This is my last chance to air Arthur Fielder’s terrific Christmas medley, culminating in a counterpoint arrangement of my choice for the greatest of al the Christmas Carols with the most ubiquitous secular seasonal song of them all. Grace and I would put this on and blast it on Christmas morning.
There’s a lot in the ethics world to discuss that I have failed to get to. It’s up to you to remedy my inadequacies.
Ethics Alarms 
Sorry, it’s not ethics-centric, but…
We found out an hour ago that our son and daughter-in-law gave birth to our sixth grandchild, a little boy, earlier this morning. And he shares my birthday…it’s hard to think of a more special gift than that!
…and now it’s nearly impossible to focus on work.
Congratulations! I’ve got six grandkids too. It’s a manageable number without too much chaos. 😊
I answered a question on Qiora about unviersal health care and explained that California can not afford it.
https://www.quora.com/A-Brit-here-do-Republicans-do-not-understand-that-Americans-pay-more-in-healthcare-or-suffer-in-bankruptcy-than-people-in-countries-with-universal-healthcare-Is-this-the-system-you-want
Someone made the claim that “you can’t do such a thing by individual states either, it needs to be the whole country.”.
How exactly does that work? What is the rationale behind that?
Of course in our constitutional system, universal health care for citizens within a State can only be provided by that State’s government.
I’ve never understood the rationale behind thinking health care professionals should work for free or some arbitrarily determined maximum wage. Why get into and go to medical school or nursing school?
Their rationale is that you will then get doctors and nurses who want to help people more than they want a big salary.
You know, like all those professional ballplayers who just want to play for the fun of the game and the entertainment of fans more than a big salary.
Exactly. They underestimate the value of incentive.
In Rome, it was illegal to charge for medical services. The Romans didn’t have a lot of morals, but the thought of holding someone’s health hostage or allowing a sick or injured person to die when you could save them, all because they were too poor to pay your price, was abhorrent to them.
Medical care needs to be treated as essential services. People who work in essential services have their wages restricted. Farmers aren’t allowed to get filthy rich off farming because the thought of people starving to death because they couldn’ t afford to fund their local farmer’s third private jet is offensive to us. The thought of poor students being denied an education because they couldn’t afford to pay for the professor’s Swiss ski lodge is also offensive. Why isn’t it offensive when a physician uses a provision that allows him to sell wholesale chemotherapy drug directly to his patients to make $2 million a year off that?
Why is an LPN (12 months at tech school) the same salary as a science professor with 20 years of experience? One works in an ‘essential’ field and one doesn’t.
I’m stunned to learn that farmer’s wages are low because of price controls deeming food production as essential.
Is that also why teachers are paid low?
(teachers aren’t paid low)
Sorry teachers, you really aren’t. What your problem is, is you’ve got yourselves so far in debt over-credentialing yourselves that you want to demand the public pay you more despite generationally decreasing returns on what y’all claim to be doing.
I don’t know where you read that Roman doctors were forbidden by law to charge for their services, but that’s wrong. Physicians definitely charged for treatments and remedies, usually negotiating a price with the patient. They could usually get a much higher fee from wealthy patients.
So, in this theory, which I highly suspect, doctors in famously non-altruistic ancient Rome were so altruistic they just hoped someone would give them food and a place to live?
Utopian visions always end with fewer and fewer people until collapse.
Whether the mechanism is starvation, mass murder, or just no longer having children – pretending that mankind’s innate need to be compensated for work at an agreed upon wage doesn’t exist will ALWAYS end in fewer people until the society that pretends it can be done collapses.
There was a thread on Usenet newsfgroups about FJB’s commutations and someone named Mitrchell Holman brought up the argument that the death penalty is wrong because it might result in accidentally killing someone minding their own business.
Here is my response.
https://narkive.com/iu5PR9A4.22
I will accept that the death penalty has the risk of directly
killing someone unintentionally.
the thing is, the government does not refrain fromm action merely
because it might directly kill someone unintentionally. Applying this
rationale universally, government employees would not drive automobiles
while on the job (because there is a non-zero risk of causing a fatal
auto collision) nor would law enforcement ever shoot their sidearms
under any circumstances (because they might miss and end up killing
someone minding their own business). And of course, I already provided
the example of bombing defended locations during wartime.
There are two compelling reasons to support the death penalty
depsite not being able to fully eliminate the risk of unintentionally
executing someone just minding their own business. One was mentioned by
Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby.
(Link redacted)
“But in fact, murderers are never locked up for life. When was the last
time a murderer died of old age in a Massachusetts prison? I asked the
Department of Correction, and it couldn’t find one example. Willie
Horton’s 1974 sentence for an exceedingly vicious murder was,
quote-unquote, “life with no possibility of parole.” By 1986 he was free
to rape a Maryland woman and torture her fiance.
The median prison sentence served for murder in America is 6.5 years,
the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics reports. Suppose, through
superhuman political will, we managed to triple the amount of time we
kept killers behind bars. After 19 years, convicted murderers would be
getting out, and some would kill again.”- Jeff Jacoby
And then there is Ahlam Tamimi, who was sentenced to multiple life
sentences for the sbarro bombing.
(Link redacted)
And yet, she was released because her friends took someone hostage.
The clear moral choice is to continue the death penalty. No murderer
had ever died of old age in a Massachusetts prison. They do get out to
commit more crimes, including murders, even if it means their friends
taking hostages and demanding their release to ensure just that.
But you would not care about that.
Unless you are taken hostage in a plot to release murderers like
Ahlam Tamimi…
It’s been reported by multiple media outlets that Senator John Fetterman has made statements directly criticizing how the left is freaking out over Donald Trump winning the election. He’s openly stated things like “You gotta chill out.”, “You know, like the constant … freak out – it’s not helpful”, “If you’re rooting against the president, you are rooting against the nation,” and “I’m not ever going to be where I want a president to fail. So, country first.” Fetterman goes on to state things like “Weaponizing the judiciary for blatant, partisan gain diminishes the collective faith in our institutions and sows further division” and he has been outspoken against the left’s usage of the word fascist to describe Trump.
My question is; are these a false facade of politically expedient statements or do think that statements like these make Fetterman an unlikely Ethics Hero?
I also play Arthur Fielder’s Christmas Festival quite loudly throughout the Christmas season.
Here are the songs that follow that one;
Sleigh Ride by the Boston Pops
Brenda Lee’s – Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree
Andy Williams – It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Bobby Helms – Jingle Bell Rock
The Carpenters – Merry Christmas, Darling & Christmas Waltz & Home For The Holidays
Bing Crosby – White Christmas
Perry Como & The Fontaine Sisters – It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas
Gene Audrey – Here Comes Santa Clause
Johnny Mathis – Sleigh Ride
etc, etc…
Those are my annual MUST play every year songs. There are many others on my rather long Christmas playlist and I include some more modern things like Trans-Siberian Orchestra songs.
Here is a great version of Sleigh Ride that my brother recorded a couple of days ago.
My brother does a LOT of professional recording in the Dallas, TX area.
Another video…
I got an email from American Heritage magazine — “What do historians think about Jimmy Carter?” One of the essays was by Bruce Catton, who founded the magazine, and who is the Civil War historian I grew up with, and perhaps most enjoy reading.
He was writing in 1977, in an article titled “Human Rights … and Wrongs”, subtitled America has taught the world that freedom is humanity’s birthright. Why should we expect President Carter to keep quiet about it?
It gives an excellent perspective on Carter’s talk about civil rights violations around the globe, and I’d commend it to you. A couple of the high points:
Note that he speaks of the border in October 1977.
Why were historians weighing in about Carter at all after he had been in office for less than a year?
“Why were historians weighing in about Carter at all after he had been in office for less than a year?“
Same reason Hope-n-Change was nominated for a Nobel nine (9) days after he took office…bull$#!t puffery?
PWS