“GOLDEN RULE” OR “GOLD” RULE?

Don’t listen when you’re told that the big debate is all about big government vs. big corporations. It’s not. It’s really all about values! Do we care more about compassion or do we care more about profits?

Look at the unemployment issue as a question of values. America is torn between individual values (human rights) and corporate values.

States throughout our nation are grappling with this decision—eliminating human rights (women’s health decisions, food for struggling families, early education for poor children, collective bargaining, mortgage relief programs, minimum wages, regulations that keep our food and drugs safe, grants for college students, etc.) vs. increasing corporate profits (tax breaks for the extremely wealthy, tax loopholes for giant corporations, elimination of estate taxes, etc.).

Republican governors and legislatures have repeatedly decreased funding to their states (via tax breaks and incentives for corporations), then declared that the state is in dire financial straits and began slashing programs that benefit the poor and middle class (human rights).

The “Golden Rule” is the Christian name for a concept that is universally accepted by numerous religions.

Christianity: "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets."
Matthew 7:12, King James Version

Baha’i: "And if thine eyes be turned towards justice, choose thou for thy neighbour that which thou choosest for thyself."
Epistle to the Son of the Wolf

Confucianism: "Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you"
Analects 15:23

Hinduism: This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you.
Mahabharata 5:1517

Islam: "None of you [truly] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself."
Number 13 of Imam "Al-Nawawi's Forty Hadiths."

Judaism: "...thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.",
Leviticus 19:18

When corporate rights trump individual rights, we are not living according to the Golden Rule. When we stop caring for our neighbors as we do ourselves, we are not abiding by the Golden Rule. When we do to others what would cause pain if done to us, we are not living the message of the Golden Rule.

To put it bluntly, when we allow our government’s agents to reduce wages for youth, the poor, and the middle class, eliminate our individual rights, and abandon programs that benefit “the least of these” and pile riches onto corporations and the ultra-wealthy, we are ignoring the Golden Rule.

We must begin responding to this unfairness with righteous indignation.

Jesus did.