Comment of the Day

Comment of the Day: “The Hazing Abuse of Michael Warren”

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Frequent commenter and anti-child abuse advocate Steven Mark Pilling catalogues the defenses and rationalizations offered here by collegiate commenters who thought my post was overly hard on pro-hazing Hartwick College. The references to “Hounddog” relate to a thankfully buried film shot five years years back that required a 12-year-old Dakota Fanning to be the victim in a graphic rape scene with an adult actor. Steven, along with Paul Petersen and others, successfully exposed the film’s skirting of laws and exploitation of Fanning. You can read my ethics commentary on that horrible story here and here.

“Jack: In reading those collegian posts and your responses, I almost had a feeling of deja vu. Isn’t it amazing how all the excuses and means of “defending the indefensible”- no matter what the specific issue- have points of commonality that immediately grab at you? When I was involved in the “Hounddog” issue, I ran into them all. I see many of them here… Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Ethics Quiz: The Home as Billboard…”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Jeff Hibbert sets a record for pithy and concise with his comment on the Ethics Quiz about the company that will pay your mortgage if you’ll let them turn your home into a billboard. Besides, it made me laugh, and I needed a laugh.

“Eventually, everything flat will have advertising on it. This is why I think a flat stomach is overrated.”


			

	


			
				


	

							
Comment of the Day: “The Barefoot Contessa…” (Again)
						

			 / Jack Marshall						 / 7 Comments
								

			


		

		


Thank you for your comment, Sharon!


A classic. A commenter named Sharon Jones became outraged over an apparent counting error I made in one of the replies to a comment on the “Barefoot Contessa” post, but refused to be specific about what “seven words” I mistakenly called six. This sparked the abusive rant below, which contains so many of the standard sputterings of those who object to what I do for a  living—the fans of ethical relativism, and the “let he that is without sin” crowd, who often have no use for the Bible except when it can provide rationalizations for ignoring bad conduct—that it begged to be honored as a  Comment of the Day.


If you’re interested in my reply to this, it can be found in the comments to The Barefoot Contessa and the Compassion Bullies, which for the third time has generated a COTD, by Sharon Jones. Sadly, we won’t be seeing any more of Sharon around these parts…


“Apparently a Harvard degree gives you the right to be a self pretentious jerk with no accountability.


“Anybody who assumes the title of “ethics police” truly deserves to have his testicle hairs plucked one by one, followed by a hot sauce after-shave. Self righteous jerks, with an overinflated sense of self worth that gives them the feeling of entitlement to force feed the foul slop of “ethics” in a public forum. A self-worth, consequently, that is directly proportional to the balance of their checkbooks and IRAs.


“That being said, I fully grant the spineless bastard his first amendment right to say whatever feeble-minded drivel he can manage to scrape out of his Syphilitic skull and slap onto a blank canvas. More power to him. May he have a long and erectile dis-functioned life.”

			

	


			
				


	

							
Comment of the Day: “The Barefoot Contessa and the Compassion Bullies…”
						

			 / Jack Marshall						 / 2 Comments
								

			


		

		
Commenter Marlene Cohn has some well-reasoned insight on the issue of a celebrity’s obligation to comply with a sick child’s wishes. Here is her comment on The Barefoot Contessa and the Compassion Bullies: an Ethics Drama:


“I enjoy a bit of celebrity gossip just as much as anyone, and always find internet reactions to perceived celebrity slights to be fascinating. Having been on the internet far longer than the hoards willing to throw around the dreaded “c” word, I’ve been able to see a true shift in what people generally expect of others. Continue reading →

			

	


			
				


	

							
Comments of the Day: “Bully Ethics…”
						

			 / Jack Marshall						 / 1 Comment
								

			


		

		
I was in New York all day, and returned to find a plethora of excellent comments on the post, “Bully Ethics: Lessons from Casey the Punisher.” Two of the finest follow, and they go well together: Michael on the dilemma facing the bullied child, and Lianne on her family’s solution. 


First, Michael:


“Bullies only understand violence. If you are being bullied, how can you stop it? Continue reading →

			

	


			
				


	

							
Comment of the Day:”Yes Julea,You Have A Right To Your Beliefs; You Just Don’t Have A Right…”
						

			 / Jack Marshall						 / 13 Comments
								

			


		

		
An Ethics Alarms heartfelt thank you and “I owe you one!” to Ethics Sage, for cutting to the other core ethical point about what was wrong with Julea Ward’s refusal to counsel a gay student, and why she should have been dismissed from the university course as a consequence. It wasn’t just failure of responsibility, which my post was fixated on, but also failure of caring, compassion, and our shared duty as human beings to help each other even if our religion encourages us to regard those human beings as immoral. 


Ethics Sage shows his handle ain’t just horn-blowin’ with this Comment of the Day, on the post “Yes Julea,You Have A Right To Your Beliefs; You Just Don’t Have A Right…” 


“Julea Ward’s refusal to counsel a gay student is despicable on many levels. What if the student’s life had been threatened and he went to counseling to get some advice? How can anyone not act to help a person in that kind of situation or others we can think of that may or may not have anything to do with being gay? By refusing to counsel the gay student, Ward failed miserably not only to meet the requirements of the course but to act as a human being with compassion for another.”

			

	


			
				


	

							
Comment of the Day: “Ethics Dunce: Rep. Michele Bachman”
						

			 / Jack Marshall						 / 10 Comments
								

			


		

		
Oh, how I LOVE LOVE LOVE this comment, from “ruralcounsel,” regarding my post about Michele Bachmann embarrassing herself, and not for the first time. Seldom does a commenter employ such shameless rationalizations and staples of intellectual dishonesty, and for his grand finale, he breaches one of the explicit Comment Policies by employing that all-purpose fallacy, “you’re just using ethics to go after political enemies.” I’m especially happy about the latter, because no one has accused me of being biased against the Right since “Ronbo.” I can’t hope for as much entertainment from ruralcounsel, but I am certainly grateful for this (Forgive me. I have to give interlinear commentary. I can’t resist):  Continue reading →

			

	


			
				


	

							
Comment of the Day: “Facebook Wars II”
						

			 / Jack Marshall						 / 3 Comments
								

			


		

		
Though not strictly an ethics comment, Mary’s theory about why school administrators are engaging in so much ethically dubious conduct is provocative and has the ring of truth. Here is her Comment of the Day, on the post “Facebook Wars II: More School Abuse of Power and Privacy“:


“A number of years ago, while extracting myself from a bad relationship, a therapist friend told me that the more healed and “normal” I became, the more outrageous and pathological my ex-partner’s behavior would be, in a psychological attempt to pull me back into the relationship.


“I sometimes think the same thing applies to social relationships and organizations. As they lose their relevancy and people withdraw and move on to new social structures, those invested in the old organizations thrash wildly to maintain an ever crumbling status quo. Continue reading →

			

	


			
				


	

							
Ethics Quote of the Week: Ex-Con John Collins
						

			 / Jack Marshall						 / 12 Comments
								

			


		

		
 


Charlie made a different kind of mistake, too!


“We’re people, we’re not monsters. We’ve just made a different type of mistake than someone else.” 


— 34-year-old John Collins, who announced his support for a provision being pushed forward by the Seattle Office For Human Rights, which believes that convicted criminals should be made a protected class.


Collins sure made a different kind of mistake, all right. He served four years in prison for drugging and raping his estranged wife.  Continue reading →

			

	


			
				


	

							
The Comment of the Day: Another On “The White Male Scholarship”
						

			 / Jack Marshall						 / 7 Comments
								

			


		

		
John-Baptiste Clamence reacts to yesterday’s post with a crucial  point (that I happen to agree with) about the role of law in setting  cultural values and societal ethics. Here is his Comment of the Day, on “The White Male Scholarship”:


“It’s a hard line to draw sometimes; the line between your right to have the wrong opinion, and how much the law should push you to have the right opinion.

In the UK, since 1996 it has been illegal for B&Bs to refuse rooms to gay couples. These are private businesses – should they have the right to offer their services in a discriminatory way also?


“The situation you describe is, in my view, unethical for the reason that it perpetuates the idea in society that racial discrimination for an academic award is OK. The sooner and stronger the message given by the law is, then the sooner the views of society change.


“To paraphrase Cesar Millan: Change the behaviour, change the thoughts.”