My Turn: Putting people ahead of profit — A rule never to be broken

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Published: 07-07-2025 1:10 PM |
I began writing this on June 2, in response to John Huer’s column, “Our job anxiety: Chain that shackles us all” [Recorder, June 1]. In the column Mr. Huer – one of my favorite contributors to this page – asserts that “… we have become so enslaved to our jobs that we have lost everything that makes us human.”
The oft used excuse of “merely doing our job” is a mantra that is used to absolve us for acting inhumanly when enforcing the rules under which we operate, but Mr. Huer notes “Our humanity shines through only when we break the rules …,” and he adds that “… the higher our job benefits are, the more absolute is our obedience as butt-kissers.”
I agree with Mr. Huer’s perspective, but I have a more nuanced feeling about rule-breaking, reserving that option to when it serves a higher purpose to do so. For example, in the story of the Good Samaritan, two people ignore the plight of a person lying near death along the side of a road for fear that stopping to offer aid would violate the rules of their religious observances. I suggest, that those who passed by were following the “letter of the law,” rather than the doing the right thing by following the “spirit of the law.” I am not sure Mr. Huer would agree with my belief that strict adherence to rules is appropriate when, for example, doing so promotes equal treatment under the law, or where such adherence assures the efficient operation of an organization, or endeavor that is consonant with the primacy of our calling to “love our neighbors as ourselves.” And, how about strictly following rules that respect the separation of powers among the three branches of government, as set forth in our Constitution?
It all seemed clear to me on June 2 when I began to respond to Mr. Huer’s excellent column, but then I watched the news and read the papers and magazines that reported the latest local, national and international news: court decisions were being ignored by the executive branch of our government; people accused but not convicted of any crimes were being shipped to confinement in El Salvador in what appeared to be torture chambers; the apparatchiks of the Trump administration terminated the employment of thousands of federal employees without regard to the pain such actions inflicted on them and their families, and without regard to the essential functions of government that were stopped dead-in-their-tracks, for no higher purpose than to make a would be king look good. All of this, in my opinion, violated our very humanity. There are rules that need to be obeyed, but the rules imposed unilaterally by the administration and its sycophantic toddies, such as stripping federal agencies of their ability to enforce the duly enacted laws and programs of our great nation, deserve to be opposed in non-violent ways, such as by electing to office candidates who see the higher purposes that our society hopes to serve, and by replacing the sycophantic members of Congress who are indeed “butt-kissers.”
But a great number of us are frozen in place. We are justifiably scared, frightened, and insecure because without our jobs our entire world collapses. We risk losing our homes; becoming unable to sustain life with the people we love; facing having to move to distant locations to find work; and having to risk the loss of our health insurance and retirement programs, especially those in which we are not vested. So, in Stockholm Syndrome fashion, working-class people begin to merge their life objectives with those of our captors, by blaming the government for our precariousness, rather than to recognize that we are hapless victims of the grotesque hyper-greed that betrays any sense of equity that capitalism was intended to provide, but which has been displaced by the near fascist state of our current reality: government as a tool in the hands of business and the ultra-rich.
However, I believe with all that I hold dear that we are not powerless. Science and scripture agree that when our basic needs are met – when we feel secure – we are able to turn our attention to cultivating the laudable qualities with which we are endowed. Scientists might define such qualities as “self-actualization,” and theologians might define them as our “spirituality.”
Unfortunately, the scriptural imperative to love our neighbors as ourselves, and science as basic as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, have been ignored, or overruled throughout human history, as humanity and compassion have been usurped by the forces of conquest and greed.
(As an aside, I am struggling to conclude this article, but a brilliant writer has been welcomed into my library, whom I believe offers compelling evidence in support of my assertions. So, coming soon, hopefully, a discussion of “Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism,” by Eve L. Ewing – which is not to be confused with the similarly titled book about President Joe Biden.)
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There is, in my opinion, an abundance of evidence of justifiable urgency regarding my conviction that the troublesome trajectory of our society can be course-corrected by us each practicing radical, uncompromising and extreme kindness to each other: kindness that displays the spirit of, rather than the letter of our good rules. By so doing, we will enhance our sense of community, and respect for our neighbors. Hopefully that will help us identify and support leaders who put humanity above profit, and who will not be butt-kissing acolytes of tyrannical political leaders.
Jim Palmero lives in Southampton.