Fairness should not be too much to ask, Horacio Mendez writes in a new op in the American Banker this week.

There is a history in the U.S. of having to legislate human decency. We keep the Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you) confined to church, with rare applicability to how we do business.

If we have no choice but to write laws to address our failure to treat everyone fairly, the challenge falls on policymakers to imagine every possible scenario where unfairness can occur, how to define it, how to identify it and what penalties will come from it. Given the unreasonable nature of that task, it’s natural for those with an interest in the status quo to claim that any attempt to do so would exceed existing authority and be labeled as arbitrary and capricious.