Justice finally prevailed in a disturbing Delaware case that took hyper-sensitivity to racial bias to absurd extremes. You can read the court opinion here. In essence, the Delaware State Human Relations Commission found that a theater manager who supplemented an on-screen request for patrons to turn off their cell phones, not talk during the film and not mill around in the theater with his personal announcement to the same effect was engaged in racial discrimination, because most of the audience was black and some felt that his tone was condescending. Continue reading
Year: 2011
Illinois’s Death Penalty Ban: Defensible Decision, Indefensible Reasoning
Justice.
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed legislation abolishing capital punishment in the state and commuted the sentences of the 15 inmates still on death row to life in prison without parole.
I disagree with the decision, and have stated my reasons for not abolishing the death penalty here and here. Never mind: this is a topic on which ethical and reasonable people can disagree with honor. But if one is going to abolish an important law enforcement tool, the official justification for it ought to be coherent and persuasive, and not just facile rhetoric. That, unfortunately, is what Gov. Quinn gave us.
Here is the relevant segment of Quinn’s statement after signing the bill into law during a private ceremony: Continue reading
Wisconsin Wars: The Democrats’ Unethical Ethics Complaint
Wisconsin Democrats have filed an ethics complaint against Governor Scott Walker.
The complaint, and the filing of it, are unethical. Really, really, really unethical. Here’s why. Continue reading
The Missing Ethics Alarm: Spending Other People’s Money
How did I get HERE??
I confess: I honestly don’t understand this problem. From the first time I had an expense account, it never occurred to me to use it for my own pleasure. If I had to eat out on the road, I picked an inexpensive restaurant. I didn’t charge hotel room movies to my employer—he wasn’t sending me there to be entertained. I flew coach, and paid for any personal long-distance calls. Why? Because it wasn’t my money. I was a fundraiser for a non-profit, and I knew that whatever the donors were giving money for, it wasn’t for me.
It became apparent over the years that few of my colleagues or bosses saw it that way, when it came to their own expenses, and that elected officials and corporate officers not only readily use other people’s money extravagantly, but also that few people object when they do. The conduct is clearly irresponsible and unfair; I would call it dishonest. But those in high positions seem to regard it as their right. Continue reading
Unethical Quote of the Month: Newt Gingrich
“There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate. And what I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn’t trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them. I found that I felt compelled to seek God’s forgiveness. Not God’s understanding, but God’s forgiveness. I do believe in a forgiving God. And I think most people, deep down in their hearts hope there’s a forgiving God.”
—–Former Speaker Newt Gingrich, preparing for a presidential run by attempting to explain and apologize for his serial marital betrayals, the most spectacular of which was visiting his first wife while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery to announce that he was divorcing her to marry his mistress. Then he cheated on his second wife, the former mistress, with a member of his staff. He ditched Mistress #1, Wife #2, for Mistress #2, who became Wife #3. This is why he needs a forgiving God, or at least a forgiving electorate.
Newt’s defense now is that he felt so passionately about his country that it caused him to dump his cancer stricken wife (so much for all that “in sickness or in health” stuff), and later, while he was leading a party that was making the case that a U.S. President shouldn’t be having on-the-job sexual encounters with interns, using his staff and appointees to cover it up, and lying about it under oath in court, to commence a second extra-marital affair of his own. This, naturally, helped let President Clinton wiggle of his well-earned impeachment hook, and also helped cement the socially destructive public perception that 1) everyone cheats on their spouses, so it’s okay, and 2) you can’t trust any of our elected leaders.
Thanks for nothing, Newt.
God is welcome to forgive you; I won’t. You are obviously untrustworthy. Once cheating on a spouse may be a mistake; cheating on a second spouse is a behavior pattern. If a politician who likes to invoke God will lie to and betray two women who he swore, before God, to take “’til death us do part,” not to mention his children, I see no reason to assume that he won’t betray voters who has never met, loved, or lived with.
God’s forgiveness is irrelevant to the central issue of whether New Gingrich has the reliability of character and core values to justify entrusting him with great power. As his self-serving quote demonstrates, he does not.
But good luck with God, Newt.
The NPR Ethics Train Wreck
Ethics train wreck scholars take note: when an organization’s image and existence is based on multiple lies, an ETW is inevitable.
Oh NO! It's another Ethics Train Wreck!
National Public Radio is now in the middle of a massive, six-months long ethics train wreck that began with the hypocritical firing of Juan Williams on a trumped-up ethics violation. The disaster exposes the culture of dishonesty and entitlement at the heart of NPR, and by extension, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. To the extent that their supporters blame anyone else, it is evidence of denial. This is a train wreck, however, and the ethics violators drawn into the wreckage are many: Continue reading
Quiz: Which Law Enforcement Fiasco Was More Unethical?
It’s Quiz Time!
Chief Wiggum would be an upgrade.
Today’s topic: Why the public doesn’t trust the law enforcement system. Here are two horrible and true, tales of AWOL ethics involving law enforcement in New York and Tennessee. Which is more unforgivable, A or B?
A. Brooklyn, NY: The Perpetual Warrant
What is the fair limit of “the police made an honest mistake”? Let’s say the police have a warrant to search your house, and come to your door because they got the address wrong—and it’s a mistake. At least they didn’t break down the door in the middle of the night. OK, mistakes happen. Then they come again, because they got your address in error again. Annoying, but they seem embarrassed: they aren’t trying to harass you.
And then they arrive 48 more times. Continue reading
Most Unethical Bobblehead EVER
The vile bobblehead
In Game two of the 1991 World Series between the Minnesota Twins and the Altanta Braves, Brave outfielder Ron Gant singled and rounded the bag, drawing a throw to first base. He appeared to beat the throw to the bag, but the Twins’ jumbo first baseman, Kent Hrbek, wrapped his arm around Gant’s leg and lifted him off the base as he applied the tag. First base umpire Drew Coble managed to completely miss Hrbek’s illegal tactic, and called Gant out to end the inning. The Twins went on to win that game by one run, and in one of the closest Series of all time, also won the World Championship, 4 games to 3.
Hrbek’s muscling of Gant off of first base has been widely regarded as one of the most egregious examples of cheating by a player in baseball’s 130 year history. So, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Minnesota World Series triumph, the Twins will hold a special “1991 World Series Champs Reunion Weekend” promotion featuring members of the 1991 team at the August 5 game, and the first 10,000 fans through the gates will receive a free Kent Hrbek/Ron Gant bobblehead, depicting the infamous play. Continue reading
The Naked Teacher Principle Strikes Again!
Once the class sees Teacher like this, it's over...
The Naked Teacher Principle holds, in essence, that once a teacher is seen by his or her students cavorting in the nude, school administrators and parents are not being unreasonable or unfair if they decide that the teacher can no longer teach effectively. From the classic example involving internet photos, to exceptions like the male teacher appearing in a community theater production of “The Full Monte”, to strange corollaries like “the Naked Butt-Painting Teacher with a Paper Bag Over His Head Variation,” naked teachers create headaches for their schools, giggles (at least) for their students, and anxiety for the teachers involved.
Now we have another variation. Continue reading
Don’t Knock “The Code of the West”!
A commenter just nominated the Republicans in the Montana State Legislature for “Incompetent Elected Official” status because they have proposed “The Code of the West” as Montana’s State Code.
Nomination rejected. I don’t want to argue about whether a state needs a State Code, although it seems a lot more useful and constructive than state birds, state songs and state pies. I also don’t feel like debating the political correctness attacks on the potential use of the Code of the West by Native American activists, who apparently think the Code glorifies cowboys and insults Indians (Oh, all right: the complaint is nonsense. Valid ideals are not sullied by the misdeeds of those who espoused them.) But I like the cowboy codes, all of them. One is already on the site. I might not choose the same ten tenets of the unwritten Code of the West that is being debated in Montana, but the Code of the West is a perfectly good statement of ethical principles, and any state that embraces it should be praised, not embroiled in a lot of political posturing. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 