Law & Law Enforcement

Ethics Alarms: the News, the Web, and Other Things

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Why People Think the Media is Biased, Reason 61,567: Chris Matthews recently mocked new Mass. GOP Senator Scott Brown for signing a book deal to write his autobiography. “Didn’t people used to write their memoirs after their careers?” Matthews sneered. Gee, Chris, I don’t know: Weren’t you extravagant in your praise for Sen. Barack Obama’s autobiography, published before he was half-way through his first term?

How Writers Are Different From Lawyers: A free-lance writer lays out her ethical principles here, which includes not lending her talents to causes she doesn’t believe in. She is on firm ground, because citizens don’t have a Constitutional right to have their ideas professionally communicated to the world. Citizens do and must have the right to use the laws of their country for their own benefit, however, and to have the best representation possible when they are accused of crimes. That is why we can make judgments about a writer’s principles based on her choice of clients, but to do the same with lawyers is an attack on the principles of democracy. Continue reading →

Gawker Asks: “Why Were the Democrats So Ethical?”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

One could hardly find a more illuminating window into the unethical political and media culture festering in this country than to read today’s “scoop” on (yecch!) Gawker, the celebrity-stalking, rumor-mongering website that makes TMZ look like The Economist.  Its breathless lead:

“Did you know that Scott Brown—the new star Republican Senator—was accused of harassing a female campaign worker in 1998? We have the documents to prove it. Did the Democrats blow an opportunity to keep their 60th Senate seat?” Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Itawamba County, Miss. School Board; Ethics Hero: Constance McMillan

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

It will be interesting, as well as depressing, to see how many innocent bystanders are injured as various institutions and organizations emulate Washington D.C.’s Catholic Charities’ “solution” to its objection to  gay Americans having legally enforced rights to do what anyone else can. That organization’s draconian solution was that if a benefit can’t be withheld from gays, then the benefit isn’t worth giving. Thus, because it believed that providing health benefits to the now legally recognized same-sex spouses of gay employees would imply endorsement of conduct it considers sinful, the charity eliminated spousal benefits for all new employees, harming the innocent to show contempt for…well, the innocent.

Who could pass up logic and justice like that? Not the Itawamba County, Miss. school board! Continue reading →

Solution to the Starbucks Gun Controversy: Try Ethics!

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Starbucks is under fire from anti-gun advocates for its policy of allowing patrons in states that permit open carrying of firearms to sip their espresso with guns on their hips. This has, of course, provoked the usual high dudgeon from Second Amendment supporters, NRA members, conservative media, and—who knows?—maybe a few postal workers getting ready to blow. Continue reading →

Public Privacy and the Ubiquitous Camera

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Everybody has a camera…well, almost everybody. Thanks to cell phones, we can be recorded in still or video formats almost every second of the day. We are our own Big Brother.  So much so, in fact, that it is hard to muster too much fright and indignation over increasing use of public cameras by the government. Boston police, for example, now have immediate access to street video of shootings, robberies, and homicides on many city streets, and use real time images to send information about the suspects and crimes to responding officers. Continue reading →

Neighborhood Ethics and the Snow Babe

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

It’s time to play “Who’s the Worse Neighbor?”!

It’s clear that the media take on the New Jersey story about the risqué snow sculpture will favor the snow-artist neighbor and ridicule the Puritanical neighbors, but the ethics fouls may be on the other side.

A brief summary: a woman and her son used the ample snow on their lawn and the their substantial sculpting talents to make a life-size, headless, armless, torso and trunk of a rather well endowed naked woman instead of the more traditional Frosty the Snowman. If this  “came to life one day,”  that traffic cop would arrest it for indecent exposure. 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.

Fashion Ethics: Stealing Is Good

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Where is it ethical to be unethical?

In the Bizarro world of high fashion, apparently, where making knock-offs of famous name designer dresses is a huge industry, and the original designers get neither recognition not profit from the illicit use of their creations. The practice is obviously unfair and dishonest, but not so obviously, good for the health of the fashion industry, according to an article by law professors Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman on the Freakonimics website. They write: Continue reading →

Premature Ethics Alarm on Obama’s Judicial Appointment

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Republicans are sounding an ethics alarm tonight.

“Obama Now Selling Judgeships for Health Care Votes?” shouts the Weekly Standard website, and it’s clear The Standard thinks it knows the answer. After all, as the President was meeting with ten House Democrats who voted against the health care bill in November,  the White House sent out a press release announcing that Obama had nominated Scott M. Matheson, Jr. to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. And the nominee’s brother,  Rep. Jim Matheson of Utah, is one of the recalcitrant ten.

Hmmmm. Looks shady, no? Continue reading →