several of the preceding comments.

The right-wing populists have done a bang-up job of destroying Christianity.

The second part of the Christian golden rule is “And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”. Doesn’t mean much to the U.S. Catholic bishops that want to deny Communion for Biden while they ignored all of the pedophilia done by priests and they aren’t bothered by “Christian” Republicans that focus cutting support programs for people. Both groups want to focus on abortion which isn’t mentioned much in the Bible.

It has been subverted to “do unto others before they do unto you.”

The new Golden Rule:

“We want them infected!”

The biggest loophole attempted is of course that the Golden Rule need not be applied to people we don’t like.

To paraphrase my Mom used to use:“Everyone is a little weird, except me and you….and sometimes I wonder about you.”