Character

Unethical Quote of the Week: Progressoverpeace’s “Fool’s Golden Rule”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

“There is nothing more ethical and fair than reciprocity.”

—- Conservative web pundit “progressoverpeace,” one of the approximately 300 commenters who attempted to make the ethically impossible argument that spreading the falsehood on the internet that “Harry Reid is a pederast (or pedophile)” is “ethical and fair” in opposition to my post, Funny! But Wrong: “The Harry Reid is a Pederast” Rumor.

This is, of course, a profoundly unethical distortion of the real ethical principle of reciprocity, as embodied by the Golden Rule and its many similar ethical systems from various cultures, philosophies and faiths. The Golden Rule is benign, and urges prospective and aspirational reciprocity, advising us to treat others as we would want to be treated ourselves, were we in the other individual’s circumstances. Progressoverpeace—let’s call him “Pop”—embraces a punitive form of reciprocity—I’ll dub it the Fool’s Golden Rule— that endorses retribution, and precludes generosity, kindness, forbearance, perspective, peace—and civilization.

Pop’s “reciprocity” holds that once someone has treated another human being badly, it is ethical for that person to treat him or her just as badly in the same manner, presumably on the false assumption that this will teach him better “ethics.” Of course, what it is more likely to teach him was that he was correct to mistreat that individual in the first place. Such warped reciprocity seeds a perpetual cycle of hatred and escalating feuds, because it begins a cycle that can never stop short of death, terror, or surrender. Continue reading →

A Directory of Answers For the “Instalanche” on “Funny! But Wrong: The “Harry Reid Is A Pederast” Rumor”

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

Ethics Alarms just isn’t constructed for large waves of angry commenters, as are occasionally generated when I touch on some interest group third rail. I try to respond to as many coherent comments as possible, but when too many of them arrive on the same topic, my “civilized colloquy on ethics” model breaks down, and I find myself spending too much time writing dangerously hasty responses to trolls, fanatics, web terrorists and others who have as much interest in ethics as I have in stamp collecting. I also have to individually green light every new commenter, and this alone takes up time that could be better spent researching and writing new posts.

Legendary conservative blogger Glenn Reynolds generously linked to my recent post on the “Harry Reid is a pederast” campaign online, and that’s generally a good thing, one that most bloggers would give their right arm for,since his blog Instapundit is one of the most popular (and professional) on the web. This, in turn, triggered the so-called “Instalanche” at Ethics Alarms, which has resulted in this blog getting the equivalent of two weeks of typical traffic in 24 hours. Sadly, the vast majority of the comments following the Instalanche are examples of the kind of thinking this blog was established to combat, and as a whole, the group is a graphic example of why political discourse, and indeed the political system itself is so toxic and dysfunctional. This is no knock on Prof. Reynolds, whose blog I read most days, and who is almost always rational and fair. It is a knock on the majority of his readers (not all) who chose to leave comments here.

The comments were, in addition to being non-ethical in nature, brain-meltingly repetitious in their fallacies and themes. It’s bad enough having more comments than I can keep up with; having to read nearly identical sentiments over and over again is more than I can stand. And since it is clear that most of the commenters aren’t  bothering to read the thread, never mind the links in the posts they are railing about or the rest of the blog, this is not going to cease anytime soon. Yes, I know that most of this breed of commenter doesn’t want a response, because their comments are seldom thought through or carefully crafted, and they are shocked to have their sloppy reasoning called so. (Then they accuse me of ad hominem attacks.) Too bad. This isn’t a bulletin board or a graffiti wall.

So I’m no longer going to answer individually the vast majority of the comments on the post in question, “Funny! But Wrong: The “Harry Reid Is A Pederast” Rumor,” just as most of you will not have the time, stomach or stamina to wade through all the comments to it. What I offer for the convenience of everyone concerned, but mostly me, is this, a directory of the most common comments from the current Instalanche, and my answers to them. I will direct all future commenters on the original post here, and the odds are that they will find their reply waiting for them. Continue reading →

Massachusetts: A State Lottery Shows Its Corrupt And Irresponsible Core

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

“Hey! No fair! Smart people aren’t supposed to play the lottery!”

On one level, I love this story, for it confirms what I have been arguing for over a decade. State lotteries represent an unethical capitulation of governments to laziness, cowardice and greed, as they choose  emulate casinos to entice the poor, desperate and stupid to give away their money rather than do their duty and make hard political choices about taxes. The inherent corruption this engenders was beautifully demonstrated by the lottery scandal recently revealed in Massachusetts.

A group of science and math whizzes, many of whom had MIT credentials, formed a gambling syndicate to beat the lottery, and did, generating almost $8 million in winnings after exploiting a flaw in the lottery rules to execute a system that virtually guaranteed profit. Their domination of the lottery continued over seven years, and was known about by lottery officials, who did nothing. Why? Because the money was coming in, and they didn’t understand that they were facing a net loss. Continue reading →

Funny! But Wrong: The “Harry Reid Is A Pederast” Rumor

/ Jack Marshall / 322 Comments

Not fair. But deserved.

Various conservative-minded blogs, including some of the most eminent and well-respected, have flooded the internet with “Harry Reid is a pederast ( or pedophile)” rumors, innuendos and suggestions, like this one, from Red State:

“Harry Reid is a pedophile”

“I got that from a reliable source who made me promise not to reveal his name.  But he knows.  Honest. Now I’m sure some would expect me to back up this claim with some of those “fact” thingys or maybe a link or two.  Well, given that I’ve promise anonymity for my source, not happening.  Just Google “Harry Reid pedophile” there are 1.79 million hits. I’ve known this for some time but I was reluctant to go public with the information because I always back up my writing with facts and links.  Since I’m sworn to secrecy this time I was uncomfortable putting this story out until some seminal events occurred this week, and I figured “what’s good for the goose…” Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: Tucson Bully Adam M. Smith

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

“I’m a nice guy, by the way.”

—– Adam M. Smith, ex-CFO at Vante, a Tucson medical supplies manufacturer, in the middle of a two-and-a-half minute abusive dressing down of a Chick-fil-A drive-in employee, which he filmed himself and placed on YouTube.

No more Mr. Nice Guy.

Mr. Smith isn’t a nice guy, you see. He’s a vile bully and a jerk, who thinks it appropriate to embarrass and abuse an innocent employee of a restaurant because he happens not to agree with the politics and moral positions of the company’s owner. Whatever his cause may be (I almost wrote “beef,” which would have been inappropriate for a chicken place), there can be no excuse for his choosing as the target of his indignation a minimum wage clerk who has no control, power or influence over the situation, the issue, the controversy or anything, other than getting Smith his order, which in this case was a cup of water. He made her his captive audience for verbal abuse, ignored her objections when she said she didn’t want to be filmed, and generally took the ethical principles of fairness,respect, kindness, proportion, caring, compassion and reciprocity and tore them into little bits to throw in her face. He cannot claim some utilitarian justification , because attacking this poor young woman could logically accomplish nothing positive whatsoever. Continue reading →

The Despicable Ryan Holiday

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Sub-title: “Buy This Book—You’re An Idiot”

You know those science fiction movies where a scientist can’t get anyone to listen to him about the threat of a man-made virus getting out of control and destroying the world decides to prove his point by creating a virus that then gets out of control and destroys the world? Or the ones about the government computer geek who drives people crazy complaining that the nation’s systems are vulnerable to cyber-attack, so he creates a bug to prove his point and it sends the country back to the stone age?

Ryan Holiday is like those guys. Fortunately, he isn’t a scientist or tech whiz, just an unscrupulous writer and a liar, so his unconscionable stunts to “prove a point” don’t risk ending civilization. Ethically, however, he is no better than those fictional characters, and arguably he is worse. At least those brilliant boobs were trying to prevent a catastrophe. Holiday is just trying to sell his book.

The book is about the news media’s vulnerability to bad information, so Holiday, a 25-year-old marketing director for American Apparel, decided to prove his thesis with an “experiment.” He got himself listed as an “expert” on an online resource for reporters, and when they contacted him, he lied to them. One of the media sources that fell for his deception was the New York Times, which subsequently published this after a story using Holiday’s lies made it into the News That’s Fit to Print, when it wasn’t: Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Kelsey Grammer

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Kelsey Grammer’s reputation as an arrogant and  self-centered jerk is almost as impressive as his reputation as a talented and versatile actor. Yesterday Grammer managed to confirm the former while on a panel to discuss the recent project that had added to the latter, his Emmy-winning turn as a dying Chicago mayor on the Starz cable series “Boss.”

Grammer was appearing before TV critics and writers at the Summer TV Press Tour 2012, when his cell phone started ringing. Of course, unless he was awaiting imminent notice of an available kidney, it was inexcusable for Grammer to leave his phone on while he was appearing before an audience. Never mind that: the former “Frazier” accessed his inner “Sideshow Bob” and took the call. It was Grammer’s wife. Continue reading →

Closing the Memory Hole: Remembering the Dance Marathons

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

“Marathon ’33”

“Man lives by a lingering ember,

“And while there are beautiful things to remember,

The ugly things, one should forget.”

—-“Things to Remember” from the musical “The Roar of the Greasepaint, The Smell of the Crowd”  by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse

Jews sometimes are criticized for evoking the Holocaust at every opportunity. Their explanation is that we “must never forget,” an argument I once thought was bizarre. “Who could forget the Holocaust?,” I wondered. Something so unique and horrible would be impossible to forget; it would be like pretending the Grand Canyon didn’t exist.

That was ignorant of me. Nations, religions, cultures and groups of all kinds are stunningly effective at forgetting historical episodes which challenge their self-image and most cherished illusions. Jews are rightfully and wisely vigilant at reminding the world of what was done to them as the rest of humanity passively looked on in the 30’s and 40’s, because their extermination at the hands of the Nazis is a prime candidate for history’s memory hole, where good and sensitive people, along with their nations, communities and cultures, dispose of memories too ugly to remember. Once the memories are gone, they no longer haunt us, it is true. They no longer teach or warn us, either. The ethical course of action is to remember our worst moments, and evoke them as often as possible. We can only be our best by admitting our worst. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

“He didn’t pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain. But obviously he can’t release those tax returns. How would it look?… You guys have said his wealth is $250 million. Not a chance in the world. It’s a lot more than that. I mean, you do pretty well if you don’t pay taxes for 10 years when you’re making millions and millions of dollars.”

—-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in an interview with The Huffington Post. Reid’s source for the accusation that Romney “did not pay taxes for ten years” is a an individual he refuses to name, and thus one whose allegations cannot be checked or substantiated.

Sen. Harry Reid

In the dirty, slimy world of politics, you can’t get much dirtier or slimier than Senator Reid. Richard Nixon would be proud of him;  Joe McCarthy would applaud, Joseph Goebbels too, and every low-life, gutter-dwelling lie-monger who has used innuendo and rumor to smear candidates, opponents and strategically-chosen victims in between.

Reid is a leader of the Democratic Party, and the Party is accountable for his words. Fair Americans have been justifiably disgusted with the likes of Donald Trump, who has suggested that President Obama’s reluctance to release his scholastic records, and before that his birth certificate, were proof of something nefarious. Guilty until proven innocent—this is the secret ingredient of Big Lie politics, and that is what Reid, who really is beneath contempt here, is practicing. Reid makes Trump look fair and Newt Gingrich look moderate by comparison, and any Democrat, whatever they think of Mitt Romney, that doesn’t have the integrity to condemn this kind of abuse should be have himself fumigated. Continue reading →

Signature Significance, Jonah Lehrer, and That Sinking Feeling

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Yes, uh, a little TOO MUCH creativity there, Jonah…

At the New Yorker, star writer Jonah Lehrer has resigned after it was shown that he fabricated quotes from Bob Dylan for his well-reviewed book “Imagine: How Creativity Works.”

This was the final shoe dropping that began with one untied shoelace, the discovery in June that Lehrer had plagiarized from himself, lifting a section of a piece published earlier in one publication to include in a piece written for The New Yorker. This is a minor ethical incursion—-Lehrer had represented the second essay as original, so using prior published material was dishonest even if he was the author—but it launched his employers on a mission of scrutiny, investigating to see if the one transgression was part of a trend.

When it comes to professional ethics, you see, it often is. The principle of signature significance holds that in some pursuits just one episode can be enough to make certain conclusions. A writer of true integrity never borrows from his own published work without flagging the fact. Doing so even once indicates shaky integrity, and a willingness to cut corners. It may well indicate a proclivity to cheat in more egregious ways. Continue reading →