This just in:
You know that aneurysm-inducing defense in the case of the Republican consultant who created a robocall designed to trick black Democrats into not voting on election day?
Ethics Quote of the Week: Washington Post Blogger Greg Sargent
“But when it comes down to it, this all happened too long ago and too early in Romney’s life to know with real certainty whether it’s revealing of any of those things or not — particularly when it comes to who Romney is right now. I can’t get around the simple fact that I wouldn’t want to be judged today by some of the things I did in my teens, and I suspect many others feel the same way.”
—Washington Post blogger-from-the-Left Greg Sargent, concluding his post entitled, “What Does Mitt Romney’s Bullying Tell Us?“
My god, man! I think you’ve discovered The Golden Rule!
Who the heck is THAT guy?
Sargent, being a designated left-wing mouthpiece for a newspaper that often fulfills that role itself, naturally toes the company line in most of his post before having this lucid ethical moment. He spends part of the article speculating on what the Post’s “bombshell story” about what Mitt did or maybe did in prep school might suggest about Romney—all the better to throw out indictments “from some” like cruelty, “a real mean streak,” “a disdain for the weak,” just to plant a seed in the minds of voters that might bloom Greg’s way by November. But he edges into Ethics Hero territory for making the necessary “Never mind!” point in fairness and common sense. Continue reading
Filed under Character, Government & Politics, Journalism & Media, Leadership
Ethics Dunce: New Jersey Department of Education
“All right, children: Tell…us…everything!”
This year’s New Jersey ASK test, given to grade schoolers to assess their skills and knowledge, required some third graders to reveal a secret about their personal lives, and to explain why that secret is hard to keep. Surprisingly, many parents had a problem with this.
Here is what Dr. Richard Goldberg, a father of twin third grade boys told reporters:
“…To ask an 8-year-old, a 9-year-old to start revealing secrets in the middle of an exam I thought was really inappropriate. These children, they want to answer the question, they want to answer it correctly, they don’t want to get a bad grade. But at the same time, think about the things a child might know – about themselves or their family.”
Yes, let’s think about that: Continue reading
Filed under Education, Ethics Dunces, Government & Politics
The Romney “Pranks” Smear and Fairness Blindness
Amazingly, the real Doug Neidermeyer grew up to be a hell of a nice guy. But by all means, let’s judge him by the jerk he was in 1962. That’s fair.
Occasionally I am genuinely shocked at how blatantly unfair people are on certain topics. Sometimes it is people generally; sometimes the people shocking me are those who I respect, and their unfairness outbreak sets me running to the mirror to check for tell-tale symptoms in my own visage, like a righteousness rash or bias buboes. I am never surprised by the unfairness of the media, politicians, or Lawrence O’Donnell, but even with them, I persist in the silly hope that some shred of decency survives.
The Washington Post’s despicable exposition of ancient recollections of Mitt Romney’s mean-spirited and boorish conduct while being enrolled in that well-known cauldron of mean-spirited and boorish conduct—prep school—has caused me serial episodes of shock. The blatant unfairness of dredging up pre-majority incidents to denigrate a presidential candidate should be so obvious that would expect writers, pundits and readers of all ideological persuasions to toss such swill back in the face of the incompetent waiter who served it…but no. Far and wide, people who should know better, think better and be better are waving the Post’s front page like a bloody flag. I’m embarrassed for them, and for any political affiliation that removes basic ethics alarms so effectively.
The story was offensive and unforgivable enough online, where I saw it yesterday, but on the front page of the Washington Post, where it appeared today, it is beyond belief. The story takes up almost half the front page: you would think the Martians had invaded. My first thought was: “Wow…the liberal establishment must really think Obama’s in trouble!” And so he is. But that’s no excuse.
All the usual suspects have seized on the Post’s hit job to paint Mitt Romney as some kind of a closet monster—again, on the basis of his actions as a spoiled, rich kid with a famous father going to school at a snooty prep school where they breed the kind of creeps represented by Greg Marmalard and Doug Neidermeyer in “Animal House.”
I should mention, in passing, that I am fairly certain that in college I knew personally one of the models for both Marmalard and Neidermeyer, an arrogant, ultra-preppy, ultra-conservative, tall, handsome student who was an outspoken supporter of Richard Nixon and who was known and roundly detested by the Harvard Lampoon types that wrote the “Animal House” screenplay. And guess what? He grew up. He was not “raped in prison” after Watergate, like Greg, or “shot by his own men” in Viet Nam, like Doug. He became a dedicated philanthropist and a courageous father, and has accomplished more good since college than all the fine liberals who ridiculed him combined. Citing his college conduct (when he was older that 17) as indicia of his character today makes about as much sense as—no exactly as much sense as—using Mitt Romney’s prep school actions to judge him now. That is to say, none.
Rick Jones, the smart and sensitive teacher and blogger who sometimes weighs in here, shocked me with his own boarding of the anti-Romney train in the wake of the Post smear. Still, his post on the topic, which you can read here, is more persuasive, fair and articulate than the others around the web written by those with names you might know better, so let me focus on Rick’s well-stated versions of their arguments. Rick writes: Continue reading
Filed under Government & Politics, Journalism & Media, Education, The Internet, Character
Criminal Defense Ethics: The Aneurysm-Inducing Argument
Darrow would understand.
Apoplectic stand-up comic Louis Black has a classic routine in which he describes how a snippet of a conversation he over-heard at an IHOP nearly killed him. The statement, “If it hadn’t been for that horse, I never would have spent that year in college,” made no sense to him at all and kept going around and around in his brain, threatening to cause a fatal aneurysm.
I know exactly how he feels.
A week ago, I read a news account of the election fraud trial of one Julius Henson, a former campaign consultant to ex-Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich. This was the second trial arising out Ehrlich’s dirty and unsuccessful campaign in 2010 to win re-election over Democrat Martin O’Malley. In the first one, Ehrlich’s campaign manager, Peter Schurick, was convicted of election fraud for approving an election day robocall that went out to African-Americans in Maryland who were registered Democrats, suggesting that they “relax” and stay home, because O’Malley had already won. In the article, it said that Henson’s attorney had offered the defense that the call, which was created by Henson with his wife’s voice on the recording, was not designed to suppress the black vote for O’Malley. It was, argued Edward Smith, intended to prompt them to go to the polls and vote for Erhlich through the use of “reverse psychology.”
WHAT??? Continue reading
Filed under Character, Law & Law Enforcement
The Washington Post’s Teenage Romney Smear Job
This just in: When he was 2 months old, Mitt Romney made boom-boom in his didies!
The Washington Post, which reached its previous nadir of attempted disgraceful and irresponsible character assassination of a GOP Presidential candidate with its “Niggerhead” hit job on Gov. Rick Perry*, sunk lower still with today’s stunningly unfair attack on Mitt Romney. Reporter Jason Horowitz wrote a bottom-of the-barrel story about an incident in which Romney bullied and harassed a gay class mate when Romney was at prep school, and 17-years-old. Naturally, this was published to contrast with President Obama, finally being shamed into announcing his support of gay marriage, in order to embarrass Romney, and force him to apologize for an episode that took place nearly a half-century ago when he was legally a minor.
If you want to read this garbage, it is here. You shouldn’t want to, however. It has no relevance to Mitt Romney or his qualifications for the Presidency. Paying any attention to it at all, even if you are actively trying to torpedo Mitt, is a bright-line violation of the Golden Rule…unless, of course, you never did anything you’re now ashamed of when you were a selfish, hormone-addled, ignorant teen, and are perfectly willing to have colleagues and potential employers judge your current character on the wedgies you handed out in gym class. Continue reading
Filed under Journalism & Media, Education, Leadership, Gender and Sex, Character
Web Hoaxes: Not Funny, Always Unethical
P.T. Barnum’s “Fiji Mermaid:. At least in 1842,. it wasn’t on the web.
Ethics Alarms is swearing off “angry ex-boyfriend/girlfriend takes cruel outrageous revenge” stories, no matter how juicy the ethics lesson may be. First it was the tattoo artist who defaced his ex’s back with a huge and ugly drawing of steaming dog excrement that was fantasy masquerading as news, and now it’s the Polish dentist scorned…remember? The one who pulled out her cheating boyfriend’s teeth? Yes, it seems that horror story was a hoax too.
A lot of people who should know better think that web hoaxes are funny and hoaxers are clever. I regard them as the ethical equivalent of chefs and waiters who spit in restaurant customers’ food. The web creates—a web!—of information and communication across nations and cultures, and poisoning that web with bogus stories creates a chain of unpredictable harm. At very least, hoaxes make every trusting source that passes along the lie an unwitting accomplice in a despicable act. It harms long-nurtured relationships of mutual trust between those who post on blogs and websites and those who read them. Continue reading
Filed under Character, Humor and Satire, Journalism & Media, The Internet
Ethics Hero: Hillary Clinton
Those are four words I once would have bet I would never type.
Real. Honest. Brave. Beautiful. Thanks.
The Secretary of State deserves them though, for appearing in public, before the cameras, with no make-up and just a touch of lipstick. Let Fox News and the Matt Drudge mock: Hillary didn’t “forget her make-up.” She just decided “to hell with it.” And, as the Washington Post correctly noted, she looks just fine.
I just spent an event sitting next to the wife of a friend. She must be pushing 70, and her face and hair would not provide a single clue that she was more than 45, except for this: but for the movement of her eyeballs and occasionally her lips, her expression was completely unchanging.It was creepy. Her husband, whom I hadn’t seen in about ten years, was aging normally, but now his marriage of 40-plus years looked like he had robbed the cradle, albeit the cradle of a family afflicted with genetic facial paralysis. What’s the point? Why do American women feel the need to feign youth, even to those who they can’t possibly fool? Hillary looks like a real person to me; my friend’s wife looks like she may crumble into dust when the sunlight hits her. Continue reading
Filed under Character, Ethics Heroes, Gender and Sex, U.S. Society
Comment of the Day: “Is Buzz Bissenger Right? Should College Football Be Banned?….”
You’ve read the Comment of the Day….now read the book!
In his Comment of the Day, Michael elaborates on the ethics of college sports generally, going beyond the original topic of major football programs. The expenditures on student athletes is an ethics scandal all by itself, as Michael makes clear. When the headlines in the D.C. area were all about Maryland cutting eight varsity sports, I was stunned to learn 1) that the university spent a whopping $67, 390 per student athlete, and that this was the lowest amount in the the ACC (as opposed to Florida State’s $118, 813). What possible justification could there be for this, when tuition costs are already crushingly high? Michael’s post makes the answer clear: none.
Here is Michael’s Comment of the Day, on Is Buzz Bissenger Right? Should College Football Be Banned? Is He KIDDING? Of Course It Should…:
“What is shocking is how big an impact this has on college student lives and how little anyone actually cares about learning and how little people actually care about the college students.
“If you have seen the news recently, there is a debate going on about college loans. There are also stories every few days about the high costs of college and skyrocketing college loan amounts that are the next big bubble to burst in the economy. It is obvious that this is going to end badly, with devastating consequences for the students, the education system, and the whole of US, but no one wants to actually do anything about it. Everyone wants to just stick their fingers in their ears and hope it will all turn out OK like that mortgage-backed-securities thing did. If you want to get to the bottom of the problem, you first need to start looking at where the money goes.
“How much does college actually cost?” Continue reading
Amendment 1: When Apathy Is Unethical
As you probably know by now, North Carolina voters went to the polls yesterday and passed a constitutional amendment that made same-sex marriages and even civil unions invalid under the law. Amendment 1, as it is called, is unusually brutal, as it will almost certainly take away the health insurance of many individuals in long-term committed relationships who were covered by their partner’s workplace insurance, and if they have pre-existing conditions, it will be difficult and expensive finding new coverage. Even that however, is less harmful and hurtful than having their home state declare that they are a second-class citizens, which is what this and similar provisions around the country do. Continue reading
Filed under Government & Politics, Citizenship, Gender and Sex, Character
