"Jailer" is right on, right here, right now.

Ol' Joe

For me, one rule seems to always come out on top, the "golden rule."

Yep!

Thanks Jailer, for raising such fine points.

So how then might these thoughts apply say to this thread?

ETHICS - "$0" Rate Errors & Demands to Honor
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/005095.html

This has been a great thread.
I'm going to take it down a new avenue.

I get about 10 offers a week for magazine subscriptions. Some are obscure trade rags, but some are mainstream publications that I have and would again pay money for.

Each comes with a questionaire. I fill them out with abandon. The information is almost always fictional. As the my mentor at work told me - do you think the magazine police are going to come for you?

I'm not sure this is any more black and white than our driving examples, but it puts it in a different context.

Well, as the idiot who apparently inspired this thread, i thought i'd let it run for a while before i chimed in; i'm so much of a relativist (often to my own chagrin), that simply saying "rules/laws must be followed" usually doesn't cut it for me, because i can think of so many instances where it's be wrong to follow the rules/laws; having said that, i don't think they should be disregarded in their entirety, or it would literally be chaos; so how to decide? can't say i have a good answer to that, but somehow i think we all look at the equities involved in each situation (including those imputed to obeying the rules); let me put a twist on the situation; say an airline breaches the contract of carriage and screws you over (e.g. puts you on a bus instead of a plane and offers no compensation whatsoever-- it happened to me); your only recourse is to sue in small claims court, hardly an attractive option; would that justify you in somehow trying to "get over" on the carrier at a later date in an amount roughly comparable to the injustice it inflicted upon you? simply throwing out "2 wrongs don't make it right" isn't going to convince me; i'll throw out "an eye for an eye" and we'll be drowning in cliches; i'm interested in people thoughts; the 2 threads have been intereting; And Premex2000, I'd be interested in hearing why you believe bartering doesn't violate rule 8 ...