“If Mr. Trump had lost the Electoral College while winning the popular vote, an army of Republican lawyers would have descended on the courts and local election officials.”
—-Slate Editor Dahlia Lithwick and Drexel University law professor David S. Cohen in a NYT op-ed, “Buck Up, Democrats, and Fight Like Republicans.”
I love this quote! It is a pure example of one of the many invalid Golden Rule permutations that appear on the invaluable Ethics Alarms Rationalizations list under #58. The Golden Rule Mutation, or “I’m all right with it!” Among the blatant rationalizations disguised in Golden Rule cloaks are…
- Do unto others as you know others would do unto you.
- Do unto others what they did unto you.
- Do unto others as you wish others would do unto you even though you wouldn’t deserve it.
- Do unto others as those others treat others.
- Do unto others as they threatened to do unto you.
- Do unto others as others who think like you do would also do to those others.
- Do unto others according to how you feel about what they did unto you.
- Do unto others before they do it unto you.
- Do unto me as you would want to have done unto you if you were as devoid of civilized values as I am.
As for #58, it translates into…
“Do unto others as if the others felt like I do, even though they may not.”
The possible variations are infinite, and every one of them is intellectually dishonest and unethical. It’s astounding, and depressing, that two lawyers, one an alleged analyst and the other a law professor, would endorse such an unethical proposition. They do it because they are openly partisan and politically biased, and as we all should know by now if you’ve been paying attention here, bias makes you stupid.
The op-ed’s Golden Rule mutation is one I should add to the list, though it’s a bit long:
“Do unto others as you conveniently assume the others would do unto you, even though there is no evidence that they would.” Continue reading