Quizzes

Ethics Quiz: Investigative Reporting Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

In this article, (Gift Link) a New York Times investigative reporter explains how he has cultivated a source that he knows is distributing illegal drugs that may be fatal.

He writes in part,

“It was a small-time operation, but one that illuminated a big point for our reporting: A single person, without cartel backing, can order and redistribute potent chemicals.

I wanted to verify his account with others. But I also had to make good on my commitment not to reveal his identity. So I compared the information he was giving me with reporting I’d done with dozens of experts and law enforcement officials who told me what they understood about this market. I also spoke to people in his circle of friends and associates.

All along, I was keenly aware that the drugs Chemical Analyst was selling can be fatal. I asked him about this — as I’d asked other dealers and suppliers — and he professed here to be a libertarian. As a human, I find it terrifying the drugs he sells could kill people. It was painful to watch him use drugs himself, and I often feared for his safety. But as a reporter, I have a responsibility to explain to the public what’s really happening on the drug frontier.”

This is different from most Ethics Quizzes here, because my position is set and unshakable. The reporter’s duty “to make good on [his] commitment not to reveal [the drug pusher’s] identity” must be subordinate to his duty to society as a citizen and responsible human being. Even lawyers are authorized to violate a clients’ confidentiality to prevent death or serious bodily injury to a third party. How many people should die so that the reporter can explain what’s happening on “the drug frontier?” My verdict: none.

The reporter says he’s talked to lawyers and other journalists as well as “experts” and law enforcement officials. I doubt that he has talked with any ethicists.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day(that I have already told you my answer to..) is…

Would it be ethical for the reporter sic the police on this criminal? Could it be ethical not to?

Ethics Quiz: The Mark Twain Prize Mess

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Although the exact sequence of events is in question, the basic fact seems clear: Bill Maher was given the impression that he had been selected for the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, but the offer, or the award, or the honor, was rescinded by President Trump, who has installed himself as the overseer of the Trump Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which decides which wits and comics are honored and that hosts the annual ceremony.

Maher is…annoyed. I don’t blame him. I don’t blame the President for not wanting to approve Maher getting the award either.

Bill Maher has been one of the cheap-shot artists who has compared the President to Hitler. He has made the indefensible claim that Trump is a hypocrite because he has married immigrants but opposes “immigration.” I have made it clear that I rank Maher as smug, unethical and lacking integrity, kind of like a stand-up version of Tucker Carlson. He is not half as smart as he evidently thinks he is, but is not without talent, not without career accomplishments, and on his merits, not unqualified for the Mark Twain Prize. Nor would he be the least justified recipient; that distinction would be a tie among Tina Fey, Julia Louis Dryefus and—yuck—Adam Sandler. Will Farrell was a weak choice as well.

The award is also permanently discredited by the many superior comics and wits it has snubbed since the awards began in 1998, such as Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Dave Barry, Larry Gelbart, Phyllis Diller, Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld, P.J. O’Roark, Joan Rivers, Robin Williams, Gene Wilder, Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, John Hughes and others.

The Mark Twain Prize didn’t take a hard partisan turn until it honored Letterman in 2017, Tina Fey (who was chosen then primarily because she mocked Sarah Palin) in 2018, then Jon Stewart in 2022. Maher can be counted on to stand up in the Kennedy Center and insult his putative host, if not call call Pam Bondi a “cunt,” as he is wont to do. I see good reasons why the President of the United States might choose not to allow that.

Politics ruins everything now, and it may be that partisan venom has made the Mark Twain Prize impossible to continue. I would say that would be too bad, if the award weren’t already corrupted and arbitrary.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is...

Was it unethical for Trump to block Bill Maher’s Mark Twain Prize?

Ethics Quiz: No Applause, No Applause, No Applause!

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Hmmmm…

In Tacoma Park, one of the most woke and wonderful communities in already insufferably progressive Maryland, Mayor Talisha Searcy ordered the crowd at a recent city council meeting not to applaud the various statements made by citizens as the council sought comments on a study regarding the city’s rent stabilization laws.

“I just want to make sure I’m learning about how to facilitate civility within a community,” the mayor said as she ordered the audience to “refrain from cheering, booing, signs, all that good stuff” as well as applauding. Many in the crowd were not pleased. When a spectator shouted that prohibiting clapping is “undemocratic,” the mayor delivered the stunning theory that “clapping for some and not all is not democratic” and that “we have to allow for people to feel safe to say what they feel.”

Okay, she’s an idiot, an ethics dunce, an expired hippie, and the most obnoxious species of progressive squish. These are the kinds of people,who demand that nobody at a meeting ever condemn even the most brain-dead idea because it might hurt the feelings of the dim bulb who offered it. Searcy is the kind of person who loves the passive-aggressive “I hear you” that usually means, “but I’m going to forget you ever said anything so stupid.”

There is no defending her claim that “clapping for some and not all” is undemocratic. However, I am interested in whether it is ever ethical to ban positive reactions, politely expressed.

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Ethics Quiz: Rep. Fine’s “Islamaphobic” Quote

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

Oh, I find this fascinating, especially in light of the previous post.

Nerdeen Kiswani, a Palestinian Muslim New Yorker and activist, said in a social media post that dog poop littered snowdrifts in the city proved that dogs should have no place in society as indoor pets because, she wrote, “like we’ve said all along, they are unclean.”

Responding to this obnoxious assertion of foreign values and priorities over American ones, Representative Randy Fine (R-Fla.) replied, “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”

Naturally the Mad Left exploded with horror and indignation, with the usual calls for the insensitive Republican’s resignation and worse. But the truth is, if we are being honest about our own culture and priorities, if every Muslim in the United States joined in a mass ultimatum stating, “This is non-negotiable. Either the United States gives up its dogs as house pets, or we’re leaving!” the overwhelming majority of Americans—including me—would say, “Gee, that’s a shame. Well, bye! Good luck in your future endeavors!”

The Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Was it unethical for Rep. Fine to say what he did?

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Ethics Quiz: The I.C.E. Endorsement

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Sarai Jimenez, a special education teaching intern at in Pajaro Valley School District’s Watsonville, California-based MacQuiddy Elementary, endorsed the presence of I.C.E. officers in her town in a comment on Facebook last month.

“Yay!!! We need ICE in Watsonville!! It’s been getting out of hand,” Jimenez wrote, as you can see above. But the parents in Pajaro Valley Unified School District, where 84% of students are Hispanic and, given California’s sanctuary state aspirations, might belong to families with one or more illegal immigrants, considered Jimenez’s support for ICE….that is, enforcement of U.S. law…unconscionable. Many complained, and Jimenez was placed on leave from her job in Pajaro Valley School District. It appears that she will be fired, if she hasn’t been already.

“You can’t just tell the world how you feel and not expect repercussions from people because of how they feel about I.C.E.,” local parent Jorge Guerrero said. If I were awake completely, which I’m not, I would compose several alternate versions of this statement with provocative substitutes for “I.C.E.”

Jimenez tried to save her job by groveling a politician-style denial rather than an apology,“I’m sorry that the comment was taken out of context,” she told reporters. “But my actions speak so much louder than all those hateful bullies’ words.” The hateful bullies are the ones who bombarded her with threats and insults until she took down her Facebook page. “You are a shameful disgraceful disgusting woman,” one critic wrote.

Predictably, though apparently not by the interning teacher, the school administrators sided with the bullies if not their methods (although firing someone for supporting law enforcement is a lot more harmful than insulting her).

MacQuiddy Elementary Principal Sara Pearman said in a statement that Jimenez’s comment “does not reflect the values” of the school or district.

Hmmmm…

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:

Is it ethical to fire Jimenez for expressing support for law enforcement officials doing their jobs?

I think this is a close call. Some points:

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Ethics Quiz: The United Nations

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

The New York Times reports (Gift link!) that the United Nations announced it was “facing imminent financial collapse and would run out of money by July” because the United States had not paid its annual dues for 2025. If the situation isn’t rectified, the U.N. will be forced to shut down its New York City headquarters this summer. Also in jeopardy: the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “which responds to global emergencies like conflicts and natural disasters.”

U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, sent a letter to all 196 member states warning of “imminent financial collapse.” “The crisis is deepening, threatening program delivery and risking financial collapse,” he wrote. “And the situation will further deteriorate in the near future. I cannot overstate the urgency of the situation we now face.”

The United Nations’ 2026 budget is $3.45 billion. That is supposed to cover what the U.N. calls its “three core pillars of work: peace and security, sustainable development and human rights.”

What has the U.N. done for “peace and security” lately? “Sustainable development”…sound like “climate change” to me. Human rights? The U.N. criticizes the United States for alleged human rights violation, while letting actual human rights atrocities.

The United States is entirely responsible for the current crisis, because 95% of the money owed to the United Nations is our share. And this is because the United States pays a ridiculously excessive share of the expenses of an organization that has increasingly done this nation little good and a great deal of harm for decades.

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Ethics Quiz: The Deranged Librarian

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

I know I still haven’t written the promised post defining standards for diagnosing Trump Derangement. In posts like these, however, I am amassing evidence.

Morgan L. Morrow, a 39 year-old librarian at Jackson County Public Library in Ravenswood, West Virginia, used her TikTok account to call for the murder of President Trump, writing, “Surely a sniper with a terminal illness can’t be a big ask out of 343 million.”

Then she really went on a roll with this mad screed:

“If you voted for him, if you didn’t vote, if you voted independent, genuinely, I hope you get shot in the face three times at point-blank range or I hope you get shot in the back while on your knees being pistol-whipped. If any part of you thinks that I wouldn’t say that if I knew who you are? I have a pretty good idea of who you are, you haven’t hidden your ignorant villainy nearly as well as you think you have. And I said what I said.

This isn’t intolerance or woke hatred, it’s reactionary. You had a hand in what is happening today and I can only hope that one day you suffer as much as the immigrants, the people of color, the LGBTQ+ people have suffered for generations and how much mothers and nurses are suffering right now because you actually condemned them to this injustice with your vote. We ‘told’ you what would happen and you ignored us. In 2016, I was ‘fear mongering’ and even when they described it to you point by point in Project 2025, you actively made the choice to be willfully idiotic. No, and I mean NO amount of apologies or excuses will ever earn my forgiveness. You are as stupid and evil as your red cap leader and I hope you rot in hell with him.”

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Ethics Quiz: The Despicable Representative From The Great State of South Carolina

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

This is a bit of departure from the usual Ethics Alarms quiz. I’m not going to ask whether conduct is ethical or not, or what the ethical response is to a particular conflict or dilemma. No, I’m going to ask what a fair and proportionate description would be of the latest vile, racist crap emitted by this serial hate-mongering demagogue.

That’s Rep. James Clyburn—recognize him? He took credit for getting Joe Biden nominated in 2020, and thus has blood on his hands from the carnage out country has suffered from four years of governance by faceless, unelected woke bureaucrats pulling the strings of a senile President. Gee, thanks, Jim!

Check out Clyburn’s EA dossier, easily one of the most damning short of Nancy Pelosi or the late Rep. Barbara Lee. Clyburn’s 85 now, and an “icon,” because he marched with Martin Luther King (but then so did Marion Barry). But he’s always been an flagrant anti-white racist and hyper-partisan liar. Nonetheless, Clyburn topped himse;f while appearing in “The View,” which itself is showing symptoms of dementia. He told the ignorant ladies, and the even more ignorant viewers who watch their daily idiocy, that the modern GOP is trying to bring back slavery. “Anything that’s happened before can happen again,” Clyburn said, as the Trump Deranged of “The View” sat rapt, as if at the feet of the Buddha. “They were trying to set up a process that will allow this country to return to what it was in 1876 when the election got thrown into the House of Representatives and they were able to overturn what Abraham Lincoln and the Congress had done successfully getting rid of slavery. That is what they’re attempting to do today. I get sick and tired of hearing people say this ‘it’s never been like this before,’ Yes, it has!”

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Ethics Quiz: The Woke Law Dean

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Why this has morphed into “Dubious University Firings Friday” I don’t know, but here goes…

The University of Arkansas rescinded its appointment of Emily Suski (above), a professor of law and Associate Dean for Strategic Institutional Priorities (whatever that’s supposed to mean) at the the University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law, as its new University of Arkansas Law School dean. It had previously announced on January 9 that Suski would become dean on July 1, beginning a five-year contract with a $350,000 annual salary, according to The New York Times.  At the time, University of Arkansas provost Indrajeet Chaubey praised Suski’s “extensive experience in leadership roles in legal education and practice” and said she “is an accomplished scholar” who “has also been very successful in establishing medical-legal partnerships in South Carolina to support children’s health and overall well-being.”

Sounds great! Then an Arkansas state senator and others registered their objections to Suski based on her stated support for trans female athletes competing against biological women in women’s sports, and the fact that she was among 850 law professors who signed a letter urging the US Senate to confirm the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.

In response, university officials announced that they had rescinded Suski’s offer because of “feedback from key external stakeholders.” It appears that the school acted because of veiled threats from Republican state legislators that having such a progressive law dean would endanger the University’s funding from the state. (“Nice little law school you have here…be a shame if anything were to happen to it…”) After all, Arkansas law was the first state in the US to ban “gender-affirming care”—gag!— for minors. 

I’m about 85% certain what the right answer to this one is, but out of respect for that 15% of doubt,

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Was it fair and responsible to dump the new dean because of two public positions on controversial legal topics?

It’s Time To Play That Exciting Game Show, “Worth Confronting or Too Trivial To Bitch About?”!

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Hello everybody! I’m your ethics game show host Wink Smarmy, and welcome to “Worth Confronting or Too Trivial To Bitch About?”,” the popular ethics game show where our contestants try to decide whether clearly unethical conduct is worth only a shrug and a giggle, or is serious enough to try to stop.

Here’s our special guest, Touchy McCrankface, with the problem he encountered recently…

“Hello, panel. My name is is Touchy McCrankface. For some reason I am still a Facebook user despite that platform banning my favorite blog Ethics Alarms for almost two years because one of their censors decided that it was racist to even discuss the topic of blackface’s appearance in some classic movies. When a Facebook friend  I actually care about has allowed his or her birthday to be announced on Facebook, I will sometimes, as I am prompted, wish that friend a “Happy Birthday.”

“I do not use the stupid and juvenile pre-programmed emojis Facebook tries to stick on my message, the little cakes, candles and party hats. Recently I sent just such a birthday message to an old friend. Let’s call him “Mike.”

After I sent my “Happy Birthday”,  Facebook sent me the equivalent of a receipt. I have no idea why. Maybe it has always done this, but I’ve never noticed one before, or if I have, I never bothered to read one. The message to me read,

“You wished Michael XXXXX a happy birthday on their profile.”

This, frankly, ticked me off. First of all, I knew that. But most of all, I don’t use the pronouns “they” and “their” for single individuals, as in “non-conjoined twins.” If you seem to be male to me, I will use the pronouns “You/he/him. If you seem to be female, I will use “You/she/her.” If I can’t tell, I won’t use any pronoun, constructing a sentence so that “misgendering” isn’t necessary, since men and boys don’t typically like being mistaken for women and girls, and vice-versa. If someone informs me that “he” wants to be refereed to as “she,” that’s fine: I aim to please. Similarly with 250 pound bearded bald guys who want to be called “she.” I’ll call you a pangolin or an Archaeopteryx if that’s what you want, as long as you don’t try to make me eat insects or worms with you. (Archaeopteryx is described as an “early bird,” and as we all know, the early bird catches the worm.)

But I will NOT agree to utter a grammatical monstrosity by using a plural pronoun in reference to one individual. And if you tell me you haven’t decided on your gender, or that it switches back and forth without warning, I will respond, most politely, “Please let me know when you make up your mind or get psychiatric help. Until then, you’ll be “him” or “her” to me.

But back to Facebook….My friend Mike has been married trice, has two grown kids and is as male and heterosexual, as well as unambiguously so, as anyone I have ever met. Who or what is Facebook to impose a plural pronoun on him, or to suggest that it is appropriate to do so in either his case or anyone’s case? 

I view this as subtle cultural indoctrination regarding a societal practice that is at best a stupid fad and at worst ‘grooming’.” 

Thanks, Touchy! Before I throw the challenge over to you, contestants, let me ask our resident ethicist, Jack Marshall, about Touchy’s dilemma. Jack, is this worth bitching about?

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