Here are some quick links and observations to get your ethical juices going this Sunday… Continue reading
Leadership
Exceptionalism and the United States of America’s Grand Ethical Dilemma
Today’s morning headlines were full of violence in Syria, Bahrain, Libya, and the threat of new conflict in Egypt, as popular uprisings against entrenched dictatorships continue to grow. As the U.S. tries to somehow avoid a lead role in the international intervention in Libya, the question looms regarding its responsibility to other nations whose people yearn to be free—or at least freer. As important as what America ultimately decides to do will be for the futures of these nations, the U.S. economy, and foreign relations, something far more important is at stake. These difficult choices once again challenge the United States to affirm or reject its ideals, the very essence of what has made America what it is.
We have come to these crossroads four times before. Continue reading
Final Ethics Verdict on TSA’s Feel-Up Pat-down
I was flying this week, and the security procedures were smoother than ever. Now I am certain that my molestation at check points last year was unethical, and have sufficient evidence to conclude that it was based on government incompetence and willful disregard for my comfort, dignity, and rights. I am also wondering, more than ever, if the ardent, supposedly liberal defenders of the indefensible feel-up pat-downs have learned anything about the dangers of blind government obeisance and partisan loyalty. I hope so.
The saga so far: Continue reading
Ethics Quiz Time! Which Euphemism Is More Unethical?
Ethics Alarms hates euphemisms, which are usually not intended as delicate ways of describing something controversial, but rather an unethical effort to hide its true nature. Affirmative action…pro-life… pro-choice….all cowardly, all designed to deceive and avoid accountability for one’s actions and views.
Today’s quiz involves a brand new euphemism, cooked up by the Obama administration to describe warfare in Libya that the administration doesn’t want to admit is warfare: kinetic military action!
The Quiz:
Which euphemism is more unethical?
A
“Enhanced interrogation” for torture (The Bush Administration)
or
B
“Kinetic military action” for warfare (The Obama Administration)
Here is how to reach your decision: rank A and B in each of three categories…misrepresentation, cowardice, and degree of disrespect and contempt for the intelligence of the American public. First place is worth one point; second gets none. If you rate the category a tie, each gets one-half a point.
Good luck. By the way: there is no wrong answer, since both euphemisms are disgraceful. But let’s see if there is any consensus. I’ll reveal my answer later.
Ethics Star and Ethics Hero Emeritus: Elizabeth Taylor, 1932-2011
You did good, kid! Thanks.
I appreciated Elizabeth Taylor, who died yesterday, as a movie star, though I was never a fan. That she was astonishingly beautiful, there is no doubt, an actress who defined the word “voluptuous” when it didn’t mean”implants.” Like many of the Golden Age stars, acting was secondary with Taylor, who had such on-screen presence that she could steal a movie ( “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”) from the likes of Paul Newman, Burl Ives, Judith Anderson, and yes, Tennessee Williams by just lounging around in a slip. Her best adult performance was probably her first, “A Place in the Sun”; her Oscars were more or less frauds, the first (“Butterfield 8”) as a film community gesture of sympathy for her health problems, and the second, for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” as one of those nods for playing against type without embarrassing yourself that Hollywood likes to bestow on its favorites. Continue reading
Face-to-Face With a Subject
In February, my monthly legal ethics course for the D.C. Bar had a surprising attendee: former Senator Arlen Specter. I didn’t realize he was among the attendees until the break, when he walked up to me, looking like the photo of him I had placed in a PowerPoint presentation the very night before. He had a big smile, and barely gave me a chance to blurt out, “Hello, Senator,” before he grabbed my hand in a steel grip, pumped it, looked directly into my eyes, said, “Good job!” and slapped me enthusiastically on the back. Continue reading
Ethics Heroes: NFL Owners
The less THIS happens, the better.
I was wrong about the N.F.L.
On Tuesday, the N.F.L. owners voted to move kickoffs back to the 35-yard line, where it was until 1994. The new rule will make the game less exciting but more safe. I didn’t think they’d do it.
The league has a problem—I mean, other than the impasse in labor negotiations that threatens to disrupt the coming season and lose owners and athletes millions. Its game is more popular than ever, but little by little, the evidence is mounting that it is also lethal. Playing pro football injures the brains of a higher percentage of the athletes than anyone suspected, and far worse than suspected. Players are quite literally sacrificing their lives, or at least two or three decades of them, for the Sunday entertainment of America. Continue reading
Ethics Hero: Tampa Bay Rays Manager Joe Maddon
Joe Maddon, fulfilling his duty to confront racist jerks
During a Sunday Spring Training game at Charlotte Sports Park in Florida, Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon heard a fan berating Rays centerfielder B.J. Upton with a racial insult. Maddon summoned stadium security and had the fan thrown out of the park.
This may have happened before, but I can’t recall a similar incident. Racist catcalls and epithets are rarer at baseball games than they once were; they are far from gone. Baseball players have to endure a certain amount of abuse, true, but not this kind. Heaping racist insults on an athlete from the safety of the stands is cowardly as well as uncivil, and the First Amendment doesn’t extend to “fighting words” in a private venue. Every manager, coach, usher and spectator should follow Madden’s lead.
The fan, by the way, denies Maddon’s account. Since baseball managers are not in the habit of ejecting fans for nothing, I find the denial less than credible.
To Wisconsin Unions, a Depressed Woman’s Suicide Is Just Another PR Weapon
"Oh, no. Poor ..hey, wait a minute! We just might be able to use this!"
“The ends justify the means,” for better or worse, has always been the modus operandi of the American union movement. Back at the beginning of the 20th Century, this often translated into violence, as union leaders used bombs and murder to counter equally vile tactics—or worse—by their industry foes. Union violence is more common today in the threatening than in the actual execution, but the public unions battling Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin have made it increasingly clear that ethics, fairness and truth are not going to stand in the way of their objectives, particularly the objective of winning the battle for public support.
A new low may have been reached with the effort to blame Walker for the suicide of Jeri-Lyn Betts, a 57-year-old teacher suffering from chronic depression, who apparently committed suicide last week. Continue reading
Obama’s Social Security Cover-Up, as the Media Snoozes
USA Today ran a sensible editorial a couple of weeks ago calling for the Obama administration to stop cravenly caving to groups like the AARP, Congressional Democrats, and increasingly, liberal/progressive commentators who claim that Social Security isn’t really a budgetary problem. The fiction: since Social Security has received more from taxpayers than it has had to pay out since 1983, the Social Security Trust Fund has built up a whopping $2.5 trillion, guaranteeing enough to meet the program’s obligations ( despite yearly deficits, now that the population is senior-heavy) until the money is scheduled to run out in 2037. The truth: the trust is empty. Congress had raided it regularly for non-Social Security spending, so now the yearly Social security deficits (37 billion dollars last year, a projected 45 to 57 billion in 2011, and a half trillion total in the decade underway) are putting a direct burden on the already reeling Federal budget.
Good for USA Today: this is responsible, public-spirited journalism. the public has heard so many lies from politicians and elected officials about Social Security that it is thoroughly misinformed and confused, and an informative, unbiased editorial from the nation’s most read newspaper is exactly what is needed. But the Obama administration couldn’t handle the truth, so it trotted out White House Budget Director Jacob Lew, who denied that there was a problem, writing in response… Continue reading
