The day was already crashing and burning, as my monthly travails paying my power bill (Dominion Energy’s website is impossible) had lasted even longer than usual and I was finally talking to a human being when the electricity went out, killing my phone, the computer, everything. I ran outside and found two yellow helmeted guys messing around with wires, and asked, “Did you just shut off my power?” Yes, they said. “Gee, did it occur to you to let me know in advance?” I asked. “Oh, sorry, we didn’t know you were home,” was the lame response. There were and are literally six cars and a motorcycle parked outside my house.
After being told that in addition to having my last hour of work wiped out there would be a 45 minute wait before power was restored, I decided to deposit a check I had received from a client. I was about to pull into an empty space in the parking lot in front of my bank when aI had to slam on the brakes: a car was driving speedily into the lot using the EXIT ONLY ramp and looked like she was heading for the same space I was. But no, she parked in a non-space instead, a striped area reserved for bank and other official vehicles. The driver, a woman got out of the car and rushed ahead of me to use the automated teller.
“Are you in the habit of entering places using the exits?” I asked her. “I don’t appreciate your tone,” she said. When did this become the default response when someone is caught in obvious misconduct? “I don’t appreciated having to avoid vehicles coming into a parking lot the wrong way,” I said.
“Well, I’m not familiar with the area and got confused,” she said, unconvincingly. (Ethics Tip: This was the place for a sincere “I’m sorry.”) “What was so confusing about the “Exit Only” sign?” I asked. “I didn’t see it,” she answered, not even glancing where I was pointing.
Suuure.
Then a woman pulling out of a space stopped and admonished me. “You should be kind,” she said. “What does kindness have to do with anything?,” was my exasperated reply. “She was ignoring signs and breaking the rules. It’s not “kind” to ignore that. It’s irresponsible.”
Here was her response: “You must be a Trumper!“
1. What the hell is that supposed to mean?
2. The cheating driver was black: am I supposed to engage in social reparations when black neighbors act unethically?
3. Hey, if supporting the President means that one is not in favor of letting scofflaws and cheaters get away with their conduct while they lie about, that would be wonderful. I don’t think that is clear at all, however.
I was so stunned by her non-sequitur that all I could think to say to the interloper was, “You’re an asshole!” because my “Bite me!” button was frozen for some reason.
But she is an asshole. Just like the woman who drove in through the exit.
Ethics Alarms 
[Remember now, when you reply to banned commenters and I take dow their illicit and unauthorized comment, your comment, no matter how enlightening, goes too. Now again, I am keeping teh shell of BB’s comment up so WallPhone’s spot-on reply won’t be lost to the sands of time. JM]
Calling attention to another’s hazardous conduct is not an authority complex. It’s 100% ethical and provides benefit to all involved. The interloper thus is anti-ethical, and contributed to a more hazardous state for all.
If the other driver was unfamiliar, than that requires more caution, not less. It’s a unethical rationalization.
I can just as easily postulate, as you just had, the ‘Trumper’ term was used because Jack had not shown to the member of the minority class the additional deference for rule breaking the majority should extend, in order to be an ‘ally’ or other such racist woke nonsense.
I won’t ascribe that motivation to that person, because I can’t read that person’s mind or motives. You appear to believe you possess that ability. News flash: you’re mistaken in ability and accuracy.
[One of the things I love about banning commenters who won’t abide by the comment rules is that they almost always prove that I was right to kick them out by continuing to flout the rules and sneaking back whenever I’m not looking. Most, with the epic exception of A Friend, give up after a few weeks or so. Naturally Brandy doesn’t get the importance of reminding social scofflaws like the jerk(s) I encountered in this episode that their conduct is intolerable–it’s either a personal flaw or a political ideology, but frankly, I don’t care. These people make the world a crummier place, and that’s why its important to enforce ethical norms whenever one is in a position to do it. JAM]
Man, you’re brave. Or I’m just a doormat. I would probably have fumed for the rest of the day/evening without ever confronting the two assholes.
(What did you use to call me — “Sap of the Year”?)
Although, nowadays, since I’m old and I’ve been walking with a cane, I’m mightily tempted to “lather them with me shillelagh” when people pull this kind of stuff.
Encouraging people to adopt the “duty to object” and “the duty to fix the problem” is a sub-mission of EA. It was a major crusade of my father’s. I think the first time he showed me the way was with line-jumpers, or perhaps it was people who talked during movies.
Thank you for mentioning “Duty to Object.”
I looked for it in your glossary of special terms and could not find it.
A search in the search window using “duty to object” only came up with one post, from a decade ago, on “civil forfeiture.”
It’s a useful concept–duty to object. I hope that you say more about it in the future.
charles w abbott
rochester NY
P.S.: Josh’s comment below at 5:23 PM is relevant as well. I wonder if the Left really thinks it’s bad to object to inappropriate behavior. It’s a useful hypothesis. Perhaps the Left only thinks it’s appropriate to object to bad behavior from those it doesn’t feel sorry for, those from the “non-protected classes.”
In the book _Suicide of the West_ by James Burnham, written some decades ago, Burnham suggested that liberalism left those in the West “morally disarmed” against those it felt sorry for. It’s a challenging book and I’m paraphrasing as best I can. He said it better.
Rather than provide a poorly thought out tirade with examples, I’ll end here.
Ack! This thing won’t let me leave a comment! Am I banished to the deepest dungeons of hell?
Nope, it doesn’t like my comment. Can you see my comment, Jack, and add it? If I type those words one more time I’m going to bash my keyboard with my fists.
proe,
It is quite likely that some of your attempts just went into spam/moderation, where Jack can (and frequently does) rescue legitimate comments. I know Jack has salvaged scores of mine that did not immediately post. Other commenters run into this, too. Mermaidmary99 especially…
Do you have a WordPress account? I still am affiliated with a WordPress site from many years ago, and WordPress always makes me sign in for EVERY comment, and half the time my comments go to spam. But I have found that I can go into WordPress, navigate to Ethics Alarms within that framework (instead of directly accessing ethicsalarms.com) and comment there. Those are almost always successful.
That’s my experience as well, from 8-10 months ago. I’m redirected and have to log into Word Press for every comment, and they are always posted more than once. I used to be able to comment directly on this page.
I won’t complain, my sole knock on WP (in recent history) is it won’t let me comment with my real name; I gave up trying.
PWS
Yeah, it was spammed, for no reason that I can see. Rescued, as you can see. I’m sorry: it’s frustrating. At least WP didn’t duplicate your post 55 times like it did to someone else recently—and I had to delete all of them.
I’m thinking it was spammed because WP thought shillelagh was a foreign vulgarity.
This has been my experience anytime I point out something to someone. I almost always get accused of being judgmental (even if my tone is nice). So, I generally just don’t.
If the left literally thinks that confronting someone about anything is automatically wrong, then that explains a lot about why they believe what they do. I’ve noticed this trend is a lot more widespread than I realized.
People act like you are judging their soul rather than just focusing on a specific instance.
Good point, Josh. That is a thing, and here’s a very specific anecdote that gives credence to that…
I was having a debate with someone two weeks ago that began to devolve into an argument. The other individual said something rather sharp, at which point I responded with, “That was a rather mean-spirited comment to make.” The other person said, “Oh, so now I’m mean-spirited?!?”
Sigh…no, you’re not mean-spirited. You simply said a mean-spirited thing.
That’s what Josh is pointing out, and people do it all the time. They turn a “you said something…” into “you ARE something…”
Big difference.
I went shopping in late December, at a time when our local supermarket is pretty overcrowded, and parking is hard to come by. On my fourth circuit of the lot, I saw someone head towards a car in front of me. I pulled over and put my hazards on, a clear indication I was waiting for the space. For one reason or another , they took time to get settled in. I was sitting there for 2-3 minutes, visibly waiting. They pulled out, and a woman driving up behind me swerved around me and headed for the space. I couldn’t believe it. I lightly honked, repeatedly. She ignored me and parked. I envisioned another 3-4 slow trips around the lot when a gentleman behind me waved and said, ‘I’m leaving!’. I took his space, then went after Little Miss Entitled . I caught up to her as she was entering the store.
’Excuse me, you surely saw me waiting back there, I had my hazards on, and you drove around me to take that space.’
’Oh, I didn’t see your hazards on’. ’Well, I honked at you several times and you still took the space. That’s not right.’
‘I didn’t hear you honk’.
By this time, I’d had it. Her attitude was bad on top of it all. ‘YOU CAN’T SEE AND CAN’T HEAR, SHOULD YOU HAVE A LICENSE?’
I doubt she changed her ways, but I hope she felt even a little embarrassed about her behavior.
This one went up three times with no help from me. Sometimes WP can’t make up its “mind.”
I had such an event this morning, and spent a good while thinking on it in light of reading this post the other day.
I was on my morning jog, through a local (but pretty heavily forested and so usually pretty lonely) paved park trail. There are signs everywhere about keeping dogs on leashes because there are tight turns and it’s also a bike path, so unleashed dogs are a liability. Sidebar: I’m beginning to hate dog owners who don’t leash their dogs in non-designated areas–I’ve been very aggressively approached by a number of large dogs while on runs in the last few years.
This woman, probably in her 60s or 70s, never leashes her dog. I see them out probably 3 times a week. Never felt like this was a duty to confront, because her dog is well behaved, but things changed today. I was coming up behind her and right as I was about to pass her, she threw her little blue dog poop bag into the bushes.
I gave her a dirty look but as I ran off, but I really wish I’d done more. I wish I’d turned around and picked up the bag and run off with it, making it clear that she was leaving a mess for someone else to clean up. I still feel like that kind of shame is more likely to change behavior than berating her. But what I did was essentially nothing, and it’s been eating at me all morning.