Citizenship

Impolitic Question Dept.: Is It Unethical For Americans To Dislike Islam?

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

To read the bulk of the letters to the editor in the New York Times, Americans not only must extend full Constitutional rights to the worshippers of Islam (as they must), but they also better like it. Not being enthusiastic about the prominent physical manifestation of the religion in a neighborhood that witnessed the murder of nearly 3,000 innocent victims by that religion’s followers has been called evidence of bigotry, mindless hate, and “Islamophobia,” as if there are no rational and reasonable justifications for regarding Islam as a less than positive addition to the United States culture.

On the contrary, there are many tenets of Islam that are directly antithetical and in opposition to core American values. Continue reading →

“No Tolerance” For Adversary Free Speech at Obama’s HHS?

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

According to a press release sent out by the Department of Health and Human Services, “Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the national association of health insurers, calling on their members to stop using scare tactics and misinformation to falsely blame premium increases for 2011 on the patient protections in the Affordable Care Act.” In her letter, Sibelius wrote…

“It has come to my attention that several health insurer carriers are sending letters to their enrollees falsely blaming premium increases for 2011 on the patient protections in the Affordable Care Act.  I urge you to inform your members that there will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases.”

This is an ethics foul, and one that is both frightening and clumsy. Continue reading →

Are Restaurants That Hire Illegal Immigrants Ethical?

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

No.

Next question.

Okay, let’s not be hasty. The New York Times Diner’s Journal asks the question, invoking the images of the 2004 film “A Day Without a Mexican,” in which all of California’s Mexicans suddenly disappear and the state is thrust into a world with far fewer gardeners, nannies, fruit-pickers, maids, cooks, and dishwashers. The film is the high-water mark of the essentially unethical rationalization for illegal immigration that is one of the main culprits for America’s unconscionable tolerance of it—that without illegals, the economy and quality of life of Americans would break down.

That the argument makes any sense at all is really a strong reason to stop illegal immigration, because it shows what happens when illegal and unethical practices becomes so entrenched that they warp the institutions, systems and cultural norms they affect, and corrupt the citizens who take advantage of them.  Continue reading →

Mark Levin’s Irresponsible Substitute Host Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

What ever one may think about Mark Levin, the pugnacious conservative talk show host, ignorant he is not. Levin has had a distinguished career in government and law, and is a constitutional scholar. When he isn’t railing against the Obama Administration’s efforts to impose what Levin regards as “tyranny” and “totalitarianism,” he is lecturing his audience about how too much of the public and most Democrats are willfully uninformed about our nation and how the American system works.

Levin puts great stock in knowing and understanding American history, yet he willingly allowed Texas talk show host Michael Berry to fill in for him this month, proving that despite Levin’s rhetoric, he prefers ideological fervor over competence, truth and accuracy. Continue reading →

Ethics Rant: “Medal of Honor”, Rev. Jones, and Imam Rauf

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Almost everything has been reminding me of the “Ground Zero Mosque” lately. It is driving me crazy, perhaps because the rhetoric of the pro-Cordoba House “You’re a bigot if you don’t think this is the best idea since Disney World”  crowd is increasingly unfair and absurd, and getting worse by the minute. Or perhaps it is that the inconsistent reasoning and blindness to embarrassing analogies exhibited by just about everyone who comments on this issue has reached the detonation point. Continue reading →

It’s Not Unethical…It Just Seems That Way

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Rodney King is marrying one of the jurors who awarded him $3.8 million in his civil suit against Los Angeles.

If your ethics alarm is ringing, turn it off. This would be a conflict of interest if his bride-to-be were TV’s Allison DuBois, who can see the future, or if the betrothed had a top-of-the-line crystal ball. But she doesn’t—-or, at least, we don’t know that she does—so as much as this feels like self-enrichment, it’s not. This is the Ick Factor. It feels wrong, but it is perfectly ethical.

Ethics Tip To Arizona Voters: Never Trust A Party That Cheats

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

A Republican operative in Arizona has recruited three homeless men to run for office on the Green Party ballot, in the expectation that they will siphon off Democratic votes.  A New York Times report depicts the operative, Steve May, as openly admitting his tactic, and not regretting it in the least. Democrats, says the Times, are furious. But everyone else should be too. Here is just some of what is wrong with May’s conduct: Continue reading →

“Birthers”: Unethical, or Merely Deranged?

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Retired Air Force Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney, a military expert who appears as an analyst on Fox News, has submitted an affidavit in support of Army Lieutenant Colonel Terrence Lakin, who is refusing to deploy to Afghanistan because of his belief that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Lakin faces a court-martial for his refusal. Thus has General  McInerney officially admitted to being a “birther,” one of the legion of conspiracy theorists who deny Constitutional eligibility for the White House.

From McInerney’s affidavit: Continue reading →

Rev. Jones and the “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” Supporters: Explain the Difference, Please

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Now that a mad Florida Pastor, Terry Jones, has taken the twisted logic of that addled demonstration to the next step, planing a Koran-burning to show “we will no longer be controlled and dominated by their fears and threats,” I’d like to hear how those who set out to stick a finger in the eye of Islam by drawing its prophet can justify condemning Jones, when he plans to stick in his whole thumb. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Glenn Beck

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

No, it wasn’t a big lie, a harmful lie, or a malicious lie that Glenn Beck told at his recent rally. Beck had claimed that he held George Washington’s handwritten first Inaugural Address “in his hands” at the National Archives, but a spokeswoman at the institution denied it: they don’t allow that. After Keith Olbermann and other full-time Beck-bashers kept pressing the issue, Beck admitted that he had fabricated the story to cut through the extraneous details of the real process:

“…Yesterday I went to the National Archives, and they opened up the vault, and they put on their gloves and then they put [the document] on a tray. They wheeled it over and it’s all in this hard plastic and you’re sitting down at a table…you can’t actually touch any of the documents, these are very very rare. So … they have it in this plastic thing and they hold them right in front of you; you can’t touch them, but then you can say ‘can you turn it over,’ and then they turn it over for you and then you look at it.”

“I thought it was a little clumsy to explain it that way,” Beck told his cable audience, shrugging off the controversy. No, as lies go, it was about as harmless as it gets.

Except. Continue reading →