Health and Medicine

Rep. Bart Stupak: Double-Reverse Ethics Dunce

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak has been wrong in so many ways lately it is hard to keep count. If you are going to be wrong, however, the ethical way is to have integrity and at least be consistent in your wrongness. He couldn’t even do that right. He did manage to become Ethics Alarms’ first Double-Reverse Ethics Dunce. That’s something.

First, Stupak staged a revolt in the House to insist that the original House health care reform bill didn’t wouldn’t mandate the use of taxpayer funds for abortions.

What was wrong with this?  Oh, only everything…. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Mark Levin

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Despite his on-air persona as a real-life version of the old SNL John Belushi bit on “Weekend Update” in which his rant on some issue always ended with him convulsing and hurling himself to the floor, Mark Levin is an attorney of some note, a scholar, and theoretically a couple of evolutionary steps above the typical right-wing radio screamer. Yet tonight he began yelling about how hypocritical it was for the Obamas to be preaching healthy life-styles “when his own doctor told him to stop drinking so much!” Now, that is simply untrue, as Ethics Alarms and others have thoroughly documented. Obama’s medical report did not recommend that he “moderate his drinking” as the Drudge Report erroneously reported, but rather recommended “moderation in alcohol intake,” which is boilerplate language for “a drink now and then is OK.” Even though the Drudge smear, accidental of not, made the rounds of the virulent Right media, there had been plenty of time to get the facts right, especially for someone like Levin, who is always mercilessly slamming Democrats for sloppy research and dishonest facts. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

“But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”

—-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in her speech before the 2010 Legislative Conference for National Association of Counties, dicussing the need to pass health care reform.

Many, including me, assumed that reports and YouTube clips of this comment were just typical examples of the increasingly common deceitful tactic of taking one sound bite out of context to make the speaker sound irresponsible or, in some cases, unhinged. But read the speech: Pelosi really is asking her audience to trust her, the House, Senate Democrats and President Obama to pass a sweeping, life-altering, expensive and vaguely defined law, that the legislators haven’t read and the public cannot begin to comprehend. Continue reading →

Essay: Ending the Bi-Partisan Effort to Destroy Trust in America

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Both the Pentagon shooter and the Texas I.R.S. attacker were motivated by a virulent distrust of the U.S. government, the distrust mutating into desperation and violence with the assistance of personal problems and emotional instability. We would be foolish, however, to dismiss the two as mere “wingnuts,” the current term of choice to describe political extremists who have gone around the bend. They are a vivid warning of America’s future, for the media, partisan commentators, the two political parties and our elected officials are doing their worst to convert all of us into wingnuts, and the results could be even more disastrous than the fanciful horrors the Left and the Right tell us that the other has planned for us. Continue reading →

Provocative Links for Ethical Weekend Reading

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Here is a diverse selection of five ethics-related posts from cyberspace for your weekend reading pleasure:

  • Christopher Hitchens analyzes, critiques and updates the Ten Commandments—and does an excellent job of all three, here.
  • Finally, a former Bush Justice Department official takes aim at the Republican attacks on the so-called “Al Qaeda Seven,” a despicable moniker apparently invented by Mary Cheney. There really is no debate here: the suggestion that attorneys who previously represented accused terrorists cannot be trusted to work in Justice is legally, ethically and logically ignorant. Still, it is good to have a Republican lawyer say so.

Drudge Gets Careless, and the Right Bites

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

The conservative blogosphere and Rightish talk radio hosts were all in a lather this morning: according to Matt Drudge’s “Drudge Report,” President Obama’s physicians “recommended” “moderation of alcohol intake”! What could that mean, they asked breathlessly, then with a snicker or two, except that “Mr. Perfect” has been hitting the sauce, raiding the liquor cabinet, and having one-too-many snorts of the ol’ hooch? After all, the doctors were telling the President to “moderate” his drinking habits, like you tell a hot-head to moderate his temper. Scoop! The President drinks too much! Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Johnny Depp

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Hollywood celebrities frequently lend their prominence and notoriety to causes that are dubious or even harmful; Jenny McCarthy’s passionate promotion of now-discredited links between vaccines and autism are a recent and disturbing example. At other times, celebrities assert expertise on complex topics far beyond their competence or comprehension; this was a theme in Michael Crichton’s attack on global warming hysteria, State of Fear. Johnny Depp, however, has got it right. As his highly anticipated film “Alice in Wonderland” is about to be released and he has the media following his every move, Depp is using his fame and following to focus attention on what may be an egregious miscarriage of justice.

It is the case of the West Memphis Three. In 1993, police discovered the bodies of  three 8-year-olds, and there was immediate speculation that their killings had been part of a satanic ritual. Satanic cults were big in 1993, and long-haired Damien Echols became a suspect as much for his demeanor and reputation as for anything substantive. Indeed, there was no evidence tying him to the crime until a cognitively impaired boy named Jessie Misskelly Jr. told police that he helped Echols and Jason Baldwin kill the boys. Continue reading →

TGIF Ethics Round-up: Killer Whales, Palin-Hatred, MagicJack and More

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Brief ethics notes on a wild week…

  • How dare the killer whale be a killer?…Tilikum, the killer whale who either playfully or maliciously killed his trainer at Orlando’s Sea World this week, will apparently stay in the facility. Some pundits (the ones I have heard were of the foaming-at-the-mouth conservative fanatic variety) regard it as absurd not to put down a murderous whale when a dog, bear or tiger that similarly ended a human life ( Tilikum may have ended three) would routinely be destroyed. One doesn’t have to be a PETA dues-payer to see this as advocacy for blatantly unfair retribution. Let’s see: Sea World takes a top-of-the-food-chain predator out of the oceans out of its natural environment, earns admission fees by making it perform tricks for the amusement of humans in a theme park, pays relatively tiny and fragile trainers to interact with the three ton beast, and when the predators does what it is naturally designed to do—kill—we blame the whale? Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

“Let me just make this point, John, because we’re not campaigning anymore.  The election is over.”

———-President Barack Obama at the so-called “Health Care Summit” at Blair House, in response to Sen. John McCain’s complaint that the process used to craft the Presidents’ health care reform bill expressly violated promises Obama made during the 2008 campaign. Continue reading →

A Looming Ethical Dilemma: Family Health Incentives

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Over at The Juggle, Sue Shellenbarger examines the increasing tendency of employers to attempt to control health care costs by encouraging behavior and life-style changes on the part of employees and their families. I think this is inevitable, but it opens up a slew of ethical issues. Do we really want our employers trying to influence how we eat, exercise,and spend our free time? On the other hand, do we give up the right to complain when we expect them to pay for our health problems, even those that are self-induced? Where do we want to draw the lines regarding what is acceptable employer interference among such measures as… Continue reading →