The "Spider-Man Rule"

 The recently late Colin Powell is well-known for promulgating what he called "the Pottery Barn rule" in military and diplomatic policy--"if you break it, you bought it." (Oddly enough, Pottery Barn doesn't actually have that policy.) I would like to propose a corollary--the "Spider-Man rule"--"with great power comes great responsibility."

This rule applies not only in foreign affairs but in domestic affairs and at all levels, from the tiniest municipality to the mightiest nation. It applies to the cop on the beat as much as it does to the Commander-in-Chief. If your position gives you the power to affect others, you are obligated to use that power responsibly--with justice, with equality, with mercy.

And the rule doesn't only apply to those in government or law enforcement. It applies to medicine, for example, and to business. It applies to family relations. There is scarcely any element of human life in which position implies power where it does not apply.

If the youthful readers of Spider-Man's origin story in 1962 could absorb this lesson, I fail to understand why our leaders in all fields today cannot do the same.