Ethics Dunces

Ethics Dunces: The Hugo Chavez Fan Club (Michael Moore, Sean Penn, Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY), Oliver Stone and Joe Kennedy III

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments
"We love you Hugo, we really do-oo! There isn't anyone, we love like you-oo! When you're not with us, we're blue! Oh, Hugo, we love you!"---From the new musical, "Bye-Bye Chavez," written by Oliver Stone, starring Sean Penn!

“We love you Hugo, we really do-oo! There isn’t anyone, we love like you-oo! When you’re not with us, we’re blue! Oh, Hugo, we love you!”—From the new musical, “Bye-Bye Chavez,” written by Oliver Stone, starring Sean Penn!

What do we learn from those who mourn the passing of Venezuelan autocrat Hugo Chavez and praise his leadership? Chavez leaves his nation with a corrupted judiciary, an intimidated and manipulated press, a soaring violent crime rate, massive debt, crumbling infrastructure, galloping inflation, government-sanctioned anti-Semitism, and the prospect of political instability for the foreseeable future. When we hear an American praise Chavez, we learn that he or she neither trusts or values the institutions of democracy, like a free press and independent judiciary. We learn that such an individual believes that indeed the ends justify the means; that lies, repression, manipulation of news and public opinion, cultism, divisiveness and class warfare are all forgivable and even laudable in pursuit of “social justice,” roughly defined in the manner of Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Castro, murderers all. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Devon Gluck

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments
"Hmmmm...keep this money that isn't mine, or return it to the owner? What a knotty ethical puzzle!"

“Hmmmm…keep this money that isn’t mine, or return it to the owner? What a knotty ethical puzzle!”

Devon Gluck, a senior finance major at the University of Delaware, was the surprised recipient of $1800 spit at him by a malfunctioning ATM machine. Obviously the money wasn’t his, or meant for him. Obviously it belonged to the bank, and another depositor. Obviously, the ethical thing to do was to return the money, just as you would return a wallet full of money dropped by someone walking right in front of you. Doing otherwise is theft.

Nonetheless, it took 20-year-old Devon four days and consultation with his father to come to a conclusion that any properly raised 8-year-old should have reached in about 30 seconds. After thinking about all the things he could do with the cash that wasn’t his, he finally returned it to the bank.

Whoopie.

Devon Gluck is going into the finance field, where he will be, sadly, right at home with his hair-trigger ethical instincts. Our families, our schools, our leaders and  and our culture are plainly failing to install even rudimentary ethics alarms in rising generations.

You’re not getting your hands on any of my money, Devon, if I can help it. I recommend that everyone else exercise similar caution. See if your Dad can explain to you why.

_________________________________

Facts: Delaware online

Graphic: Debt No Problem

 

From Connecticut State Rep. Ernest Hewett (D): The Most Inappropriate Public Utterance By An Elected Official Ever?

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Wow.

Just…wow.

"Hi...I'm a friend of Rep Hewett? He invited me to attend the hearing...could you direct me to his desk, please?"

“Hi…I’m a friend of Rep Hewett.  He invited me to attend the hearing…could you direct me to his desk, please?”

The late Donald Shaefer, former governor of Maryland and mayor of Baltimore, certainly had his moments of outrageous, and often sexist, candor, and foot-in-mouth disease has certainly marred the legacies of many a politician, but this seems like a scene out of a Will Farrell movie. An unbelievable scene.

On February 21, a 17-year-old female intern at the Connecticut Science Center was testifying before the Connecticut legislature. Among those questioning her about her work was Hewett, the deputy speaker and a former mayor of New London in his fifth term in the House. The intern was discussing the benefits of her work, and told the lawmakers, “I am usually a very shy person, and now I am more outgoing. I was able to teach those children about certain things like snakes that we have and the turtles that we have… ,” she said. “I want to do something toward that, working with children when I get older.”

Hewett responded—and I’m not making this up…

“If you’re bashful I got a snake sitting under my desk here!” Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Florida Highway Patrol

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

Huge Manatee

Do you recall the post last week about the brain-dead reaction of various website commenters to the Florida arrest prosecution of a man for harassing a manatee?

If they had been commenting about this incident, they would have been on firm logical and ethical ground.

Anthony Brasfield and his girlfriend shared a carefree, romantic interlude one Sunday morning in the parking lot of the Motel 6 on Dania Beach Boulevard, as they released a dozen red and silver mylar heart-shaped balloons and watched them rise, up, up, up into the air, then slowly float away, high and far, until they became tiny specks against the blue. They squeezed each other’s hands, smiled, and…got arrested by a Florida highway patrol state trooper on the spot.

Brasfield was charged with the environmental crime of helium pollution, under the Florida Air and Water Pollution Control Act.Aggravating the offense apparently was the fact that endangered marine turtle species and birds make their abode in John U. Lloyd State Park, about 1.5 miles east of the motel. The third-degree felony is punishable by up to five years in prison. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Aaron Williams–Pastafarian, Jerk

/ Jack Marshall / 66 Comments

flying-spaghetti-monster

Aaron Williams  practices Pastafarianism (The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster) , which is not a religion, but a joke, a parody of religion created to mock the advocates of “intelligent design.” It’s a good joke, but like any joke, it becomes an annoyance when it stops being funny.When it has stopped being funny and it is inflicted on an audience without good reason or its consent, it is irresponsible conduct. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Any South Carolinian Who Votes For Disgraced Ex-Governor Mark Sanford

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments
You'll never know if this movie is still playing in the Mark Sanford Head Multiplex...

You’ll never know if this movie is still playing in the Mark Sanford Head Multiplex…

When Mark Sanford was last entrusted with high elected office in South Carolina, he…

  • Carried on a clandestine adulterous affair with a South American “soul mate” when he was supposed to be serving as the governor of the state,
  • Went AWOL from the state and his duties, telling aides that he was “hiking” in South America when he was really doing something very different in Argentina,
  • Used official funds to pay for his personal affair,
  • Lied about it,
  • Humiliated his wife and family while embarrassing South Carolina and his party, and
  • Was censored by the state legislature.

Now, displaying a level of gall only politicians and Hollywood actors can achieve, Sanford is back seeking office in South Carolina, running for the open seat in its 1st Congressional District. His strategy appears to be that old stand-by of the habitual miscreant, evoking the virtue of forgiveness and redemption, as well as suggesting that God wouldn’t rule out voting for him. In his first TV ad, Sanford says that he has learned about a “God of second chances.” Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces: Everybody Connected With This Ridiculous Story

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments

 

"Just remove that offensive bumper sticker, sir, and they'll be no trouble."

“Just remove that offensive bumper sticker, sir, and they’ll be no trouble.”

USA Today, NBC, Yahoo! and other news outlets are snickering as they report the story of an elderly couple pulled over by two police cars in Tennessee because a Buckeye leaf decal on their car, signifying their fealty to the Ohio State football team, was mistaken for a marijuana leaf by the men in blue. “What are you doing with a marijuana sticker on your bumper?” one of the cops asked the Jonas-Boggionis, the occupants of the vehicle. It was all a big misunderstanding! Boy, are those Tennessee cops dumb, not to be able to tell a Buckeye leaf from pot!

In classic “what’s wrong with this story?” fashion, not one of the news media reports, in their hilarity over the cops stopping the couple out of official botanical and sports ignorance, noted  that the police would have been just as wrong if the decal DID portray a marijuana leaf. It’s called the First Amendment, guys—perhaps you’ve heard of it? It’s the same Constitutional amendment that allows you media reporters to do the rotten, incompetent job you do covering the news without  being declared by law to be the menace to a free and informed society you are. You know, it might be helpful, when the police engage in a blatant First Amendment violation and abuse of state power, for reporters to recognize and explain it to the public as such, rather than make the news story about how the police stopped the Jonas-Boggionis for the “wrong reason.” Even if they had stopped it for what the stories say is the right reason, it would be the wrong reason. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Chelsea Welch (The Applebee’s Train Wreck, Part Deux)

/ Jack Marshall / 53 Comments
Chelsea Welch 2

Chelsea Welch: Hire at your own risk. You have been warned. By Chelsea, in fact…

I really, really didn’t want to revisit the tale about the cheap pastor, the self-righteous waitress, and Applebee’s. The comments on the original post here were illuminating, not in a good way, and were profoundly discouraging. The fact that so many people are incapable of getting past their biases against any business that has to enforce basic common sense policies on their employees is depressing; the fact that they embrace wholeheartedly the idea that a minor instance of poor judgment and conduct warrants permanent vilification on the web is alarming; and the widespread rejection of the principles of the Golden Rule is scary.

Unfortunately, Chelsea Welch, the fired waitress whom I once had some sympathy for despite the fact that her firing was 100% justified, has apparently seen fit to publish a letter, although there is no way to tell that it is really hers—the way this whole scenario has gone, it probably was written by the pastor who started the whole mess to make Chelsea look bad. If that was the objective, the pastor was wrong again, for a ridiculous percentage of the commenters think the letter is perfectly reasonable, meaning, of course, that they have the ethical sensibilities of 5th graders. The cruel reader who brought this to my attention actually read the comments on one site and tallied them: 1538 supporting Chelsea, only 20 that didn’t.

<Sigh!>

Nonetheless, Chelsea Welch reveals herself as an A-1 prime ethics dunce, the kind of person who will blunder along through life behaving unethically, causing little and large harms and discomforts to those she encounters, always thinking she is in the right, because she doesn’t have the foggiest notion of how one goes about determining what  right is.

Her letter is a classic of rationalization. Some highlights (the entire letter is at the end)… Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Melowese Richardson, Ohio Poll Worker

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments
Melowese Richardson

Melowese Richardson

Melowese Richardson, Ohio poll worker, doesn’t understand why she’s being investigated for voter fraud. Oh, she voted at least twice, no doubt about that, and she doesn’t deny it: According to Hamilton County records, Richardson’s absentee ballot was filed on Nov. 1, 2012 along with her signature. Later, she told an official she also voted at a precinct polling place because she was afraid her absentee ballot would not be counted in time. Double voting is something of a family tradition, for Richardson’s granddaughter, India Richardson, also cast two ballots in November, her first time as a voter. Melowese sees nothing wrong with any of this, or this either: absentee ballots for Montez Richardson, Joseph Jones and Markus Barron all came from Richardson’s Whetsel Avenue address, were received by the board the same time as Richardson’s, and the handwriting on all four of them was similar. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce Meets Ethics Hero

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

The Dunce: Penelope Soto, arrested for illegal possession of a controlled substance (Xanax), and for riding a bicycle recklessly while stoned. Facing arraignment before Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Jorge Rodriguez-Chomat to determine bail, she laughed at his questions, gave him a mocking farewell, and finally threw an F-bomb his way.

The Hero: the Judge, who tolerated Soto’s disrespectful, dismissive and seemingly stoned behavior up to a point, but when she turned her back on him to leave with a flippant “Adios!”, he doubled her bail amount from $5,000 to $10,000.*  Her next reaction was a muttered “Fuck you” and a provocatively raised index finger. For that, he found her in criminal contempt.  His sentence: 30 days in jail.

Disrespect for the Court is disrespect for the law, and disrespect for the law is disrespect for the country. I don’t know how people like Ms. Soto reach adulthood without learning this lesson, but bravo to Judge Rodriguez-Chomat for not hesitating to teach it forcefully and well.

The full video of their fateful meeting is above, and worth watching. I recommend showing it to your children, if you have them.

UPDATE: She returned to court with her lawyer, sober and stright this time, and managed a sincere-sounding apology to the judge. He let her out of jail, as he should have. Point made.

*Note: the practical effect of this is to cost Ms. Soto and extra $500, essentially a fine for being rude to the judge. A prisoner typically has to give a bail bondsman 10% of the bail amount to get out of jail until trial. If she doesn’t want to pay that, she can put up the whole amount, which she will get back once she appears for trial.