On being a decent human being
1. Regardless of religion or lack thereof, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” is pretty good advice and covers nearly every situation.
2. You can’t remake the world in your own image or ideology, stop trying.
3. Nobody is required by law to agree with you, all laws can do is make them behave in certain ways, or (and this is important) risk censure and/or imprisonment if they don’t. Some people will always be willing to violate laws they believe to be unjust.
4. Opinion is not fact. If you have an opinion, you may use facts to support it, but it is not required. However, failure to provide substantiation may result in pointing and laughing.
5. Government is not the boss of the people, it is a servant of the people.
6. Government can’t solve all the problems, but it can do things to serve the common good. The rest is up to us.
7. “I got mine,” is a shitty mode of behavior.
8. If a particular policy seems like it helps you, but hurts other people, make sure to ask yourself whether you’d be upset if it hurt someone you care about. Guess what: it will, so be careful what you claim to believe in.
9. If you don’t believe in an action/life”style,”/way of thinking, no one will make you. Stop trying to make other people live by your rules if what they do isn’t hurting you.
10.Equality is a binary. Either we’re equal under the law or we’re not. If we are (or it’s what we’re aiming for) then making laws that only impact behaviors we don’t like, disagree with, or which only affect specific groups we don’t belong to, is inequal by definition.
Don’t steal, don’t kill people for fun or profit, share with others, don’t be mean, don’t judge people as less than you because they’re different from you, be compassionate. Learn.
It’s not that hard, really.
