Citizenship

November 22, 1963—The Dawn of American Distrust

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

In November of 1963, the American public’s trust in its government stood at over 75%. The previous President had been a revered general who guided the Allied forces to victory over Japan and Germany. We were united against a sinister, common enemy, world Communism, led by a shoe-banging dictator who promised to bury us. The new President was a young, glamorous and inspiring man of wit and vision, whose signature policy initiatives embraced American exceptionalism and virtue—the Peace Corps, space exploration. Even in a city with more JFK foes than fans, the President and his wife drove through the streets of Dallas in an open limousine. And on a bright and beautiful fall day, two rifle shots blew John F. Kennedy’s brains out.

Today, 48 years later, public trust in the government is below 15%, an all-time low. Protesters are in dozens of American cities, challenging the foundations of American progress and success. Large numbers of the public believe that the U.S. Supreme Court assisted in a successful plot to steal a presidential election, and that a U.S. President planned the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001; that the CIA invented AIDS to kill African-Americans; that Barack Obama’s presidency is illegal; and, of course, that there was a massive government cover-up of a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy, a conspiracy that might well have involved his successor, Lyndon Johnson.

It is the lack of trust, more than any single factor, that feeds the ruinous hate and partisanship that has made American government impotent at the worst possible time, with crises intentional, domestic and spiritual surrounding us. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces: Homestead-Miami Speedway NASCAR Fans

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

"Why, welcome, Mrs. Obama, and thank you for making time in your busy schedule to grace our community's event!"

NASCAR fans at Homestead-Miami Speedway yesterday booed first lady Michelle Obama when she was introduced as one of the grand marshals for the race. This isn’t a tough call: that was mean-spirited and rude.

I’ve seen elected officials booed at sporting events, and sometimes it comes off as funny. I remember Vice-President Hubert Humphrey being booed at a Red Sox game, because the fans knew he was there to root for the Minnesota Twins, then playing the Sox for the pennant on the next-to-last day of the 1967 season. Hubert laughed it off. Other examples of booing officials have not been so benign, as when President Herbert Hoover was jeered at a Washington Senators game. Booing a politician, however, is always part demonstration and part entertainment; I wouldn’t do it, but it’s political speech. with a long, long tradition behind it.

Michelle Obama, however, isn’t a politician or elected official. Booing a family member to show disapproval of a politician who isn’t present is not just rude, it’s unfair and cowardly. Mrs. Obama came to the event as a  guest, and should have been treated as one. She also deserves a modicum of respect as part of the First Family. Sure, it was a political appearance, and I’m certain there are other things the First Lady would rather spend her time doing, like, say, throwing playing cards into a hat. Nevertheless, she has done nothing to justify public jeering.

A side note: many of the news accounts stated that the crowd booed Mrs. Obama and Jill Biden, the wife of  Vice President Biden, who was introduced at the same time. Not one American in 10,000 could pick Jill Biden out of a line-up; that’s misleading reporting, either to minimize the magnitude of the insult to Mrs. Obama, or because the reporters really are that dumb. Take your pick.

The Selfish, the Irresponsible and the Cowardly, Pushing the US to Fiscal Disaster

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Greek food, America! Better get used to it, becuase we'll have to swallow what the Greeks are swallowing we can't find some leaders with courage.

Failure is now all but ensured by the so-called Super Committee, a gimmick designed by our leadership-averse President and his pathetically inept legislative counterparts in Congress (both parties, now) to provide themselves with bi-partisan political cover when they again ducked their obligation to solve the nation’s fiscal mess. For those of you who, like me, have wondered how Greece and Italy could reach their current miserable status when the fiscal disaster now facing them was obvious years ago, the answer is plain. They tolerated a fatal combination of selfish interest groups, pampered and lazy voters, and elected leaders who distorted, dithered and ducked their duties, until it was too late. And that is exactly what happening here.

There is no need to waste invective on the committee itself, which is beneath contempt. What they have come to was predictable, and I, along with many others, predicted it. But the predictions still did not have to come true, if, for example, these hostages to toxic ideologies really cared about the country as much as keeping the power to ruin it, or if President Obama hadn’t calculated that his best chances of re-election would be to let the committee founder with him being able to claim no role in its betrayal. rather than to do his job—leading–and try to make sure it succeeded at the risk of failing himself…again.

Betrayal is the word that I use, and that is what it is. Continue reading →

Comments of the Day: “Incompetent Elected Official of the Week” : Rhode Island legislator Lisa Baldelli-Hunt”

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Several powerful and moving responses were posted in response to yesterday’s “Incompetent Elected Official of the Week” article about  Rhode Island legislator Lisa Baldelli-Hunt’s crusade to make it impossible for registered sex offenders to live in her state.  I was unable to choose between the three that follow, one by the mother of a registered sex offender, another by Sherika, who includes a letter written on behalf of the families of registered sex offenders, and the third by Shelly Stow, who offers a letter she wrote to the legislator (and that was bounced back to her). I find myself wondering if Baldelli-Hunt has spoken to or listened to any residents of her district with stories and opinions like theirs, whether she has considered these perspectives, or, as her own comments suggest,  just doesn’t care about fairness and collateral damage when it involves the people she regards as “the worst of the worst.”

Here are the Comments of the Day on Incompetent Elected Official of the Week: Rhode Island State Rep. Lisa Baldelli-Hunt: Continue reading →

Incompetent Elected Official of the Week: Rhode Island State Rep. Lisa Baldelli-Hunt

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Funny, she doesn't LOOK vicious...

The Penn State scandal will have one good effect: it will embolden victims of sexual  molestation to confront those who harmed them. Unfortunately, it will also embolden political grand-standers  to propose draconian and unconstitutional measures that will encourage fear, bigotry, hate and persecution.  Rhode Island’s Lisa Baldelli-Hunt, D-Woonsocket, is ready for her close-up.

Baldelli-Hunt proposed a law this year that would allow local police to place signs on public sidewalks or streets in front of the homes of sex offenders, designating them as threats. This shows a nice 17th Century strain, placing her in the ranks of town elders of the past that encouraged various forms of branding former offenders to ensure their perpetual mistreatment.  To give her credit, though, she also can claim international inspiration from the past, and may want to consider requiring registered sex offenders to wear, say, brightly colored star-shaped badges.

The Anti-Golden Rule logic of such a proposal is stunning: how would you like a sign proclaiming the worst thing you ever did in your life in front of your home? How would Baldelli-Hunt like a sign in front of her house that says, “Outspoken endorser of persecution and hate”?

An elected official who has no concept of ethics is not only unqualified for office and incompetent, but dangerous, because there are always a lot of ethically-challenged people to lead. Baldelli-Hunt is squarely in the “the ends justify the means” camp with every brutal dictator, vigilante killer, and mad scientist fictional and real, from Dr. Frankenstein to Josef Mengele. “I have some concerns regarding sex offenders because, quite frankly, they don’t walk around with signs telling people they are sex offenders,” Baldelli-Hunt told reporters. “I’m not interested in their rights or protecting them. I have no concern for them because they are the worst of the worst.”

Baldelli doesn’t walk around with signs telling people she is a vicious fool, either, but her words do the job:

1. She doesn’t know who “they” are or what “they” did. The vast majority of former sex offenders have paid their debt to society and are not dangers to anyone. She is, therefore, selling and facilitating bigotry.

2. Every registered sex offender did not commit an offense of equal seriousness. An 18-year-old boy who has consensual sex with a 15 year-old girl is not “the worst of the worst,” or any kind of worst at all.

3. Elected officials in a community are obligated to care about every citizen’s rights, not just the citizens they like and admire. Officials like Baldelli-Hunt brought America witch trials, lynchings and segregation.

She, in fact, is this worst of the worst.

Consider this her sign.

 

Bad Jack’s New Gig

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Would you trust this man?

My NPR segment was live, and predictably shorter than the star of the day, disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who was there, also predictably, to talk about ethics. Isn’t it interesting that when businessmen, lawyers, investment gurus and politicians get caught and go to jail, they always manage to have very profitable epiphanies that make them ethics experts just in time to give them a book or speaking tour deal, since their original lines of work are no longer an option?

Do I believe these changes of heart and values are real? Not for a second. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week: Charlie Chaplin

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

I’m heading to New York City shortly, and will make an effort to check out first hand the state of Occupy Wall Street. The nationwide protest seems to be waning in both intensity and public support, despite some hopeful, futile voices (like the New York Times editorial page) who persist in claiming that its message is “important.”

I’m not denying that it could be. At this point, however, it is in danger of redefining itself as (or, in my case, confirming the diagnosis) a self-indulgent, expensive mess that never succeeded or even tried to articulate its goals clearly enough to avoid overtaken by the worst side-effects of such protests: violence, damage to property, threats to safety, and harm to innocent bystanders. Yesterday, for example, having failed to disrupt the operations of Wall Street, the New York contingent decided to disrupt the subway system—the mode of transportation overwhelmingly used by “the 99%.”

Stupid.

Words and clear thinking are not only helpful, but an obligation for those seeking social change.  As an example of how words can inspire, I offer this, the speech that Charlie Chaplin wrote and delivered at the end of his film, “The Great Dictator.” I am far from four-square with Chaplin’s politics, but he knew how to craft an inspiring rally to change—exactly what the “Occupy” should have done. Then, at least, we would recall it for what it aspired to, rather than all the annoyance and cynicism it launched. Here is a link to an editorially enhanced version of the scene and here is the text: Continue reading →

Flashback: “Law, Citizenship, and the Right to be a Jackass”

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Wrong country, same gesture.

[The principal in this tale from a post early in Ethics Alarms’ existence just dicsovered it, and sent some additional detail in a comment.  I am fairly certain that almost nobody read the original post, and I had completely forgotten about it myself. Its central point is still valid, however, and since it involves  an ethics conflict that has frequently re-appeared here—the duty to respect law enforcement officials versus the right not to, and the proper handling of a citizen who is rude, abusive, or worse—I thought I’d revive it.

Much thanks is due to David Hackbart for his considerate comment.]

Three springs ago on the streets of Pittsburgh, David Hackbart was starting to parallel park when a car pulled up behind him. Don’t you hate that? Hackbart did too, and presented his flip-off finger to the anonymous driver in silent protest. “Don’t flip him off!” came a shouted edict from someone outside his car, and Hackbart, not in the mood for officious intermeddling, gave the anonymous civility referee The Finger as well. Continue reading →

Slaves, Whales, Humphrey the Hippo, and Captive Animal Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The beginning of the end for this barbaric practice began with the publication of "Uncle Shamu's Cabin"...

Whether or not it is excessively cruel to killer whales to keep them at Sea World and train them to do tricks is an interesting ethical issue that turns on utilitarian principles: are whales as a species better served by the public learning to appreciate them through close contact in zoos than by having them be accessible only in the wild, and does this result justify keeping some whales in captivity, performing like seals? Good question. What isn’t a good question is posed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal’s lawsuit against Sea World, suggesting that it violates the Thirteenth Amendment to keep performing whales, because the practice constitutes slavery.

It’s a stupid question. It’s a silly question. It’s an offensive question, equating aquatic mammals with African-Americans. Continue reading →

Judging McQueary: Child Rape Bystander Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

You have no excuses, Kal-El. But the rest...

“It was cowardly for a 6′4″ graduate assistant to witness the rape of a child by an older man and not only take no action to stop it but also not even call the police,” writes David French in the National Review.

He is, of course, referring to Mike McQueary, then a 28-year-old graduate student assistant coach for Joe Paterno at Penn State. Others have declared that it was an “absolute moral imperative” that McQueary physically intervene to stop the sexual assault.

It is interesting that the absolute moral imperative is nonetheless linked to qualifiers. French references McQueary’s size and the fact that the alleged assailant, Jerry Sandusky, is older. Some critics have focused on his gender. Still others, making the argument that McQueary failed to intervene because he didn’t take a child rape seriously enough, have suggested that he would have acted differently had Sandusky been beating, rather than raping the child. Of all the ethical debates surrounding the Penn State scandal, the question of how much scorn should be heaped on McQueary for not acting immediately to stop the rape in progress has been the most fascinating, and to my mind, the most disingenuous. It appears that every commentator, male or female, young or old, fat or fit, is convinced that would have charged in and battled the 57-year-old former wide-receiver, pummeling him into wet submission while the child escaped. Maybe. Studies and anecdotal evidence indicate that in fact, most people wouldn’t physically intervene. Perhaps sportswriters and op-ed writers are made of sterner stuff that the rest of the public.

Yes, that must be it.

None of this is to suggest that physically stopping a child rape in progress isn’t the right thing to do; it is. For his part, McQueary reputedly didn’t take any action to stop the assault,* which in order of effectiveness would be… Continue reading →