How’s this for an aftermath: thanks to the U.S.’s full embrace of alcohol, its social value and its offsetting pathologies, it is the leading cause of traffic fatalities. Indeed, drinking combined with driving kills about one person every 52 minutes here according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, leading to more than 10,000 lives lost each year. Of course, that doesn’t include that many thousands of lives negatively affected by these avoidable accidents, or those scarred, maimed and crippled despite having survived. September 10, 1897 marks the first arrest for drunk driving. London taxi driver George Smith was charged after crashing his cab into a building. Smith pleaded guilty and was fined 25 shillings. Nobody was harmed. The first U.S. laws alcohol-impaired driving went into effect in 1910. A professor of biochemistry and toxicology,patented the “Drunkometer” in 1936, and in 1953, Robert Borkenstein invented the Breathalyzer, an improved version that we still use today. Almost everyone I know has driven under the influence of alcohol at one time or another. Most never consider that the only reason they didn’t hurt or kill someone is that intervention of moral luck.
1. “Jurassic World: Dominion” ethics. I mentioned the latest in the “Jurassic Park” franchise in a negative context here, but the fact is that I saw the movie and enjoyed it very much. The film is now considered a conundrum wrapped in an enigma: it is going to soon pass a billion dollars in box office worldwide, and it has the worst reviews and most negative audience reactions of any of the six films in the line. There is a good reason for that: the plot is ridiculous, the sub-plots are even more ridiculous, and the dialogue is hackneyed and moronic. Continue reading →
The panic is all mine: this really had to be a productive and efficient day, and it wasn’t: life, clients and chaos all got in the way. Now I’m facing down a serious deadline and running out of time.
Nonetheless, Ethics Alarms will not be denied.
This is an unusually relevant landmark ethics date: On September 8, 1974,President Gerald Ford infuriated Richard Nixon’s many enemies and pardoned him for any crimes he may have committed or participated in while President. It was a uniquely courageous act that defined (and probably doomed) Ford’s Presidency. In my view, it was also the right and and wise thing to do. Ford, like Joe Biden, was an undistinguished career politician and hardly a towering intellect, but unlike Biden, he understood what was in the best long-term interests of the nation. Democrats made him defend this controversial action before the House Judiciary Committee, and Ford said he wanted to end the national divisions created by the Watergate scandal. To this day, there are still those who believe that he cut a corrupt deal with Nixon when he was appointed. Ford was well aware that the pardon would place his leadership under a permanent shadow. “Mister we could use a man like Gerald Ford again!”
1. Since you mention it...I was going to ignore D-list celeb Kathy Griffin’s comment yesterday that “If you don’t want a Civil War, vote for Democrats in November. If you do want Civil War, vote Republican,” mainly because, like Alyssa Milano, Bette Midler, Rob Reiner and so many others, nobody should care what Kathy Griffin says, tweets or thinks. But commenter Willem Reesewrote, “Were she a sentient creature, she might have realized that her statement was an admission that it is democrats who are prone to violence when they don’t get what they want.” I can’t let that pass. I think Griffin said what she meant, and that it was a threat. She was also correct: Democrats have proven that their current breed believes in violence as the appropriate reaction to events, elections and decisions they disagree with. I fully expect riots if the GOP takes Congress. Griffin is vile and revolting, but she’s not stupid.
Close calls: I recently stumbled upon some polling from the period preceding World War II regarding the American public’s position on whether the U.S. should fight Germany. Here’s the most depressing of the surveys:
Another set of figures, from Gallup, are a bit better. These old survey results lead to the following notes:
What would the world be like today if Japan had not attacked Pearl Harbor, and Hitler had not preemptively declared war on the U.S.? The attack might be one of the best examples I know of how a terrible event can lead to an objectively beneficial outcome: moral luck exemplified.
Karine Jean-Pierre, who speaks for the White House, said last week that “when you are not with where a majority of Americans are, then, you know, that is extreme.”
You know: polls.
1. I did not know this, and I’m now sorry I do. But not especially surprised: a Pew survey from 2019 revealed that the “U.S. has world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households.” I see no reason for the data to have improved in three years, do you? And, of course, the reason this terrible condition exists is for the reason discussed frequently here: an elimination of crucial ethical norms because the society decided that it was more important not to shame or stigmatize irresponsible and damaging conduct than to minimize it. The consequences flowing from this failure in maintaining ethical standards is wide-ranging, disastrous, and too extensive to analyze here. Continue reading →
1. More on Biden’s speech…I finally read the text of President Biden’s speech; it was even worse than I expected. What kind of advisors would let a President make such a speech? What kind of President would deliver it rather than fire the speechwriter and whoever advocated saying such stuff in public? It says something significant about the distribution of partisan extremism in the media that CNN and MSNBC would be the only networks to broadcast it, yet, ironically, as true blue propagandists, they should have embargoed the speech for their party’s own good. Fox News should have wanted to broadcast it. It’s the best marketing for the Republican Party I’ve ever seen.
Because there is, as the saying goes, no reason to re-invent the wheel, I’m going to send you over to Althouse for her section-by-section analysis, which is close enough to mine to make a parallel post here a waste of time. A sample:
There are far more Americans, far more Americans from every background and belief, who reject the extreme MAGA ideology than those that accept it.
His version of the soul of America represents what “far more” Americans think, so — what? — screw those other people? Something like 47% of voters voted for Trump, but even if the Trump voters were more dramatically overwhelmed by throngs of more “normal” people, they are still part of the population. Or maybe it’s not about excluding everyone who’s not in the majority. Maybe it’s about rejecting them because they have “extreme MAGA ideology.” What is “extreme MAGA ideology”? Desire for a secure border? Pro-life? Really, what are the elements that Biden envisions as not worthy of debate but justifying denouncement as not normal and not mainstream?
And folks, it’s within our power, it’s in our hands, yours and mine, to stop the assault on American democracy….
It seems to me that it’s within our power to participate in democracy and vote. Where is this “assault”? Why in the name of all that is normal and mainstream is he conjuring up violence — an “assault”? It’s going on right now. Don’t you see it? The “assault” I see is the effort to keep Donald Trump from running again. If the overwhelming majority of Americans reject his “extreme MAGA ideology,” what’s the problem? Let him run and he will be defeated.
Ann calls the speech “disturbing and incoherent.” I’d call it dangerous and irresponsible. Continue reading →
“I can sum it up in 7 words: We the People, but not you people.”
—–Allegedly non-partisan blogger Ann Althouse (she’s a Democrat), providing a preview of her soon to be posted review of Biden’s “soul of the nation” speech.
As soon as I read that Biden was going to give a prime-time speech on the peril to the “soul of the nation,” I knew exactly what was coming, what motivated it (panic and desperation, plus terrible advisers), and what it would be: the ultimate IIPTDXTTNMIAFB.
And wildly unethical, of course: irresponsible, disrespectful, unfair, and un-American, as well as hypocritical, indeed a betrayal, from a leader who promised on his Inaugeration Day, “We can join forces, stop the shouting and lower the temperature. For without unity there is no peace, only bitterness and fury. No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos. This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward.”
Was I wrong?
I haven’t read the various pundits about the speech yet, and I haven’t read the text yet; I have a doctor’s appointment and I don’t want to be nauseous. I am curious about whether any of the usual Biden cheer-leaders will have the integrity to state the obvious, and what was obvious the second the speech was announced. This is deliberate divisiveness. It is the essence of totalitarian messaging; it is more fascist in intent and substance than anything Donald Trump ever did or said.
Haven’t heard from Jimmy for a while…my late father’s favorite performer.(I liked him a lot too; still do.)
August 2022 was a rotten month ethically, for the nation, business-wise, for my family, for the Red Sox. I’m glad to see it go.
The opinion of national security law expert Bradley Moss after analyzing the DOJ’s filing in the Mar-a-Lago documents case is that Trump illegally retained classified documents, delayed, obstructed and resisted government efforts to recover them, and concealed the records from investigators, or at least there is enough evidence of that to support an indictment. Yet unnamed sources are telling reporters that “under DOJ policy, no investigative steps will be taken 60 days before an election,” which would be September 10 this year, so if they are going to indict, they better hustle.
Of course, they won’t. They didn’t even hustle in raiding Trump’s abode, though supposedly doing so was a matter of national security. But Donald Trump is not a public official, nor is he a political candidate in the 2018 election for any office. That alleged policy shouldn’t be a factor at all, unless the Biden Justice Department thinks that indicting Trump will mean more Republican votes. A policy directive issued in 2012 states, “[l]aw enforcement officers and prosecutors may never select the timing of investigative steps or criminal charges for the purpose of affecting any election, or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.” Well, delaying indicting him or indicting him would both violate this guideline. It is how Obama’s Justice Department managed to look like it was gaming the election regarding Hillary Clinton, not that it would ever do such a thing intentionally.
If Justice has the goods and the guts, then the ethical thing is to indict the former President now. Imagine if John Roberts had announced that the Supreme Court would hold off on its Dobbs decision until after the November elections.
1. Following this story: Indiana University Northwest in Gary fired Mark McPhail, a tenured professor of communication who was the institution’s chief academic officer, in 2021. An administrator accused McPhail of having said “the solution to racism is to kill all white people.” Yes, McPhail is black. The American Association of University Professors announced this week that it is investigating Indiana University because the school “terminated his appointment based on allegations of misconduct that Prof. McPhail sharply denies, contending that the administration acted in retaliation for his outspoken criticism of the institution, including formal and informal complaints about discrimination and racial inequity on campus.” AAUP standards on tenure require that dismissal for cause must be preceded by an adjudicative hearing before an elected faculty body. McPhail was allegedly terminated without such due process.
Then another metaphorical shoe dropped: the ex-professor was appointed interim provost of Linfield University in McMinnville, Oregon, which is passing strange when the new hire is battling claims that he wants to kill white people. But this is Oregon, so there’s that. Linfield has its own problems. Its administration has been fighting with its faculty after the school abruptly terminated a tenured Jewish professor last year following his tweets calling out the university’s handing of sexual-misconduct allegations against several members of the board. About that: after sexual abuse charges were made by students against a former trustee in 2020, faculty members voted 88 to 18 on a motion of no confidence in David C. Baca, the chair of the college’s board of trustees.The board continued to support Baca. An outside agency is investigating another claim , this one by a faculty member, of “inappropriate touching” by two trustees.
I woke up with a headache, I have to read a really boring document before an upcoming conference call, and I woke myself up with an anxiety attack. It’s a perfect time, in other words, to react to a typical batch of morning New York Times headlines. Like…
“Mary Peltola, a Democrat, Defeats Sarah Palin in Alaska’s Special House Election”
Comment: Good! Palin has a lot of gall running for office anywhere, but especially Alaska, after she quit as governor for no good reason, unless one considers cashing-in a good reason. I am still looking for a clear explanation of how the ranked voting scheme worked in this election. It seems that the system provides an edge to the hateful, and also allows the gaming of democracy.
“Lea Michele Is Well Aware That the Pressure Is On”
Comment: She should be. The former “Glee” star exploited her agent’s betrayal of another client, Beanie Feldstein, to snatch away the lead role in Broadway’s bombing “Funny Girl” revival. It was show-biz treachery worthy of “All About Eve.” (I hope she falls on her metaphorical face.)
“An Apple Watch for Your 5-Year-Old? More Parents Say Yes.”
Comment: More parents have money to burn, apparently, and an appalling lack of common sense. But the watch has proven largely useless for adults, so maybe 5-year-old is the right market.
“‘Defund the Police’ Is Dead. Now What?”
Comment: Now what? Oh, I don’t know, maybe progressives are slowly returning to sanity? We know Charles M. Blow isn’t (that’s the headline of his latest column, one that doesn’t mention Donald Trump at all, amazingly.). He ends his lament, “I fear that the signal we are sending to all the people who truly believed that there would finally be real change in policing and the possibility of more equity in our criminal justice system is that racial equity is a tertiary issue, that it is lower than people want to admit on the social hierarchy of policy priorities. We will regret that.”
“The Man Behind Our Public Schools Would Be So Disappointed Today”
Comment: Yeah, I’d say that’s a safe bet.
“Children Need the Whole Truth About America”
Comment: Because the “whole truth’ about America is so clear and settled. Translation: “Children need to be indoctrinated before they have the critical thinking to analyze the complexities of their nation themselves.”
“The Pandemic Erased Two Decades of Progress in Math and Reading”
Comment: Not the pandemic. The disastrous, incompetent, ill-considered, destructive and quite possibly politically motivated lock-down in response to the pandemic. Lest we forget…
[The caption on perhaps my favorite Charles Addams cartoon reads, “We never could have done it without him.”]
I thought that the essay on “quiet quitting” would spark a good discussion, and when I think that, I’m usually wrong. This time I was right, and among the excellent comments was this Comment of the Day by Tim Hayes, who focuses on the crucial aspect of the issue that I barely touched on at all: the responsibilities of management.
So, full disclosure, I hate the terminology and discussions around “quiet quitting”, both as a manager, and as an employee. Part of this is because it is unethical – but also part of it is because a lot of current discussions seem to be about deflections and doublespeak, and they just frankly aren’t doing anyone any good.
Some instances of quiet quitting are simply laziness on the part of the employee – this shouldn’t surprise us (I can make a strong argument that laziness when possible is actually a biological predisposition, and furthermore beneficial to societies when channeled appropriately), and while performing excellently is a virtue, and should be a path to success, it is not a necessity in all things. The American experiment, and indeed all civilizations (Western and Eastern), have gotten along just fine with the majority of individuals being mediocre – the trick has historically lay in defining mediocre as still sufficiently productive to support a society when the majority of its members are at that level, while allowing those who wish to perform exceptionally to do so. So, in the situation where quiet quitting is about laziness, the only major question to be answered is what constitutes acceptable levels of performance in the role at hand, and have those been adequately defined and communicated to the person in that role.
This is why I hate hearing the discussions as a manager – they almost always ignore that there is a failure of leadership/management in these cases. If I have someone who is performing the job as I’ve described it to them, and is actually meeting my set standards for acceptable levels of performance, yet their performance of their responsibilities is insufficient in some way, then it is axiomatic that I have failed to define as acceptable the levels of performance that are sufficient to fulfill my need. If, conversely, I have described acceptable levels of performance and the person is not meeting them, and so my business needs are not being met, than I am failing to hold this person to the standards I have set. Continue reading →
President Biden announced last week that he will unilaterally forgive $10,000 in student debt for those making less than $125,000 annually. Pell Grant recipients will receive $20,000 in debt repayment funds if their income is below the $125,000 threshold. Administration officials claim that no individual or household in the top 5% of earners get any financial assistance from the program.
Well….
1. As we have learned to expect from the administration that was supposed to be a breath of fresh air after all those Trump lies, we cannot get an honest statement of what the Biden loan forgiveness vote-buying scheme will really cost. The official number has been $300 billion. The National Taxpayers Union Foundation issued an analysis earlier this week estimating that the student loan erasure will add nearly $330 billion to the deficit over the next decade. The Committee for a Responsible Budget puts the cost of the handouts at between $440 billion and $600 billion. The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business estimates that the program will cost up to $1 trillion. Biden’s paid liar and unofficial village idiot (but she’s the first village idiot to be “of color, female, and a lesbian, and that’s what counts), White House Press Secretary Jean-Pierre, explains with her typical precision, “All of this as when it comes to costs will also depend on how many of the loans canceled were actually expected to be repaid.”
What do we call organizations that commit to a huge expense without knowing what it will cost…
2. …Or how it will be paid for? Administration officials say the program is “fully paid for” through “deficit reduction,” as the government will be spending less money that it did when it was leaking trillions in ad hoc federal spending to combat the Wuhan virus. Thus we are hearing doubletalk like this, from Bharat Ramamurti, the deputy director of the National Economic Council (and he is, I believe, the first deputy director of the National Economic Council of Indian descent!):
Ethics Alarms 