When people decide they have rights or authority on their side, they too often forget about the Golden Rule.
All too many people govern themselves and others in the following manner: Once they determine that they have rights or authority in any given context, they are relieved from any greater moral responsibility. They can act imperiously. They can be outraged. They can be unreasonable. After all, the law or justice or morality is on their side. We see this phenomenon all the time in our daily lives. It’s in the clerk at the DMV who barks at you when you stand in the wrong line, the parent at your kid’s school who tears into a teacher the instant they perceive that their child has been wronged, or the supervisor at work who just can’t get over the fact that you didn’t put the cover sheets on your TPS reports. Oh, and it’s basically every single person involved in the entire fracas on United Flight...