The worst ethics train wreck within memory is slowly coasting to a halt, but there are still some who are determined to jump on board. The latest passengers are the members of the Alabama State Marching Band, who somehow felt that a salute to “Trayvon” was appropriate half-time fare at a college football game.
It isn’t. The band is abusing its position, visibility and responsibilities by using the half-time show for political commentary, even if the commentary is ignorant, incoherent, and vague. Football fans do not come to games to have their faces rubbed in racially divisive controversies, and the band has no business inflicting its views, whatever they may think they are, on a captive audience.
The university can’t trust a band that would do something like this, and should suspend its performances for the next game or so to make the point, lest future fields feature “BOMB SYRIA,” ” YAY ABORTION” or “LEGALIZE METH.”
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Facts and Graphic: AL.com
Ethics Alarms 
It is possible that in the contest between two historically black colleges that they figured the audiences might not object to the message.
It appears the SWAC commissioner wasn’t opposed to the message.
I go to sporting events all the time where people preach things I don’t believe in. New Orleans Hornets (now Pelicans) would often have Christian preachers giving a prayer before the games. Most made their prayers generic but some did not. Since I am Jewish I don’t believe what they say. But it doesn’t mean I have to be angry about it either.
I am sure anyone who is upset about this who would otherwise attend these games would likely drop their season tickets.
Let me summarize your points:
P1: “it’s ok to perpetuate a divisive lie as log as the people watching agree with the lie”
P2: appeal to authority.
P3: everybody does it.
P4: the market will fix it. (The closest to rationalism of your four paragraphs)
And to be clear P4 is just a revision of P1
You mis-stated at least two of those:-
– P1 is asserting that, if the parties agree, then as between them it is not divisive, making your formulation a contradiction in terms as long as it stays between them. We see that it has in fact spread, but that isn’t down to the parties – it wasn’t reasonably foreseeable that others would make a big deal out of it. It need not go beyond the parties anyway, so others need not necessarily be involved.
– Your formulation of P2 is true as far as it goes but misleading, since it is incomplete in a way that people are likely to fill in incorrectly. It is true that it is asserting “everybody does it …”, but it is NOT asserting the familiar error “everybody does it [so it must be OK]”. It is asserting the very different “everybody does it [which gives us evidence, so we see from the outcomes over time of those other analogous cases that the claimed bad consequences frequently do not arise]”
Of course, the original propositions might still be defective on other grounds, but not on those grounds just there.
Oops – your formulation of P3, not of P2.
I see you’ve been reading from TGT’s play book: “how to in accurately analyze logic”.
The is divisive between those who would like to make Martin a martyr for a cause that for all intents and purposes is no longer relevant and those who wish to finalize the reconciliation in race relations in America. Whether or not only one party is present to celebrate the lie is immaterial. Is continues to perpetuate a malicious narrative an continues to maintain walls of cultural separation. So yes, it does matter that a lie is perpetuated that continues to divide. That you doubled down on LiberalDan’s rationalization makes no difference.
The everybody does it rationalization is pretty apparant. The sign off at the end of that paragraph clearly indicates that “it’s ok, whether or not I disagree with it, we just have to deal with it”. Sounds like “everybody does it, so it’s ok” to me.
Inaccurately*
I see that you have completely misunderstood me to be taking a position, when I was trying to clarify that you had been at best selective in your paraphrase of someone else’s words, since his words are capable of quite another reading. I myself was neither advocating any position on its substance nor asserting that the other reading was necessarily what the author meant, but only pointing out that your own analysis rested on a particular reading.
Since you have misunderstood my own remarks as well as those I was dealing with, I shall hold off on trying again until it is not so late at night (it’s gone midnight, here in Melbourne). I hope that I have explained my approach and purpose, though, so that you have something to think over.
No, I didn’t misunderstand the remarks you were dealing with. If I misunderstood yours however, then perhaps you didn’t explain well enough.
Thanks though.
LEGALIZE METH is more a Troy thing.
Ha.
I have a name they can spell out next: Channon Christian.
The racial cauldron is being stirred constantly and will one day boil over, possibly making the 60s a fond memory. In places like Chicago, Baltimore, New Orleans, et al, the violence level seems to be uncontrollable and escalating. The police departments are giving lip service and/or denial to the seriousness of the beatings, flash mobs, etc., that are occurring all over the country and the media are silent. Those of us or with family still in the trenches are aware of the skirmishes. All it will take is one incident here in the Chicago area and all hell will break loose.
The racial cauldron is being stirred constantly and will one day boil over
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Exactly right.
I can see it already, people who never had a racist bone in their bodies are getting sick to death of being called racists and listening to the never-ending Trayvon lie.
Jack, I guess you’ve never seen Stanford’s bratty “marching band.”
I saw Harvard’s band, which Stanford copied. They made wise ass political commentary, “Comedy Central” style. Pure political posturing without entertainment value was banned, and Stanford’s band is similar, as far as I can tell.
Well, good for Harvard for stopping that sort of behavior. I doubt the Stanford band has been shut down. But maybe they have been now that Stanford’s making lots of dough fielding really competitive teams.
During the halftime of a Notre Dame at Stanford football game, they did a nice, WASPY, Anti-papist program where their drum major pranced around with a crozier and a gold cape waiving his drum major’s stick, which happened to be a crozier. I’m a firmly lapsed Catholic, but that made even my blood boil. But hey, the first amendment protects assholes and besides, they’re really smart assholes with high SATs. And Chelsea Clinton went there!
So, what you’re saying is: ‘they’re really smart assholes with high SATs’, or the child of a former President.
I’m saying the kids in the Standford band usually get a pass because they’re regarded as being smart because they could get into Stanford. Chelsea Clinton having gone there makes the place okay with lefties, most of whom don’t even know about the Hoover Institute. And the problem with the Al Gores and Chelsea Clintons and George Bushes and John Kerrys getting into Harvard and Standford and Yale and the Harvard Business School is we never know whether they’re smart or just on the Oligarchs’ Affirmative Action plan. KInd of like Chelsea Clinton getting a job at NBC or her husband getting a job at Goldman Sachs. Is she a competent reporter or just the next Clinton. Is he a good investment banker or his he being paid two million a year to single-handedly staff up the Bill and Hillary Clinton’s son-in-law’s desk.
I daresay that with the evidence available, we can conclude that Chelsea is not a competent reporter. Her husband is, unarguably, the best darn Clinton son-in-law at Goldman, or even anywhere.
Dear hyperventilators (none of the readers here),
Even though Zimmerman has been in the news recently with marital issues and the police were called on him. Let’s not make the same foolish rushes to judgment we made the first go around. Let’s wait until we know more information.
He’s an jumpy and quick to action and irresponsible. Got it. Still, let’s wait.
I think this proves, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Zimmerman is liable to shoot anybody, not just African American teens. All the more reason not to confront people you don’t know who may be carrying a gun, much less try to slam their head into the concrete.
Based on the FL news, it seems to me that the soon to be ex wife is creating drama.
No gun was found yesterday.
Not to mention, if you think someone might shoot you, do you and your father continue to stand outside while you wait for police?
According to the Chicago Tribune, GZ’s bodyguard was present and there may have been something on his security camera. Considering what this man has been through, the last thing he needs is to be pushed (set up?) by someone he apparently loved enough to marry. The guy is gonna have to look over his shoulder for the rest of his life and will probably never know peace. As for his wife, after hearing the tape, I have to wonder about her integrity. If these quotes are accurate, the track won’t be cleared of this wreck for a long time to come.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/zimmerman-wife-george-selfish-feels-invincible-article-1.1447776