Character

Unethical Quote of the Week: Thomas Jefferson

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

 “Brought from their infancy without necessity for thought or forecast, [blacks] are by their habits rendered as incapable as children of taking care of themselves, and are extinguished promptly wherever industry is necessary for raising young. In the mean time they are pests in society by their idleness, and the depredations to which this leads them.”

—-Thomas Jefferson, quoted in a new book, “Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves,” by historian Henry Weincek. Jefferson wrote this in 1819, 43 years after the Declaration of Independence, in response to a request for support from a family friend who was taking his own slaves to freedom. Jefferson refused, and this was part of his response.

Great writer. Great philosopher. Bad man.

I have been working on a post on the topic of Presidential character, a lifetime study for me, as a rebuttal of a post on the Daily Caller titled, “Why Good Men Don’t Become President?” Good men do become President; in fact, almost all of the men who have become President were or are good men, Barack Obama included. Leaders, however, are a peculiar breed of good men, since leadership itself requires a different priority of virtues than other roles. Those who do not understand or appreciate leadership, and I believe that the author of that article does not, often conclude that leaders are necessarily bad.

Thomas Jefferson, I submit, was one of the few bad men who did become President. Continue reading →

A Choice, A Doubt, and One of a Million Moments

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

In the end, a life is made up of more than a million choices, large and small, that we make according to a witch’s brew of factors. There is timing, and how we are feeling at the moment, and there are random factors, our emotions, past experiences and needs, and, just maybe, some ethical analysis involving altruism, the Golden Rule, a careful balancing of outcomes, and solid principles of right and wrong. We hope to make good choices, and yet even a good one can have disastrous effects, leaving us illogically hesitant to make the same choice the next time. We hope, if we strive to be ethical and learn from our mistakes while not learning the wrong lessons—cowardice, fecklessness, self-obsession, fear of responsibility and risk, procrastination—from our failures, to reach the finish line having made existence better for more of our fellow human beings than we made miserable, and having been a net benefit to civilization while we were part of it.

Yet there really are a million or more such choices,  many of them present themselves without any warning, and the results of the choice are often unknown. The only one keeping score is you, most of the time. I was presented with such a choice tonight, and I fear that I chose badly. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: Vice-President Joe Biden

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

“With regard to the assault on the Catholic Church, let me make it absolutely clear. No religious institution, Catholic or otherwise, including Catholic Social Services, Georgetown Hospital, Mercy — any hospital — none has to either refer contraception. None has to pay for contraception. None has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact. That is a fact.”

—– Vice-President Joe Biden, in a rare moment during Wednesday’s Vice Presidential candidates debate when he wasn’t interrupting, mocking, shouting, or otherwise setting new lows for national debate civility and decorum, on the topic of the Administration’s contraception and abortion mandate. The problem: it isn’t a fact. In fact, it isn’t true at all.

I was not going to touch on the substance of any of the debates, because I do not want to play the “fact check” game that has already warped the campaign and given partisan journalists the opportunity to misrepresent any the statement of any politician—usually a Republican—whom they disagree with as “a lie.” Perhaps inspired by this trend, the Obama-Biden campaign’s strategy has devolved into calling Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan “liars” when 1) they may be mistaken, they may be inexact, they may be overstating, and they may be wrong, but are not lying, and 2) President Obama and Vice-President Obama, not to mention other Democrats involved in the campaign, have not set their own bars for accuracy, honesty and fairness any higher than the GOP side. But the refrain of “Liar!” has been so emphatic and repetitive that the fans of the Democratic ticket are adopting it as a rallying cry, usually without the slightest idea of whether there have been any actual lies or not. Meanwhile, the tactic demeans the electoral process and our democracy. Columnist Dan Henniger expressed my feelings on this topic well when he wrote, before Wednesday’s debate: Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Joe Biden

/ Jack Marshall / 47 Comments

We don’t have to belabor this, do we? The Vice-President’s performance in his debate with Paul Ryan was rude, uncivil, obnoxious and undignified.

Did it “lose” the debate? Nah. It appealed to the red-meat progressives who were screaming for President Obama to be more assertive in the first Presidential debate, and they were getting panicky. It made Al Gore’s eye-rolling, sighing act during his infamous first debate with George Bush in 2002 look positively restrained, so Al benefits, and it was certainly less damaging to the Democratic ticket’s prospects than Biden shouting out “I am the Lizard King!” or something else ridiculous, as is his wont. Chris Matthews, over at MSNBC, even thought Biden’s constant interruptions and rude demeanor “won” the debate, which figures, since this is exactly how Matthews has treated his guests for years. Continue reading →

The Obama Campaign’s Ungracious Character

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Poor choice of role model, Mr. President.

Consider these post-debate quotes from various key figures in the Obama campaign:

” The President did a good job explaining his positions, but give credit where credit is due. Governor Romney had a great night. He was focused and clear, and obviously connected with the audience. He’s a capable adversary, as we always knew. President Obama can and will equal and surpass his performance in the coming debates.”—David Axelrod

” Governor Romney proved himself to be a formidable debater, and the President will have to be more aggressive in countering his arguments, which he certainly has the ability and the ammunition to do.”—Stephanie Cutter

“I didn’t feel I had a poor debate, but I obviously need to have better ones. Sometimes the other guy just beats you, and you have to accept that, tip your hat, and win the next time.”—President Obama

If you haven’t seen these respectful, gracious quotes, all typical of the comments of past candidates and their staff after debate performances that were seen as falling short of their opponents’, there’s a reason. Nobody on the Democratic side, including Obama himself, nor most of the media pundits except those who would be fairly classified as conservative, have been willing to give Mitt Romney any recognition for a well planned, well-executed, professional and compelling debate. “What happened?” Diane Sawyer asked the President. “I had a bad night,” he replied. Romney, you see, had nothing to do with it. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero Emeritus: Eric Lomax, 1919-2012

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Eric Lomax was a hero of forgiveness.

Eric Lomax, his book, the Bridge on the River Kwai,, and his friend, the man who tortured him.

In 1942, Eric Lomax, was a 19 year old  member of the British Royal Corps of Signals stationed in Singapore when he joined thousands of British soldiers in surrendering to the Japanese. It was 1942. He was one of those shipped to Thailand and became one of the slaves laboring to build the Burma Railway, also known as the Death Railway. The building of the railroad and the brutal treatment of the English prisoners by their Japanese captors  formed the plot of the classic 1957 David Lean film, “The Bridge on the River Kwai,”

After Lomax was discovered to have built a radio receiver from spare parts, he was mercilessly tortured and interrogated by his captors.  After his release, fantasies about murdering his main torturer, a man named Nagase Takashi, obsessed him. Lomax spent the early years of his retirement in the 1980s looking for Takashi, and eventually learned that he had become an interpreter for the Allies after the war. In 1992, he stumbled across an article profiling Nagase and noting that he was haunted by guilt over his mistreatment of one British soldier. That soldier, Lomax realized, had been him. He arranged to meet the man who tortured him, and whom he had spent the rest of his life dreaming of murdering.

Torturer and victim met in 1993, on the infamous bridge Lomax had been forced to help construct (and which was not blown up, the film ending notwithstanding). Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “’Miracle Flights’: More Air Travel Cheating”

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Frequent commenter Barry Deutsch provides some useful counterweight (as usual) to an Ethics Alarms post, this one regarding fake handicapped flyers in airports. Here is his Comment of the Day, on the recent post, “Miracle Flights”: More Air Travel Cheating”:

“Eh. I’m sure some people do cheat – but I’m also sure that some people who the article implies are cheaters, aren’t doing anything of the sort.

“I’m not usually bothered by the five-minute walk from when I get out of security to my gate in the Portland airport. But standing on the security line is much harder. First of all, it can easily take up to 20 minutes if the airport is crowded, so I’m standing for much longer. And even if it’s only five minutes, standing still (with occasional shuffling) is just much, much harder on me than walking is. My bad knee and heel, normally slight nuisances that I ignore while walking, sometimes scream with pain waiting on line. Continue reading →

Here It Is, The Ethics Exception You’ve Been Waiting For: When The Naked Teacher Principle Doesn’t Apply

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The Naked Teacher Principle: The Principle states that a secondary school teacher or administrator (or other role model for children) who allows pictures of himself or herself to be widely publicized, as on the web, showing the teacher naked or engaging in sexually provocative poses, cannot complain when he or she is dismissed by the school as a result.

_______________________________________________________________________

Ms. Webb, NYC school guidance counselor, circa 1995. Va-va-voom.

Tiffany Webb is, or was, a 37 year-old  guidance counselor in the  New York City public schools. She had excelled at her job for 12 years until photos she posed for as a 20-year-old lingerie model turned up on the internet.  When a student showed  photos of Webb that he had found online to her principal, it was recommended that she be fired. After an investigation, an Education Department committee voted 2-1 to do just that, concluding, ‘The inappropriate photos were accessible to impressionable adolescents. That behavior has a potentially adverse influence on her ability to counsel students and be regarded as a role model.”

Her firing came as she was scheduled to gain tenure. Naturally, she’s suing.  I hope she wins, because while the committee’s rhetoric is in line with the sound reasoning behind the Naked Teacher Principle, the facts dictate that this is the point—and all rules have such a point point— where “ethics incompleteness” occurs and the rule, however valid it is the vast majority of the time, accomplishes unethical rather than ethical ends.

The Naked Teacher Principle doesn’t apply to Tiffany Webb because:

1. She is not naked, though the photos doesn’t leave much to the imagination, either. OK, forget #1. Continue reading →

“Miracle Flights”: More Air Travel Cheating

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

I wondered about this.

“If you don’t tell anyone that I won a Silver in the Olympic hurdles this summer, there’s 50 bucks in it for you… Deal?”

When I was recovering from a hip replacement, and even before, when it was getting painful to walk, I requested wheel chairs from the airlines when I had to fly. It was wonderful. A nice attendant whisked me in front of the lines and through security, and I was also the first person on the plane. Nobody ever asked me what was the nature of my disability; they just trusted that I wouldn’t engage in such a dastardly act as to fake being hobbled—you know, just like nobody would pretend to be someone else to steal a vote. Never happens—why do anything to  check? The system—I mean the wheelchair system, now, not the voting honor system—seemed ripe for abuse to me, but before today, I had never heard of anyone exploiting it.

According to a recent report, a lot of people do. Continue reading →

Lori Stilley And The Deception That Makes Society Cruel

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Lookin’ pretty healthy there, Lori!

If you want to identify the opposite of an ethical human being, you need look no farther than New Jersey resident Lori E. Stilley.

Stilley, who is 40, told her family and friends in February of 2011 that she had been diagnosed with Stage III bladder cancer, and that things were looking grim. She had  undergone radiation and chemotherapy treatment, she said, and posted about her dire condition on Facebook and a personal website. Later, she said the cancer had progressed to Stage IV. Alas, she lacked health insurance health insurance, too. So her concerned friends and relatives raised money for Stilley, including a T-shirt sale, a fundraising banquet, a third fundraising event and a raffle. There was a meal calendar organized, so friends could bring the probably mortally ill woman food every day. Continue reading →