Month: March 2011

Ethics Heroes: The Fukushima 50, Reminding Us What Real Heroism Is

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

We all throw around the words “hero” and “heroism” too readily, and it cheapens the real thing, which is rare, and awe-inspiring. Teachers are heroes, cancer patients are heroes, mothers and dads are heroes, legislators who ignore polls are heroes, quarterbacks are heroes. There is much heroism around us, certainly—those who do vital jobs and make courageous choices at personal sacrifice deserve praise and recognition, as do those who overcome tremendous personal challenges. We should appreciate these acts when we see them.

Still, this leaves us unable to muster the words to distinguish the rarest and most remarkable of heroes, like the fifty Japanese nuclear technicians who have remained behind to try to prevent a nuclear catastrophe at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant damaged by Friday’s earthquake. They are not merely risking their lives, but quite probably trading them, for the well-being of their country and its citizens.

We should all aspire to such courage, selflessness, and character.

In the pantheon of ethical conduct, the Fukushima Fifty deserve the most honored place of all.

“Lethal Advocacy”: Not Ethical, and Not Protected Speech, Either

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

"Go ahead! Jump! You know you want to!"

William Melchert-Dinkel, aged 48, posed as a female nurse in internet chat rooms and preyed on depressed people by talking them into killing themselves.  A misguided mission? A perverted hobby? A salesmanship challenge? Who knows. But occasionally, he was successful.

Melchert-Dinkel was charged with assisting suicides after he encouraged IT technician Mark Drybrough, of Hillfields, Minnesota, to kill himself. Drybrough, who was recovering from a nervous breakdown, received e-mails from Melchert-Dinkel, found on his computer, containing detailed advice on how Drybrough could hang himself. He used that advice to commit suicide in 2005. Melchert-Dinkel also provided encouragement and guidance to Canadian Nadia Kajouji,  18, who drowned herself by leaping into an icy river in 2008. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Find The Tell-Tale Mistake!

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Unfortunately, James O'Keefe is no Nellie Bly

Kansas City Star reporter Mary Sanchez has posted an excellent column entitled “James O’Keefe and the Ethical Bankruptcy of ‘Gotcha’ Journalism.” Outside of an unfortunate final “Let’s see some genuine evidence that NPR’s coverage is biased” conclusion (you mean, other than its choice of stories, its lack of ideological balance, Nina Totenberg, its treatment of Juan Williams, and its institutionalized positions on issues like Palestine, gun control, abortion,  and illegal immigration?), she makes a strong case. But her piece is marred by a tell-tale gaffe that makes me doubt her own ethical orientation.

Your challenge in today’s Ethics Quiz: Find it! It occurs in this section: Continue reading →

I’m Worried About “The Good Wife”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Shape up, Alicia.

CBS’s “The Good Wife” seems to be getting more cavalier with its ethics breaches, a disappointing trend. Showing the ethical fudging that undoubtedly goes on behind the scenes at major law firms (on occasion) is appropriate; treating major violations with a shrug is not. I know it is tempting for the show to assume it has the intelligent legal TV show championship sewed up, since “the Defenders” is a joke and “Harry’s Law” is a disgrace, but it’s standards have been high, and it is dispiriting to see them flag with such missteps such as…

  • Prosecutorial misconduct casually brushed off as nothing. When Alicia asks why a videotape  is so much clearer than the one the prosecutor’s office turned over as evidence, she is told that what she received before was a copy of a copy of a copy–“just to mess with you.” Continue reading →

Nuclear Crisis Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Meltdown! Radiation! Mutations! Well, I guess that's all we have to know.

I just heard, for the twelfth time, Sen. Joe Lieberman telling “Face the Nation” that the United States should put the brakes on nuclear energy plant construction “right now until we understand the ramifications of what’s happening in Japan.” Meanwhile, the anti-nukes crowd is out in full force, seeing Japan’s crisis as their opportunity to scare the bejesus out of the public, which is nervous about nuclear energy anyway since they know nothing about it, other than that something bad happened at Three-Mile Island, the Russians had a catastrophe at Chernobyl,  Jane Fonda made that scary movie, “The China Syndrome,” where they shot Jack Lemmon— “And don’t they make bombs with that nuclear stuff?”—and the fact that Homer Simpson works for a nuclear plant that creates three-eyed fish and is run by that evil old Montgomery Burns. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day:”Yes Julea,You Have A Right To Your Beliefs; You Just Don’t Have A Right…”

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

An Ethics Alarms heartfelt thank you and “I owe you one!” to Ethics Sage, for cutting to the other core ethical point about what was wrong with Julea Ward’s refusal to counsel a gay student, and why she should have been dismissed from the university course as a consequence. It wasn’t just failure of responsibility, which my post was fixated on, but also failure of caring, compassion, and our shared duty as human beings to help each other even if our religion encourages us to regard those human beings as immoral.

Ethics Sage shows his handle ain’t just horn-blowin’ with this Comment of the Day, on the post “Yes Julea,You Have A Right To Your Beliefs; You Just Don’t Have A Right…”

“Julea Ward’s refusal to counsel a gay student is despicable on many levels. What if the student’s life had been threatened and he went to counseling to get some advice? How can anyone not act to help a person in that kind of situation or others we can think of that may or may not have anything to do with being gay? By refusing to counsel the gay student, Ward failed miserably not only to meet the requirements of the course but to act as a human being with compassion for another.”

Yes Julea,You Have A Right To Your Beliefs; You Just Don’t Have A Right To A Job That Your Beliefs Won’t Let You Do. Why Is This Not Obvious?

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

There are some issues where conservatives are just ethically, logically and legally misguided, and the issue of exercising “religious conscience” in the course of performing specific duties and services is one of them.

Julea Ward was dismissed for failing to meet the requirements of her course when she  refused to counsel a gay student while studying counseling at Eastern Michigan University. Ward later sued, saying that she told her supervisor at EMU she believes homosexuality is immoral and being gay is a choice, and that she could not in good conscience counsel a gay client. A federal court dismissed the case in July, but Ward’s lawyers have asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth District to step in. She claims that her right to worship as she pleases is being infringed. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Rep. Dennis Kucinich

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments

Muslim women, in ethical garb

During last week’s hearings on the alleged radicalization of Muslim-Americans, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, protesting that the hearings were an example of prosecution and bigotry, said:

“Islam is a religion based upon peace, goodwill and the ethical treatment of all people on this planet.”

Politics involves advocacy, and zealous advocacy sometimes metastasizes into exaggerations, overstatements, and lies. Determined governors are called dictators and criminals; those questioning global warming models are compared to Holocaust deniers. Believing that an attack on an enemy nation is in the best interests of America, leaders who should be saying, “We have good reason to believe that this nation has weapons of mass destruction and is inclined to use them,” say instead, “We know where the weapons are and the threat is imminent.” Other leaders who are trying to get important health care reforms passed say, “Don’t worry—if you like your current plan, you’ll be able to keep it!”, neglecting to add the caveat that that plan you like may be forced out of existence if the bill is passed.

These excesses range from deceitful to outright lying, but they are all unethical, all disrespectful of the truth and the public that has a right to it, all aimed at manipulating public opinion with falsity.

I find Kucinich’s statement especially indefensible, because the degree of his presumably misstatement of the truth was completely unnecessary if his motives were good. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Who Deserved To Be Fired—Beck or The Duck?

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Tough quiz today, ethics fans. Be on your toes!

Our quiz for today: Who most deserved to be fired—Glenn Beck, Gilbert Gottfried (the voice of the Aflac duck),  neither, or both?

The Mad Prophet of Fox, Glenn Beck returned to his radio program with this reflection:

“I’m not saying God is, you know, causing earthquakes. I’m not not saying that either… but there’s a message being sent. And that is, ‘Hey, you know that stuff we’re doing? Not really working out real well. Maybe we should stop doing some of it.’ I’m just saying.”

Yes, Glenn Beck said that the devastation of Japan just may be a message from God. Continue reading →

The Bi-Partisan and Unethical Niggerizing of Political Discourse

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Marl Levin, virtuoso niggerizer

The ethics problem with the use of “nigger,” or “bitch,” or “fag,” or any of the other culturally disapproved denigrating labels for human beings belonging to particular groups, is not that they are insulting—adults should be able to  handle mere insults—but that they unfairly diminish the status of individuals, their character, opinions and deeds before they have had the opportunity to be judged on their merits. It isn’t the words, but the effect, in essence sticking a foot out to trip a runner at the beginning of the race—and the race may be a job, an election, a debate, an argument, or policy deliberations.

The No-Labels movement focuses on characterizations and civility, but these are far too vague as concepts to enforce culturally, and subject to easy manipulation for political ends. John Avlon, a leader of No-Labels, still calls politicians he disagrees with “wingnuts.” Why? Because, well, they are wingnuts! Just ask John. Niggerizing, however, goes well beyond labels, and fair people should reject it from either side of the political spectrum. It is a bully tactic, and it is a dishonest debating technique, completely delegitimizing an adversary before addressing his arguments, or giving them an objective hearing. Continue reading →