Character

Unethical Essay Of The Month: “Richard Sherman And The Plight Of The Conquering Negro” By Greg Sherman

/ Jack Marshall / 63 Comments

In case you missed it, being one of the Americans who has decided not to subsidize young men permanently crippling their brains to slake our blood-lust, the NFC Championship game yielded an instant classic moment.  Star Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman first mocked San Francisco wide receiver Michael Crabtree, whom he had just bested, then set a new high for post-game jerkdom when he screamed into the camera during a post-game interview,

“I’m the best corner in the game! When you try me with a sorry receiver like Crabtree, that’s the result you gonna get. Don’t you ever talk about me. […] Don’t you open your mouth about the best or I’m gonna shut it for you real quick.”

I understand that the player was excited and jacked-up over his play and his team’s victory, and I assumed that once he calmed down, he would regret bombarding poor Erin Andrews with a macho rant when she asked a straightforward question. Nonetheless, when you act like that on national television, you are going to get criticized no matter who you are or what the justification. (Sherman apologized later.) Ah, but if you are in the white guilt and race-baiting business, even such an open-and-shut case as this becomes fodder for dark pronouncements about America’s racist culture. And so it was that over at the sports site Deadspin, Greg Howard announced that Sherman’s foolishness wasn’t being mocked far and wide because it was rude, arrogant, uncalled for and certifiably strange, but because he is black.

Wrote Howard, in part: Continue reading →

A Titanic Fraud Sinks At Last

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

loraine titanic

Frauds, fakes, hoaxers, swindlers, con artists and scamsters occupy a dark corner of humanity’s family tree. They steal from the innocent, undermine and discourage legitimate charity, make well-intentioned public policy suspect and inefficient, distort history and human knowledge, and cause the the public to be more callous and cynical. These venal liars not only are unethical, but they make ethics themselves appear naive and foolish. This week, a scam of long-standing that began with a mysterious woman who claimed to be a grown infant believed to have died on the Titanic was finally, through DNA evidence and the obsessive work of Titanic history buffs, proven to be what it was…a lie. Continue reading →

Ethics Tales Of Three Governors, As Hope Slowly Dwindles

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

McAuliffe-Christie-Cuomo

The U.S.’s recent experiment with a Senator-President has been disheartening—persuasive words unhinged to action and actual principles. There was a remarkable example of this in the President’s NSA speech, in fact, in a quote that would have been the Ethics Quote of the Month had it not been so cynical coming from him. The President said…

“Given the unique power of the state, it is not enough for leaders to say: Trust us, we won’t abuse the data we collect. For history has too many examples when that trust has been breached. Our system of government is built on the premise that our liberty cannot depend on the good intentions of those in power; it depends on the law to constrain those in power.”

Wonderful! If only this had been uttered by a leader with credibility and integrity, rather than one who has shrugged off, firing no one, interference with the federal election process by the IRS, illegal spying by the NSA, and the intentional facilitation of illegal firearms coming into the murderous hands of drug cartels by his Justice Department, after bombing Libya illegally in defiance of law, selectively enforcing immigration laws, using drones to kill American citizens abroad without due process, making recess appointments when the Senate wasn’t in recess, and more recently, unconstitutionally amending the ACA on his own after it was signed into law.

This was all foretold, however. Community organizers and senators make speeches and inspire people, but unfortunately seldom have a clue how to actually govern unless, as Obama himself has wistfully noted, they have absolute power. This is why, in theory, at least, state governors, who at least have experience governing, now seem like a better recruitment field for the next occupant of the Oval Office. It sounds good in the abstract, but the recent news from the state houses  is like ice water in the face—-

Christie And Obama: Is It Me? I Keep Expecting Partisans And the News Media To Have Integrity And Honesty, And I Keep Getting Disappointed…

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments
Nah!

Nah!

The news media feeding frenzy over Chris Christie’s traffic jam scandal continues, with the news that a special prosecutor is being handed the investigation being treated with solemn nods and predictions of sinister revelations to come. This is all fine and good: the possibility that any elected government leader would intentionally cause pain for the citizens it is pledged to serve is too offensive to the concept of duty to be allowed to linger in doubt. When a New Jersey Democratic legislator opined that the governor should face impeachment if it is shown that he ordered the despicable traffic sabotage, I heartily agreed, and I count myself as a Christie admirer. The poll results so far regarding this incident, especially in New Jersey, are troubling: by Ann Athouse’s calculations, 7% of those polled believed that Christie was behind the outrage and lied about it, and don’t mind a bit. Where are the ethical standards of such individuals? What’s wrong with those people?

Whatever it is, it is apparently the same thing that is wrong with Democrats, progressives, African-Americans and the news media, who don’t seem bothered at all that equally insidious, or worse, governmental abuses have been, may have been or are being engineered by President Obama and/or his lackeys, and there appears to be no accountability for it, or even adequate bipartisan criticism. How can this be? What am I missing? Continue reading →

The Fifth Annual Ethics Alarms Awards: The Worst of Ethics 2013 (Part Three)

/ Jack Marshall / 37 Comments

Jill-Greenberg

Unethical Artist Of The Year

Photographer Jill Greenberg, whose art requires parents to make their children cry. Runner-up: Peeping Tom photographer/artist Arne Svenson

Kaitlyn Hunt

False Allegation Of Anti-Gay Bigotry Of The Year

Kaitlyn Hunt’s parents, who spun a false tale of anti-gay prejudice to portray their sexual predator daughter as a victim after she was accused of statutory rape by the parents of her under-age target. Hunt’s parents even managed to suck the ACLU into their web and the liberal-leaning press portrayed her as a martyr to anti-gay bias. But Hunt’s lies ultimately caused her cover-story to unravel.

 Unethical Hoax Of The Year

Oberlin students Dylan Bleier and Matt Alden, aided and abetted by  Oberlin College and its president, Marvin Krislov. The two students, self-proclaimed progressives, posted a series of racist and anti-Semitic posters, graffiti and anonymous emails as “an experiment.” Krislov and Oberlin, after cancelling classes and engaging in campus-wide navel-gazing, continued to allow the media and the public believe that this was the work of racists on campus well after it had learned who the real miscreants were.  Runner-up: The horrible Meg Lanker-Simons, former University of Wyoming student (now admitted to law school—I don’t want to talk about it) who threatened herself with rape and used the bogus threat to show that her campus was violent and sexist.

Most Unethical Use of Social Media Continue reading →

Unethical Website Of The Month: Ranker

/ Jack Marshall / 54 Comments
"One of these things is not like the others..."

“One of these things is not like the others…”

Lists, especially stupid celebrity lists (Worst plastic surgery…Most overpaid…Actors with famous siblings…Actresses with high IQs) are a staple of the internet, and there are sites like Cracked (which does them well), Buzzfeed (which occasionally does) and Bleacher Report (which is sloppy unless it is doing lists of hot women, in which case it is just undiscriminating) that often appear to do little else. That’s fine; everything on the web doesn’t have to be edifying, profound or useful. Still, there are some basic rules of competence and responsibility even in list-making on the web. One is that as with any conduct involving the conveyance of information, do your homework and don’t mislead readers or  create misconceptions.

Another is that when you are dealing with individuals to whom you owe your nation’s very existence and who are as superior to you as a human being as you are to an anteater, show some damn respect.

Ranker, a second tier list site apparently operated by junior high school drop-outs (but whose lists are “recommended” by more respectable and heavily trafficked sites like Mediaite and The Daily Beast) failed these two essential principles with their offensive list, “33 Celebrities Who Have Killed People,” introduced with this:

“…Many celebrities were involved in tragic accidents that resulted in deaths, while others committed cold-blooded murder. Some celebs have served time in prison stemming from convictions, and others have gotten away with murder; sure, maybe they were wrongly accused, or maybe they just had great lawyers. Several famous people were involved in deadly car accidents. Former First Lady Laura Bush missed a stop sign and slammed her car into another vehicle, accidentally killing her friend who was driving the other car. She was in high school at the time of the accident. Other celebs who killed people in car accidents include Keith Moon, Ted Kennedy, and Rebecca Gayheart. What do you think about all the celebrities who have killed someone?” Continue reading →

Signature Significance: The Sick Little Girl’s Stolen Puppy

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

pug-puppy

If you ever want to explain the concept of signature significance in ethics—how one act can be sufficient evidence to make a fair and valid judgment about someone’s character—to a friend or colleague, this story should do the trick.

In California, a kind woman named Shawna Hamon heard about a 7-year-old girl with leukemia whose Christmas wish was for Santa to bring her a pug puppy. So Hamon bought a pug puppy, and gave it to a friend who promised to deliver the little dog to the girl in Sacramento in time for the holidays.

The puppy never arrived, however.  The friend decided to keep it for herself. Hamon sent an animal delivery service and an attorney to the woman’s Los Angeles home, but the woman refused to give the dog back. Then Hamon  filed a theft complaint and police got a search warrant to search the home, but found no pug puppy. After searching some other nearby homes, they eventually found the little dog at a neighbor’s  house, where the pug-napper had hidden it.

Hamon now has the dog back, and learned her lesson. She will deliver it herself this time, a bit late, to the sick little girl. The child is currently receiving experimental treatment for leukemia in Philadelphia.

Now, what are the chances that the woman who took the dog, a desperately sick child’s Christmas gift, for herself, and foiled the compassionate act of a friend in the process, was just having a bad day, just made one mistake, really is a fine, upstanding, trustworthy individual and can’t be judged conclusively as an unethical cur (no offense, puppy…) based on this one incident, because a single episode has no statistical and predictive significance?

None.

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Pointer: Fark

Facts and graphic: NBC

I Don’t Care For This Ethics Lesson, Professor…

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

 

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it does....

You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it does….

Police reports say that Robby Burleigh, 42, and his pregnant fiancée—she’s 20— got in an argument last week over a text message he didn’t like and the fact that he doesn’t want her to have their baby. According to the fiancée, Burleigh grabbed her, threw her to the floor, pinned her down and broke her phone so, she claims, she couldn’t call for help. Then, she says, he  dragged her across the floor to a safe where he keeps his gun, and said, chillingly, “You’re going to commit suicide today.”

Oh! I forgot the best part!

Burleigh teaches philosophy of religion, biomedical ethics, introduction to ethics and introduction to logic at Baton Rouge Community College, and his fiancée is a student of his. Clever ethics lesson, Professor! Continue reading →

New Year, New Rationalizations! Meet #38-40: “The Pioneer’s Lament,” “The Desperation Dodge,” And “The Evasive Tautology”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

rationalizations 38-40

Let’s begin the new year with some additions to The Rationalizations List, shall we? Remember, any time you detect thoughts that echo these (or any of their 37 companions on the current Ethics Alarms Rationalizations List) you are either lying to yourself to justify unethical conduct, or adapting unethical reasoning habits that will lead you astray sooner or later.

38. The Pioneer’s Lament, or “Why should I be the first?”  Continue reading →

KABOOM! The Hypocrisy of Robert Gates

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

exploding_head2My head, already weakened by the discussion of “Duty,” Robert Gates’s tell-all memoir, finally detonated when I read the following passage:

“I was put off by the way the President closed the meeting. To his very closest advisers, he said, “For the record, and for those of you writing your memoirs, I am not making any decisions about Israel or Iran. Joe, you be my witness.” I was offended by his suspicion that any of us would ever write about such sensitive matters.”

Yes, Gates actually wrote that he was offended that the President would have so little trust and respect in his closest advisors that he believed some of them would betray that trust by including details of confidential meetings in their memoirs, as Gates now betrays the President’s trust by including details of that very same confidential meetings in his memoirs.

How could he write this? Did he really not perceive the obvious hypocrisy? The irony? Is he admitting that he had an unjustifiably high opinion of his own professionalism that he now is recanting? Did he think that statement by Obama gave him permission to reveal such confidences while the President was still wrestling with some of the same matters they involved? Where was the editor who is supposed to keep an author from undermining his own credibility by making blatantly hypocritical statements?

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Pointer: Althouse

Source: Slate