Ethics Heroes

Ethics Hero: Laura Hughes

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The widow of high school teacher Jason Hughes, 40, who died during a student prank gone horribly wrong in Gainesville, Georgia, is demonstrating how some human beings can overcome anger, bitterness and the emotional need for retribution, choosing compassion and empathy instead.

Around 11 p.m. on March 6, Jordan Wallace, Elijah Tate Owens, Aiden Hucks, Ana Katherine Luque and Ariana Cruz, all 18-years-old, toilet-papered trees outside the Hughes’ home, a continuation of their school’s tradition of such pranks during exam week. As the group piled into two vehicles to flee, Jason Hughes ran out of his home to confront the teens, but tripped and fell into the road. Wallace, who had already begun speeding away in a pickup truck, accidentally ran over the prone teacher. The teens left their vehicles to render aid, but Hughes perished in the incident.

All five teens were charged with criminal trespassing and littering on private property; Wallace has has been charged with first degree murder as well as reckless driving.

Laura Hughes, who is also a teacher, is pleading with authorities to drop the criminal charges. “We ask that you continue to pray for our family and also for the students involved in the accident along with their families,” she said in a statement to reporters. “Please join us in extending grace and mercy to them as Christ has done for us…This is a terrible tragedy, and our family is determined to prevent a separate tragedy from occurring, ruining the lives of these students.”

The late father of two (above, next to his wife) wasn’t trying to angrily confront the pranksters but “was excited and waiting to catch them in the act,” Laura told the New York Times. Insisting that her husband was not pursuing the students to reprimand them but rather to express comradery with their innocently-intended prank. Hughes said that criminal punishment “would be counter to Jason’s lifelong dedication of investing in the lives of these children.”

First degree murder sounds like extreme over-charging by authorities. The entire episode is a blazing example of the caprices of moral luck. I agree that the students’ punishment should be left to the school if Laura Hughes doesn’t want to press charges. Ethics tells us that it is time to mitigate the damage, not to make the damage worse.

Remembering the Alamo, Davy Crockett, and the Butterfly Effect

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

The Alamo fell just before dawn 190 years ago today. An estimated 220 men died in the furious attack by would-be Mexican emperor Santa Ana’s army of 5,000: once it breached the walls of the fortified mission, a massacrec commenced that was over in 20 minutes.. The defenders had come from many states, territories and nations, and eventually they knew they were going to die if they stayed. Only one of them, Lewis Rose—maybe—decided to leave. Even the messengers sent out by William Barrett Travis to seek rescuing troops returned to the Alamo knowing hope was lost, and they they would be killed. After 13 days, during which the Alamo was pounded by cannon fire, forcing the men to spend the night making repairs, the battle was over. But those 13 days gave Texas General Sam Houston time to raise the army that would defeat of Santa Ana at the Battle of San Jacinto.

Ethics Alarms has posted ethics essays about the Alamo almost every year since the blog began. It is my favorite U.S. historical story, mixing drama, legend, ethics lessons and fascinating personalities, notably Jim Bowie, Travis, and, of course, Davy Crockett. Here is my first post about Davy, from March of 2010, posted to mark the passing of Disney legend Fess Parker, whose portrayal of the frontiersman on TV brought Crockett out of the historical shadows.

Crockett was the most important casualty of the battle, because at the time of his death he was the first modern celebrity, famous in part for being famous, celebrated by dime novels and sensational, and fictional, stage plays. His death focused public attention on Texas as nothing else could. Actress-singer Zendaya is the most popular celebrity in the U.S. today: imagine what the public reaction would have been if an Iran-backed terrorist attack had eliminated her. (Try to imagine it without reflecting on the relative values of a nation whose top celebrity is Zendaya as compared to a nation whose children idolize “The King of the Wild Frontier”). In that 2010 post I wrote in part,

“Like another iconic figure who once portrayed him, John Wayne, what Davy Crockett symbolizes in American culture matters more than his real life story. He built a reputation for being the perfect example of the rugged American individualist, standing tall for basic values, especially honesty and courage, while keeping a sense of humor and an appetite for fun.  In his doubtlessly ghost-written 1834 hagiography, “Narrative of the life of Colonel Crockett,” Crockett stated his credo as

“I leave this rule for others when I’m dead: Be always sure you’re right–then go ahead.”

It is as good an exhortation to live by the ethical virtues of integrity, accountability and courage as there is, and it gained great credibility when Crockett remained in the Alamo to die defending a nascent Texas republic, in complete harmony with his stated ideals. Battling for right against overwhelming odds,remaining steadfast in the face of certain defeat, never complaining, never looking back once he had decided to “go ahead,” Crockett’s legend is a valuable and inspiring, if not always applicable, example for all of us when crisis looms. Nobody who ever saw the final fade-out of the Disney series’ final episode, with Fess Parker furiously swinging “old Betsy,” Crockett’s Tennessee long rifle, like a baseball bat at Santa Anna’s soldiers as they swarmed over the walls, ever forgot the image, or mistook what it meant. Davy knew he was going down, but he would fight the good fight to the end….”

They don’t teach the Alamo in schools any more except in Texas, and the woke historical revisionism of the battle casts it as a minor event and even a shameful one, since many of the Texas settlers Mexico invited to settle its Texas territory brought slaves with them. In our “1619 Project” World they were fighting for white supremacy against a brown army.

Pages: 1 2

Happy Birthday, George Washington From Ethics Alarms, And Thank Your Dad For Us Too…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

It’s George Washington’s birthday. Nine years ago I wrote, in one of my annual posts on perhaps our most important President (George Will calls him “the Indispensable Man) that something has gone seriously wrong when one’s blog has 287 posts on Donald Trump and only six about Washington. I don’t even want to think about what the count is now, but here is another one in George’s column.

George Washington’s father Augustine had at one time or another run across a list of 110 virtues that young men should adopt and practice in order to be become civil, respectful and honorable members of polite society. He made George, and presumably all his sons (he had six of them) copy them by hand to aid in memorizing the list. George, at least, dutifully committed to memory “110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation,”  which was  based on a document composed by French Jesuits in 1595; neither the author nor the English translator and adapter are known today. The elder Washington was following the theory of Aristotle, who held that principles and values began as being externally imposed by authority (morals) and eventually became internalized as character.

Those ethics alarms installed by his father stayed in working order throughout George’s remarkable life. It was said that Washington was known to quote the rules when appropriate, and never forgot them. They did not teach him to be the gifted leader he became, but they helped to make him a trustworthy one.

The list has been available on Ethics Alarms under Rule Book since its beginnings in 2009. By all means read the whole list; I have used it often in ethics seminars but haven’t referred to it here for too long. The 90 rules omitted in the list below contain some gems too, and many that raise curiosity about what exactly the author was thinking of. For example, I find #2. “When in company, put not your hands to any part of the body not usually discovered” and #3. “Show nothing to your friend that may affright him” intriguing.

Below are my 20 favorite entries from the list that helped make George George, therefore helped George make America America:

Pages: 1 2

Oh, You Didn’t Think I Would Forget Presidents Day, Did You? [Embarrassing Gaffe Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Well, to be truthful, I almost did. The contrived holiday seldom occurs this early. Nevertheless, I’m going to recognize Presidents Day with re-posts of two essays about U.S. Presidents, neither of which were originally written for the holiday.

The first is one of my favorite mysterious tales about any President, in this case George Washington, and the second, from 2015 and re-posted five years ago, is my favorite story about any President ever.

Here they are:

Pssst! Bill Maher! The “Saved By God” Belief Has Inspired Some of Our Greatest Presidents. Shut Up.

Atheists and agnostics in the public sphere don’t have to be obnoxious, but an awful lot of them are. Their explanation for where the universe came from is no more persuasive that that of the faithful (The Big Bang? Come on.) but they just can’t restrain themselves. HBO’s Bill Maher is a prime example: along with mocking committed relationships (he hates the concept of marriage), extolling drugs and debauchery, and generally keeping his Axis of Unethical Conduct membership current, he ridicules Christianity at every opportunity.

The fact is, and it is a fact, that the United States of America had a much healthier and ethical culture before organized religion had discredited itself so thoroughly, driving whole generations away. Moral codes are especially essential for those who don’t have the time or ability to puzzle through ethics, and believing in God is the best catalyst for an ethical society that there is….and it has always been thus.

Heck, just look at what a jerk Maher is. That’s what atheism can do to you. But I digress.

My target here is more narrow. On last week’s “Real Time,” Maher sneered at the belief that God saved Donald Trump from being assassinated as stupid and “dangerous.” “People see signs because they want to see them. It’s why stalkers think Taylor Swift is blinking ‘marry me’ to them in Morse Code,” he explained. “It gets dangerous when the signs make someone think God is on their side,” Maher continued.  “Republican Congressman Mike Collins said after the shooting, ‘God spared Ronald Reagan for a reason. God spared Donald Trump for a reason. God doesn’t miss.’ Really? Tell that to John Lennon, Lincoln, JFK, RFK, and Martin Luther King. Look, the asshole who shot at Trump was cowardly, unpatriotic, selfish, vile, and weak, and he should rot in hell, but thinking that God protects your heroes but not mine? That isn’t cool either.”

How do you know, Bill, that God doesn’t protect your heroes for a very good reason? I can think of several good reasons for that, as well as for squashing you like a bug. Of course the certitude that God is responsible for anything is confirmation bias: my wife, the daughter of a Methodist minister, frequently expressed contempt for the faithful who simultaneously said that “God works in mysterious ways” and “there are no coincidences” while conveniently asserting that they had figured out those mysterious ways. But if Bill knew as much about American history, leadership and the Presidency as he should, he would know that the belief that God has saved them for a reason motivated many of America’s greatest leaders. It could have been dangerous, I suppose, but so far, that belief had been overwhelmingly beneficial to our nation. Perhaps even its salvation.

Leadership requires special character traits, the right formative experiences and a lot of luck. National leadership arises out of an individual’s conviction that they are uniquely qualified to do a better job than anyone else, accompanied by the passion, conviction and charisma necessary to convince others of their abilities. That’s why so many of our Presidents have been narcissists, true, but the anti-American trope that our leaders only seek power, wealth and personal benefits is, based on my lifelong study of history, garbage.

Pages: 1 2

Ethics Quote of the Month: Lindsey Vonn

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

For a while it looked like star American downhill skier Lindsey Vonn would lose the leg she broke a week ago when she crashed 13 seconds into her run and was airlifted off the course by helicopter. Vonn suffered a complex tibia fracture that will require multiple surgeries to repair. Her third surgery was completed successfully.

I came across Vonn’s post about her injury and the state of mind that led to it while I was completing the last post about inspiring poems. In the last Open Forum, there was some criticism of the athlete for subjecting herself to the risk of further injury by insisting on competing despite a recent and unhealed ACL tear. Her Instagram post below persuasively addressed such critiques. It also struck me as perfectly embodying the lessons and values contained in Kipling’s “If,” my father’s favorite poem and one of the inspiring works of poetry schools no longer teach.

Lindsey wrote,

Perfect.

Ethics MEGA-Dunce: President Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

As I noted in the previous post, President Trump had an epically unethical week, even for him. I found out about the latest horror on Facebook and “X”, from the post above by my friend Mary Milben, who proved her integrity and courage. Mary, you see, is MAGA’s official songbird. a brilliant soprano who has performed at many Republican functions from coast to coast. She is also an African-American who has suffered criticism for her support of the President as all high-profile black conservatives do. Despite the fact that her prominence, celebrity and livelihood depends on her relationship with the President and his supporters, she immediately spoke out against Trump’s Truth Social account posting of a 62-second video on conspiracy theories about the “stolen” 2020 Presidential election. At the very end was added a non-sequitur section, set to the Tokens’ ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight,”showing Trump as the Lion King and various Democrats as jungle animals, including Barack and Michelle Obama as…apes.

I regard that as about a half-step, maybe less, from the President calling the former First Couple “niggers.”

After an uproar that I will bet is not going to subside, perhaps ever, the video was taken down. Karoline Leavitt, presumably following orders, took a defiant (and stupid) stance, saying “This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King. Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”

You know, like the desperate search for Savannah Guthrie’s missing mother. The President of the United States appearing to compare the most popular African-Americans in the nation and the only black First Couple as sub-human primates isn’t news. Seriously, Karoline?

Pages: 1 2

Ethics (and Blogging) Hero: Ann Althouse

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

My late wife might say of this post, “If you like Ann Althouse so much, why don’t you marry her?” (Ann-like tangent: my favorite use of that line was when Homer Simpson was in a TV debate with Rev. Lovejoy over gay marriage, and after the Springfield cleric cited the Bible, Homer retorted, “If you like the Bible so much, why don’t you marry it? Here, I’ll do it for you…”)

Ann is the all-time Ethics Alarms leader in “Ethics Quotes” of the month and week; she’s also been an Ethics Dunce here several times. I even suspended her from any mention in my posts after a particularly miserable performance. Her fascinating EA dosser is here.

I know I just posted about Ann’s recent four slam-bang post run, but her defenestration of Anti-Trump New Yorker hack Susan B. Glasser was masterful, and I bow down in awe and wonder. When the ex-University of Wisconsin law professor is on her game, nobody is better, and attention must be paid.

Glasser issued “It’s Time to Talk About Donald Trump’s Logorrhea/How many polite ways are there to ask whether the President of the United States is losing it?” , jumping on the “Let’s try the 25th Amendment!” Trump removal plan a Golden Oldie among the many that the Axis was pushing in his first term. That any journalist who sat idly by refusing to point out that Joe Biden’s brain was falling out of his ears in chunks has the gall now to make such a claim about Trump (literally all of my Trump-Deranged Facebook Friends keep returning to it) is disqualifying, but Ann doesn’t even need that low-hanging fruit to show us how Glasser cheated to please the Atlantic’s biased readers.

Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Rahm Emmanuel

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

There are a lot of unlikely names among the Ethics Heroes, and Emmanuel, the Clinton enforcer and Chicago machine pol is a surprising as any of them. But he alone among current Democratic 2028 Presidential aspirants had the guts and integrity to answer directly an Axios survey on controversial trans issues sent to these hacks, liars, rogues, and phonies. It asked,

“Should transgender girls be able to participate in girls’ sports? Do you believe transgender youths under age 18 should be able to be placed on puberty blockers and hormones? Can a man become a woman?”

Emmanuel answered no to the first and last questions, and defaulted to “parents, not legislatures, should decide” regarding the middle one. True, Rahm has about as much chance of winning the White House as a Democrat in 2028 as I do, but still: he not only gave an answer, he gave one that his party’s wacko base will hate. I’m not concerned about whether I personally agree with Emmanuel. He is ethical because he was willing to answer the questions.

Continue reading →

On Maduro’s Arrest, the Ethics Dunces and Villains Are All In Agreement: What Does This Tell Us? [Part 2] [Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 58 Comments

Part 1 is here.

I assumed that headline was a misstatement, because the jokes write themselves (Hamas is condemning an abduction?). But I checked some Arab world sources, and indeed, all of the terrorist organizations are big mad over President Trump nabbing Maduro. From an Arabic news agency:

Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has condemned the US aggression against Venezuela as a blatant and unprecedented violation of international law…Hezbollah movement, in a statement, condemned the U.S. aggression against Venezuela and the targeting of the country’s vital facilities, civilians, and residential buildings, describing it as a blatant and unprecedented violation of international law….It added that the military aggression shows disregard for global stability and security, and aimed at entrenching the “law of the jungle” in order to dismantle the remnants of the international system and strip it of any substance that could serve as a safeguard for nations and peoples.

The Palestinian movement, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, denounced what it called an “imperialist American aggression” on Venezuela, including airstrikes and missile attacks on Caracas and civilian, residential, and military sites, casting it as a new episode of ‘organized American terrorism” against sovereign states….

Palestinian Islamic Jihad described the US assault on Venezuela as an escalating campaign, from blockade to direct strikes, aimed at domination, occupation, and plunder, and a flagrant breach of sovereignty and international law. It said Venezuela is targeted for its steadfast support for Palestine and regional resistance forces, describing the struggle as part of a shared anti-imperialist battle.

Hamas, for its part, denounced the military aggression on Caracas and the kidnapping of President Maduro and his wife, calling it a grave violation of international law and the sovereignty of an independent state. The movement cast the assault as an extension of unjust U.S. interventions driven by imperial ambition that have destabilized multiple countries and threatened international peace. Hamas urged the UN, especially the Security Council, to take measures to stop the attack immediately.

I have to say, I find this mordantly funny. Could there be a more villainous, despicable group of critics for Democrats to find common cause with? Any minute now, I’m expecting a statement from the Seven Princes of Hell, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Asmodeus, Leviathan, Mammon, Belphegor,, and Satan, joined by demons Astaroth, Belial, and Azazel, declaring the U.S.’s dazzling Venezuelan operation to be a violation of international law.

Continue reading →

On Maduro’s Arrest, the Ethics Dunces and Villains Are All In Agreement: What Does This Tell Us? [PART I]

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

The headline is a rhetorical question.

Every now and then—the last was the assassination of Charlie Kirk—all the masks come off and anyone capable of objectivity can see exactly who the unethical, untrustworthy and dishonest among us are. Unfortunately, most people are not capable of objectivity, because bias makes you stupid. One would think, however, that at least those who present themselves to the public as skilled and independent analysts would take some care not to expose their double standards, lack of integrity and hypocrisy for all to see. One would be wrong to think that, as the video compilation above vividly demonstrates.

But why, oh why, do otherwise intelligent people continue to trust these hacks?

Well, you can decide whether that is a rhetorical question or not.

Meanwhile, here is the first part of an incomplete collection of telling reactions to the U.S.’s perfectly executed incursion into Venezuela to remove an illegitimate ruler and his wife who were both under U.S. indictment.

1. Two lawyer bloggers, Ann Althouse and Jonathan Turley, who I respect and often reference here, made it clear—Turley a bit more expressly than Ann—that the U.S. action was legal and justified. Althouse went back over her previous comments on Maduro—gee, why didn’t Jen Psaki do that?—to find her expressing sympathy with the plight of Venezuelans and the absence of U.S. action, as in her discovery of a post from 2019:

When Trump was pleading with the Venezuelan military to support Juan Guaido, I wrote: “I was surprised that on the channel I was watching — Fox News — the analysis after the speech was about the 2020 presidential campaign…. People in Venezuela are suffering. They’re starving. We need to help. I thought Trump was trying to get something done, but the news folk rush to talk about the damned campaign, as if that’s what sophisticated, savvy people do. I found it offensive.”

Turley has posted twice already explaining that the action was legally justified, with some other useful analysis today, including a pointed reference to Axis hypocrisy:

…Some of us had written that Trump had a winning legal argument by focusing on the operation as the seizure of two indicted individuals in reliance on past judicial rulings, including the decisions in the case of former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and General Dan Caine stayed on script and reinforced this narrative. Both repeatedly noted that this was an operation intended to bring two individuals to justice and that law enforcement personnel were part of the extraction team to place them into legal custody. Rubio was, again, particularly effective in emphasizing that Maduro was not the head of state but a criminal dictator who took control after losing democratic elections.

However, while noting the purpose of the capture, President Trump proceeded to declare that the United States would engage in nation-building to achieve lasting regime change. He stated that they would be running Venezuela to ensure a friendly government and the repayment of seized U.S. property dating back to the government of Hugo Chávez.

… [Trump]is the most transparent president in my lifetime with prolonged (at times excruciatingly long) press conferences and a brutal frankness about his motivations. Second, he is unabashedly and undeniably transactional in most of his dealings. He is not ashamed to state what he wants the country to get out of the deal.

In Venezuela, he wants a stable partner, and he wants oil.

Chávez and Maduro had implemented moronic socialist policies that reduced one of the most prosperous nations to an economic basket case. They brought in Cuban security thugs to help keep the population under repressive conditions, as a third fled to the United States and other countries.

After an extraordinary operation to capture Maduro, Trump was faced with socialist Maduro allies on every level of the government. He is not willing to allow those same regressive elements to reassert themselves.

The problem is that, if the purpose was regime change, this attack was an act of war, which is why Rubio struggled to bring the presser back to the law enforcement purpose. I have long criticized the erosion of the war declaration powers of Congress, including my representation of members of Congress in opposition to Obama’s Libyan war effort.

The fact, however, is that we lost that case. Trump knows that. Courts have routinely dismissed challenges to undeclared military offensives against other nations. In fairness to Trump, most Democrats were as quiet as church mice when Obama and Hillary Clinton attacked Libya’s capital and military sites to achieve regime change without any authorization from Congress. They were also silent when Obama vaporized an American under this “kill list” policy without even a criminal charge. So please spare me the outrage now.

My strong preferences for congressional authorization and consultation are immaterial. The question I am asked as a legal analyst is whether this operation would be viewed as lawful. The answer remains yes.

A couple items in that analysis warrant special attention, like…

  • “[Trump]is the most transparent president in my lifetime.” That is absolutely true, yet the narrative being pushed by the unscrupulous Axis is that he is a habitual liar of epic proportions.
  • “….most Democrats were as quiet as church mice when Obama and Hillary Clinton attacked Libya’s capital and military sites to achieve regime change without any authorization from Congress.” Indeed, this is the gold standard of double standards that should be shaken in the faces of the reflex Trump-haters like a terrier shakes a rat.

2. 2024’s Ethics Hero of the Year Elon Musk called the elimination of Maduro “a win for the world.” Well, the Good Guys of the world, anyway. Russia, China, Iran and Cuba, as well as neighboring South American leftist states like Columbia and Brazil and drug cartel-run states like Mexico, condemned Trump’s action. Gee, wouldn’t that collection provide the Mad Left a big clue regarding the distribution of bad Guys and Good Guys on this issue? No, because to the Trump Deranged and the anti-Americans, wherever Trump is automatically is the House Where Evil Dwells.

Continue reading →