We all think we know the Golden Rule, but the rule we know is only the Silver Rule.

There are three rules:

The Iron Rule: Do unto others before they can do unto you.

The Silver Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

The Golden Rule: Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.

The Iron Rule is the Roman Rule applied as take what you can get from those weaker than yourself. The time will not be taken to list all of the things wrong with this position. You can work them out yourself.

The Silver Rule lets you use your own desires and point of view to determine how to interact with your fellow man. Someone who hates themselves or feels only worthy of punishment for their sins is not likely to support his fellow man in any useful way.

The Golden Rule requires that you assess the needs and desires of the other person in order to determine the best response you can provide.

Is seems to me that every three year old goes through that stage where everyone is saying NO. Some learn the Golden Rule and others, for some reason, become devious and deceitful, mostly following the Iron Rule.

Do your best to follow the Golden one.

I was going to address this letter to the aliens, but so many humans see others of their species as alien I thought I should be more specific. This is not a letter to anyone who was born on the Earth. This letter is intended for those who were born on some other place that planet Earth.

Dear ET,

This letter is to apologize for the behavior of my fellow humans. I am sure that our apparent violent nature is a strong deterrent from any desire to visit this planet. No matter how much I would be happy to meet you. I understand that such a meeting would be very dangerous for you. While I am disappointed I can completely understand.

I know it appears to be our human nature to behave in this fashion, but I believe we have only been trained badly by our social structure, founded on the slave society of ancient Rome. This is a system of controls that corrupts currency and causes power and wealth to flow from the many to a few who wield the power. We understand the corrupting nature of these institutions but are unable to fix them, until humans can unlearn the “art” of killing each other and learn more cooperative behaviors. We expect the planet to be a dangerous place to visit for any sane individual or group until these changes take place.

I just wanted you to know just how disappointed I am that we will never meet. I am sure we could learn a lot from each other. Hopefully sometime in the not too distant future my decedents and yours will be able to be introduced to one another.

Peace to you until then,

Dale Scheetz