Hypocrisy, unfairness…pick your own adjective for Republican and conservative attacks on Sen. John Kerry for saving himself some money by docking his $7 million yacht in Rhode Island, where he could avoid Massachusetts’ s $435,000 one-time tax and an additional $70,000 in excise taxes every year. Incredibly, talk show host Sean Hannity just called Kerry a “tax cheat,” although Kerry is breaking no laws, has no obligation to make sure his home of Massachusetts gets all of his tax money, and is doing what all wealthy Americans—usually championed by Hannity and others as those who create jobs and make the country prosperous—do: using available loopholes, safe harbors and tax minimization methods to hold on to as much money as he can. Continue reading
Month: July 2010
Ethics Quiz: The Garage Sale Treasure
CNN is reporting the story of a man who bought two small boxes at a garage sale ten years ago and just discovered that they contained 65 previously undiscovered glass negatives by famed nature photographer Ansel Adams. He purchased the boxes for $45 (haggled down from $75), and their contents are now assessed to be worth at least $200 million.
Such stories raise interesting ethical questions. For example, if you were the lucky stiff who bought the boxes, would you give any part of it to the original owner? Continue reading
Ethics and the Killer’s Liver
Johnny Concepcion, a 42-year-old man accused of stabbing his wife to death, received a liver transplant at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center in New York, raising the natural question, “WHAT?!!”
Or to be more precise: Wouldn’t it be more ethical to withhold a life-saving liver transplant from such a man, and give the liver instead to someone who isn’t a blight on society and likely to spend the rest of his life in prison?
No.
Charlie Rangel, Ethics Corrupter
Rep. Charles Rangel—statesman, icon, war hero, and Congressional force of nature—stands accused of ethics violations many and serious, ranging from using his influence to raise money for an institution named after him, to accepting trips and other benefits from special interests, to failing to pay his taxes. Actually, “accused” is a technicality in Rangel’s case, or rather cases, because the facts are plain and damning in every single one. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi initially refused to do anything about Rangel (he was eventually asked to step down, if only “temporarily” from his position as Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee) by saying, “Wait for the results of the investigation.” She meant, considering the shameless politicization of the House ethics process, “Let’s see if he can skate by this time.” He couldn’t. Rangel did all of the conflicted, reckless and irresponsible things he has been accused of, and actually admits doing most of them. He refuses to resign, however, and proclaims his “innocence,” not because he didn’t do unethical things, but because he doesn’t believe it should matter. Continue reading
Obama, the Bomber, and the Dangers of Deceit
I live in the Washington,D.C. area, and I often say that deceit is the official language here. Deceit is an artful form of lying in which literally truthful statements are made in a manner, tone and context designed to deceive others into believing something that is not true, by playing on their assumptions, hopes or trust. Like any other lie, it allows the liar to gain tangible benefits, but with less risk than with a normal lie. If a deceitful statement is unmasked after an individual has relied on it, the originator of the deceit can and often does blame the duped listener, who “misunderstood” or “jumped to conclusions.” That’s the special upside of deceit.
The downside of deceit is that it is the calling card of especially slippery people, the preferred device of the verbally adept and the unconscionably manipulative. Effective deceit takes work and talent; show me someone who can be deceitful easily, and I will show you someone whom neither of us should trust.
That is why this statement by President Obama from last week is so discouraging, and perhaps, a tipping point in his relationship to the American people: Continue reading
Daniel Schorr’s Ethical Legacy
It was interesting, though a little jarring, to read and hear the outpouring of admiration for the late CBS and NPR journalist Daniel Schorr, who died last week at the age of 93, even as the same sources were decrying the biases of Fox News. For Daniel Schorr was the herald of ideologically slanted journalism, though he never admitted it and was notable for his self-congratulatory dedication to what he called journalistic ethics. His legacy is what we have now: self-righteous journalists who refuse to separate fact from opinion, and whose definition of “fair and balanced” is “expose the bad guys—that is, those who we think are the bad guys.”
Some of the odes to Schorr’s career themselves defy any reasonable definition of objective reporting. During his 25 years at NPR, Schorr comfortably settled into reliably pro-liberal, pro-Democrat reporting, calling, for example, the Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore, “a judicial coup” by “the Gang of Five, philosophically led by archconservative Antonin Scalia.”
“Some critics of Schorr and NPR felt his analysis veered into opinion — that he had a profoundly liberal take on the world that became more evident over time,” said NPR in its obituary of Schorr.
Gee…How could they think such a thing? Continue reading
“The Decision” and ESPN’s Ethics Fail: The Ombudsman Blows the Whistle
ESPN’s special broadcast turning LaBron James’ choice (pompously called “The Decision”) regarding which N.B.A. he would allow to sign him for millions upon millions of dollars was a landmark in the demonstration of bad taste, ego, greed and arrogance by professional athletes . As the sports networks ombudsman, Don Ohlmeyer, points out in a column almost nobody will read (do you think many of ESPN’s followers are jazzed by issues of journalistic ethics?), it was also a low point in responsible journalism, and shattered professional ethics standards left and right. ESPN let James’ representatives to choose its own paid interviewer and allowed control the content and ad sales in return for giving ESPN an “exclusive” and a ratings bonanza. The result was a journalistic ethics meltdown.
Some highlights of his criticism (you can read Ohlmeyer’s entire analysis here) : Continue reading
The Ethics of Non-Voting Candidates
Meg Whitman, the former eBay C.E.O. making a run at the California State House from the Republican side, didn’t bother to register to vote until 2002. Nassau County’s candidate for attorney general, Kathleen Rice, registered 18 years before Whitman sis, but still didn’t bother to go to a polling place or cast a ballot until the same year, 2002. She calls this repeated lapse, which ended when she was 37 years old, a “youthful mistake.”
No, it was a series of the same “mistake” repeated over and over again from youth, though young adulthood, into early middle age. Continue reading
More Lessons from the Sherrod Ethics Train Wreck
Gordon Peterson, venerable host of “Inside Washington” and long-time Washington D.C. news anchor, began the show’s segment on Shirley Sherrod this way:
“Some of you may remember the good old days of newspapering and TV and radio news when you had hours to work on your story, and your editors and producers had plenty of time to sift through your stuff for accuracy. If you remember that, you’re a dinosaur. Welcome to the blogosphere, the burnout pace of online news and the 24 hour instant deadline. Which brings me to the story of ousted Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod who was let go on the basis of a single piece of internet video that was edited out of context, posted on a conservative website, picked up on Fox News, and bought lock, stock and barrel by the Obama administration.”
That’s right, Gordon. And, as Charles Krauthammer immediately pointed out on the show, you have succumbed to the blogosphere’s unethical standards, because you didn’t check the accuracy of that statement. Continue reading
Free Speech or Theft? The Law and Ethics of Stolen Valor
The U.S. District Court in Colorado ruling in the case of US v. Strandloff, has found the “Stolen Valor Act,” 18 U.S.C. § 704(b) & (d), to be an unconstitutional infringement of free speech. Rick Strandloff represented himself as a wounded decorated Iraq War veteran in order to rally support for veterans and opposition to the war. The original Stolen Valor Act of 2005 criminalized the wearing of military medals an individual was never awarded; later, it was expanded to included the crime of falsely saying or writing that one has been given military honors for valor. The Act says, in part, that it is a crime to…
…falsely represent [oneself], verbally or in writing, to have been awarded any decoration or medal authorized by Congress for the Armed Forces of the United States, any of the service medals or badges awarded to the members of such forces, the ribbon, button, or rosette of any such badge, decoration, or medal, or any colorable imitation of such item …
Deciding an issue like this inevitably comes down to both law and ethics. Not all speech is protected by the First Amendment, and deciding how many kinds of speech we can sensibly and reasonably prohibit requires a court and a culture to think about just how bad—how wrong–certain kinds of speech may be, based on their actual and potential harm. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 