Month: April 2011

Unethical Website of the Month: Facebook Event—“If Boehner shuts down the government I am taking my trash to his house”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Hypothesis: If you can't persuade your adversary he is wrong, dump this on his lawn.

Two guys who shouldn’t be allowed out of the house, or near a laptop, without adult supervision have launched an unethical Facebook event, entitled “If Boehner shuts down the government I am taking my trash to his house.” See, if the federal government shuts down, one of the District’s services that will stop is trash pickup. Clever boys.

The organizers of the event are Jonah Goodman, who is listed in the Democratic National Committee network and Nolan Treadway, the political and logistics director for the liberal group Netroots Nation, lead off their “event” announcement saying that… Continue reading →

Backtracking on Virtual World Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

 

Anything unethical about these guys?

I was wrong.

New technology challenges our ethics because we have no immediate frames of reference to rely on. The situations created by the use of new technology require us to reach back to things we are more familiar with for guidance, and we risk choosing comparisons that prove to be superficial and inaccurate over time. This is the trap I fell into when I first approached the question of whether a player’s misconduct —or rather his avatar’s misconduct—in virtual worlds like World of Warcraft and Second Life could be unethical. My frame of reference was video games, role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons,  and games generally. If engaging in Second Life is analogous to playing a game, then vandalizing someone’s home in cyberspace is no different from invading another player’s country in Risk. If “Warcraft” is essentially similar to playing a video game, then “killing”  an avatar is no more unethical than mowing down enemy soldiers in Medal of Honor.

And if virtual games were fantasies, I reasoned, then declaring anything that took place in their boundaries unethical was tantamount to policing thought. Thoughts are not unethical;  actions are. Case closed, right? Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: Wrongly Imprisoned Victim John Thompson

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

“I don’t think training would have had anything to do with nothing really, to be honest with you, because you could have trained them and they would still do it. You need to punish them for doing it, then they won’t do it.”

—John Thompson, who was wrongly and illegally convicted of murder in Louisiana and spent 14 years on death row because prosecutors withheld exculpatory blood evidence from his lawyers and his trial. His civil suit against the prosecutor’s office, run by Harry Connick, Sr. (yes, the singer’s father) for millions in punitive damages, on the theory that the prosecutors who framed him were inadequately trained, was overturned last week by the U.S. Supreme Court.

This statement apparently was made by Thompson last October, when the Supreme Court took the case, and I missed it. It surfaced again this morning in a Washington Post editorial calling for harsher punishment for prosecutors who violate the rights of accused suspects and send innocent people to prison or execution. The Post has never been more right, and the $14 million originally awarded to Thompson by an appalled jury for his ordeal is still inadequate compensation for the 18 years he spent behind bars because of a prosecutor’s dishonesty.

But the theory used to get Thompson his money—that the tragedy would have been prevented if Connick’s office hadn’t been negligent in training its lawyers in prosecutorial ethics—was a sham, and deserved to be rejected by the Court, no matter how much Thompson deserved the money, or indeed, ten time the money. Continue reading →

The Saga of the Racist Juror and the Angry Judge, Chapter Two: “Never Mind!”

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

 

"Oh! You're REALLY a racist? That's OK then...I thought you were LYING about being a racist, and I just hate that!"

When we last left Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis, he had just sentenced a potential juror to jury duty for life because of her racist and anti-police answers on a jury questionnaire. Then many commentators, including Ethics Alarms, pointed out that punishing a woman for her views, however offensive, was an abuse of judicial power. I wrote:

 

“This was outrageous abuse of power by a judge, and a slam dunk First Amendment violation. Her opinions are ugly, but there is nothing illegal about having ugly opinions, and  government punishment based on a citizen’s opinion is a dangerous Constitutional breach. A judge can’t dictate how a potential juror thinks or what she believes. He can’t take vengeance on a woman who is hateful, either. She has a right to her hate.”

Today the judge released the woman from the lifetime sentence, saying that it really wasn’t her racist views that angered him, but rather that she had made an obvious attempt to get out of jury duty by putting offensive answers on the jury questionnaire. “My ruling was not based in any way upon whether or not you held any racist views. It was apparent you did not tell the truth,” Judge Garaufis told the woman. “You were the only juror who indicated that you had every form of bias imaginable. You were lying to the court in order to be excused.”

Ah, It wasn’t that she was a racist, but that she pretended to be a racist.

What a minute..huh? Continue reading →

The Revenge of Ashley Judd

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

"Dear Mom, Sis: Hope you take my book in the spirit in which it was intended!"

Yes, celebrities live by different rules, but publishing a book that exposes your family’s secrets, hangs out its dirty laundry for all to smell, and settling scores with siblings in public is a cruel and unfair thing to do no matter who you are….or what the provocation.

Now actress Ashley Judd has published her account of what it was like growing up with Mama Naomi and Sister Wynnona, and her verdict is reportedly harsh. Ashley doesn’t need the money, so the only reasons for publishing “All That Is Bitter and Sweet: A Memoir” now are unethical ones: getting the satisfaction of vengeance, and hurting her own family members.

You should have waited, Ashley.

[Note: The original post was written from two sources that suggested that “I’m Not the Fat One” was  the title. I apparently was taken in: this was a joke. My fault. Sorry Ashley.]

 

 

Ethics Hero: Fox

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Now if you want to see a mad prophet on TV, you'll have to watch "Network." Thank you Rupert, Roger, Fox!

The Fox network, in ending its relationship with Glenn Beck after the expiration of his current contract as it announced yesterday, placed principle over profit. In today’s culture particularly, that is always a welcome development, an ethical one, and deserving of praise.

I can comfortably assign Fox Ethics Hero status and discount the braying from partisan Beck-haters like Media Matters, the shamelessly one-sided “media watchdog” that has declared “war” on Fox because it dares to deliver news from a generally conservative perspective. Beck was not brought down by their attacks, or by the boycotts against him by various interest groups. His show was still one of the most watched current events programs on cable, and Fox was still making money on it. The demise of Glenn Beck’s Fox show was not an example of successful suppression of conservative opinion by the Left. Continue reading →

Alarm Failure! Racist Juror+Angry Judge=Jury Duty For Life

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

"You won't like me when I'm angry..."

Political correctness is now officially moving into places where it cannot be tolerated….like the courtroom.

In Brooklyn Federal Court, Juror No. 799, an Asian woman in her 20s who said she works in the garment industry, was up for jury duty in the death penalty trial of Bonanno crime boss Vincent Basciano. Asked to name three people she least admired on her jury questionaire, she wrote, “African-Americans, Hispanics and Haitians.” Elsewhere on the form she declared that all cops were lazy, and used their sirens to bypass traffic jams.

Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis read the questionaire, questioned the woman, and declared, “This is an outrage, and so are you!” After he dismissed her as a juror on the case, he announced that she was now, until further notice, on permanent jury duty until he let her off.

“She’s coming back today, Thursday and Friday – and until the future, when I am ready to dismiss her,” Garaufis said.

Just desserts for a racist?

Proper punishment for hate?

A lesson in citizenship for all? Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The Candies’ Foundation and Bristol Palin

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

" Hi! I'm Kim Kardashian, here to tell you that making a sex tape is a terrible mistake, even though my own sex tape made me and my two equally shallow sisters rich celebrities. Don't make the same mistake I did. Really. Trust me."

The Candie’s Foundation is a non-profit organization that, according to its website,

“…works to shape the way youth in America think about teen pregnancy and parenthood. We are an operating foundation rather than a grant-making foundation. The foundation develops and runs communication campaigns to raise awareness about, and motivate teens to prevent, teen pregnancy.”

The main source of its message to teens right now is that “Dancing With The Stars” icon, Bristol Palin. Palin, now 20, qualified herself for the assignment of speaking to teens about the importance of avoiding getting pregnant by getting pregnant when she was 16, and doing it center stage, while her mother was the Governor of Alaska. Thus using her position in Alaska’s first family to add prestige to the role of unwed teenage mother in that state, Bristol went on to national prominence as Sarah Palin campaigned for Vice President on the GOP ticket, with Bristol demonstrating during and after that jaunt that marrying the father of your child might not be such a good idea either, since he might be, as in the case of Bristol’s short-term fiancee, Levi Johnston, an immature, selfish, publicity-seeking dimwit.

Having done maximum damage to everyone but herself by becoming pregnant (with significant help from Levi, naturally), unwed mother Bristol Palin parlayed her own irresponsible behavior into the job of spokeswoman for The Candie’s Foundation. Well, her mother, I think it is fair to say, did the parlaying. It never hurts to help a prominent and rising cult political figure’s wayward offspring. Who knows when you might need a favor…or have an unemployable offspring of your own?

Bristol goes around the country talking with students and other teenagers, reminding them that they are too young to have kids, and that they should wait because it will screw up their lives. Of course, all of these teenagers know that the unwed, former teen mother telling them this has absolutely no credibility, and in fact represents the much more optimistic ( and completely unrealistic for anyone whose family isn’t rich and/or famous) position  that you can have a baby in your teens, get on lots of magazine covers, have your mother get you a job traveling around the country talking about it while someone else takes care of the baby, and become a celebrity in the bargain. Neat-o! Continue reading →

Ethics Hero Emeritus: Dorothy Young, Houdini’s Assistant

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Dorothy Young knew how to keep a secret.

Dorothy Young, who died March 24 at the age of 103, was the last in a series of scantily clad magician’s assistants for Harry Houdini, the greatest escape artist who ever lived and America’s iconic magician. She remained active in show business for many years after Houdini’s death in 1926. Young appeared several times on Broadway, including the  “New Faces of 1936.” Later, she was half the team of “Dorothy and Gilbert,”a touring nightclub dance act that specialized in a dramatic combination of rumba and bolero—the “rumbolero.”

Young married Gilbert, who was Gilbert Kiamie, heir to a silk underwear fortune. She wrote a novel about her career, “Dancing on a Dime,” that inspired a 1940 Hollywood musical of the same name. Young eventually became a successful painter, and in 2003 gave New Jersey’s Drew University $13 million to endow an arts center.

Why is she an Ethics Hero? Continue reading →

Conflict of Interest, Lack of Integrity, Appearance of Impropriety…Other Than That, Gov. Walker, It’s A Great Hire!

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

"Why, no, his father's financial support played absolutely no part in his landing this plum job...I mean, just LOOK at him! He blew the competition away!"

Politics involves deals and trade-offs, quid pro quos and mutual back-scratching. The trick is to be a politician without undermining the public trust, and using those deals to benefit, not harm, the public interest. That means that certain deals, even relatively typical ones, may be unforgivable under certain circumstances. A prime example: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s hiring of Brian Deschane to oversee environmental and regulatory matters and a large staff at the Wisconsin Department of Commerce. Continue reading →