U.S. Society

Now THIS Is Incivility!

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments
"Thank you, counselors. We will proceed to fucking closing statements."

“Thank you, counselors. We will proceed to fucking closing statements.”

I just saw a  local Boston TV ad for Ace Tickets. The slogan at the end was “Sit your Ace down!” So clever! Just throw gratuitous vulgarity into a commercial during a baseball game, doubtlessly viewed by many children, because it’s inherently amusing. The message is that vulgarity is cool, clever and acceptable. Other messages in the media, both in advertising and in pop culture, convey the same permissive standards regarding obscenity. Over on the Drudge Report, a much-admired news aggregator for  political junkies, especially on the right, no mention of Anthony Weiner’s annoying candidacy for Mayor of New York is made without a cheap “weiner” joke. Today, Drudge noted that Weiner was “inching up” in the polls. Get it? HAR!  Just under that “gag,” the news that men favored Weiner in polling was headlined “Male Enhancement.” Soooo witty!  The U.S. is being transformed into one huge junior high school. After growing up in such a vulgar, undignified, sleazy environment, the next generation won’t be prone to inadvertently use words like “fuck” and “shit” in public forums such as live award shows and TV interviews, like our current politicians, newscasters and celebrities. They’ll just use them intentionally, all the time. Won’t that be cool? I’m sure David Letterman thinks so. Cool Dave had A.J. Clemente, he of uttering “fucking shit” on the airways in his debut as a news anchor, as a guest on his show. Dave suggested to A.J. that his ex-bosses were jerks to fire him. Good point Dave! A.J. was just ahead of his time. In a decade or so, “fucking shit” may be the sign-off of the next generation’s Walter Cronkite.

Maybe less than  a decade. Note this account, in a court opinion, of a lawyer’s conduct before a magistrate: Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Ethics Hero: David Blankenhorn, Former Same-Sex Marriage Opponent”

/ Jack Marshall / 52 Comments

eeyore1

In many ways, I love this post. I love it because it is passionate and serious, and from the heart, and because I am certain that it reflects what many Americans, especially those of a certain age, feel with frustration and a little fear and anger.  I also agree with much of what it concerns, the lack of respect for accumulated wisdom in many aspects of the culture, and the rush to discard old standards not because they have failed us, but just because they are old. The comment comes from a regular commentator, Eeyoure (not his real name, you’ll be relieved to learn, and yes, we both know how to spell the A.A. Milne character he honors) who is educated, decent, smart and articulate.

But regarding his lament’s  applicability to the controversy at issue, gay marriage, he is absolutely, utterly, tragically wrong. The conventional wisdom is that we should just try to ignore Americans who feel similarly to Eeyoure, because demographics are relentlessly removing them from the scene. As the politically active public becomes younger, the support for equal rights for gays, trangendered and bi-sexual citizens will grow into an overwhelming majority.  I think that’s a lazy and obnoxious way to win an argument, even when you are right. Smart but misguided people, like Eeyoure in this matter, should be able to evolve, learn, and realize when what they once thought was right, isn’t.  Realizing that one aspect of entrenched belief was, upon knowledge and reflection, wrong does not mean the whole foundation of civilized society has to crumble—this is the classic, irrational, self-defeating fallacy of conservatism. Change in the presence of enlightenment and experience is the essence of ethics, which constantly evolves. We should be able to explain what is wrong with this post so that even the poster agrees.

Here is Eeyoure’s Comment of the Day, on the post (and comment thread t0) Ethics Hero: David Blankenhorn, Former Same-Sex Marriage Opponent: Continue reading →

“Who Cares?” Ethics: The Key Question…Was This Employee Fired?

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

During a Kansas City Royals broadcast this week, the following graphic was displayed for the TV audience:

Mistake Screen

It has the following mistakes: Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: David Blankenhorn, Former Same-Sex Marriage Opponent

/ Jack Marshall / 104 Comments

Same sex

In a well-reasoned and sharply written op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, former gay marriage opponent David Blankenship writes eloquently and persuasively about why he has reversed his position. He writes in part:

“In the end, I didn’t change my mind on gay marriage because I stopped believing in the importance of intact biological families. Nor was it because of new studies or additional facts. (Gay marriage still strains biological family bonds, although research also points to the potential stability of gay marriage and family structures.) And I didn’t change my mind because I got tired of being criticized. I changed my opposition to gay marriage because of personal relationships. In my case, it began with the writer Jonathan Rauch, who I’d been publicly debating on the gay marriage issue. But at some point we stopped debating and started talking about our lives, including about my wife, Raina, and his husband, Michael. Did Jonathan’s marriage threaten the idea of marriage? Perhaps in theory. But in real life, was I able to see it? No. In fact, quite the opposite. It may sound trite, but for me the key was the gradual breakthrough of empathy. I found that as friendships develop, empathy becomes at least possible, no longer kept at bay by a wall of fixed belief. Put simply, becoming friends with gay people who were married or wanted to get married led me to realize that I couldn’t in good conscience continue to oppose it.”

Bingo.

_______________________

Pointer: Advice Goddess

Sources: LA Times

Ethics Quote of the Week: CNN’s Jake Tapper

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

“Even if you side with this president over those of us in the media who challenge him in his administration, it is important to remember the precedent these actions set going forward, perhaps when it’s not your guy in the White House.”

–—Jake Tapper, former ABC reporter turned CNN headliner, warning knee-jerk Obama defenders that there are rather significant risks in supporting leaders and their governments when they obstruct basic rights, just because you like their policies and don’t like the citizens who are being mistreated.

Martin Niemöller said it better, but some people need the reminder...

Martin Niemöller said it better, but some people need the reminder…

I’m not especially enamored of  Tapper’s quote, and the fact that such a statement is noteworthy coming from a major news media figure is depressing. Tapper introduced his warning by admitting that he was biased himself, “but.”  I suppose admitting a presumably leftward bias is worthy of praise for transparency’s sake—and Tapper has copped to being biased before—yet it also reminds us how truly untrustworthy our supposed bulwark against tyranny (that is, the news media)  is, siding as it does with the party currently in charge with such consistency.

His is also not truly an ethical statement, as it relies on a non-ethical argument, the equivalent of “Hey, we probably shouldn’t kill that guy, because then his gang will be coming after us.” There’s no ethics at all in Tapper’s argument, except that the conduct he’s attempting to encourage, responsible citizenship and the refusal to tolerate the abuse of power, is more ethical than the alternative, which is what we’ve been seeing for almost five years. The Golden Rule, in other words, in not “Do unto others because if you don’t it’s very possible that the soon the others may be doing the same thing to you.” Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The “Breastaurants”

/ Jack Marshall / 45 Comments

Playboy bunnies

All right, class…put away your books.

This quiz will count toward your final grade in Ethics 101.

Please watch the following video…about the growing culinary trend of so-called “breastaurants,” Hooters wannabe establishments that sell food service and ogling rights.

Now here is your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz for today, a multiple choice. Choose as many of the following to describe the trend as you feel is appropriate:

a. This is entertainment, that’s all. Nothing ethically or culturally objectionable at all.

 

b. If you thought Playboy Clubs and their “Bunnies” were sexist and demeaning to women, you can’t regard these places as harmless. Same thing, different packages, and more unethical now than then, because we supposed  have learned since then.

 

c. It’s legal and nobody is making the women do anything they don’t want to do. There’s no offense here. If you don’t like it, don’t eat there.

 

d. Women desperate for a job in a bad market are being forced to debase themselves. They are victims of exploitation and sexism, that is wrong, and anyone who patronizes such a place is encouraging and endorsing unethical conduct.

 

e.  The very existence of these establishments encourages sexual harassment and discrimination. There is way to legally prevent them, but no ethical person would own or operate such a place.

 

f. The “Breastaurants” encourage attitudes and conduct that society is trying to discourage, disapprove, and eliminate. They are ethics corrupters.

 

g. Allowing children in these places is irresponsible.

 

h. Voluntarily patronizing any of these places is unethical, as it encourages damaging attitudes toward women.

 

i. All those cheap breast double-entendres in the ABC story were unprofessional and sleazy.

 

j. Oh, lighten up! Look at movies. Look at TV. Look at cheerleaders. Look at how high school children dress. It’s just sex, that’s all. Weenie!

 

k. ARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Good luck.

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Facts:ABC

Graphic: Betseyj

Comment of the Day: “The Kaitlyn Hunt Affair: Upon Further Review…”

/ Jack Marshall / 46 Comments
And if Kaitlyn Hunt looked like this, would we be having this discussion?

And if Kaitlyn Hunt looked like this, would we be having this discussion?

John Garrison’s incisive Comment of the Day decisively adds Kaitlyn Hunt’s parents to the Kaitlyn Hunt Ethics Train Wreck, which has already enlisted them, the vigilante group Anonymous (itself a self-perpetuating ethics train wreck), the lazy news media, which apparently misreported the essential facts of the case, and the social media as passengers since my first post on the debacle.

Here are his comments on the follow-up post, The Kaitlyn Hunt Affair: Upon Further Review:

“There are a number of things that concern me about this case. First, I do agree that the law is very harsh in Florida. But we never seem to get the actual story from Kaitlyn’s parents. At first, they said that they were 17 when they started dating, and that the parents vindictively waited until Kaitlyn turned 18. That story seems to have changed around the time the police report was released stating that actual ages of the girls. At that time, the family claimed that the police not redacting the address was retaliation against them going to the media, even though it is not remotely unusual for the police not to redact the address of the accused.

http://www.examiner.com/article/kaitlyn-hunt-arrest-record-released-free-kate-family-disgusted-with-sheriff Continue reading →

Why Photographer Arne Svensen Is An Unethical Creep

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments
Photographer/artist/ Peeping Tom Arne Swenson as played by Jimmy Stewart in "Rear Window."

Photographer/artist/ Peeping Tom Arne Swenson as played by Jimmy Stewart in “Rear Window.”

“For my subjects there is no question of privacy; they are performing behind a transparent scrim on a stage of their own creation with the curtain raised high. The Neighbors don’t know they are being photographed; I carefully shoot from the shadows of my home into theirs.”

Believe it or not, this is how photographer Arne Svensen justifies his wildly unethical photographic peeping Tom excursions into his neighbor’s bedrooms for his own profit. This artist has provoked a controversy by 1) stalking the people who live in the New York apartment building across from his, 2) keeping a camera lens on them when they dare not to keep their windows shuttered as if they were vampires, 3) shooting photographs of whatever he sees that tickles his artistic sensibilities, fetishes or perversions, 4) choosing photos that do not show the faces of his subject victim, and 5) exhibiting and selling the results as artwork.

Amazingly, his neighbors object!

Let me cut to the chase here and be direct, because any minute now we are likely to find out that President Obama’s EPA has been secretly causing coal mine cave-ins and assassinating oil execs to forestall global warming, and that the President is outraged and just heard about it when we did, and will take strong action by telling the officials involved that they have to sit in the back during the next White House concert, and I’ll be distracted. Continue reading →

Resolving An Ethics Alarms Ethics Conflict

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

poof-smallI just took down a post, something I have only done four times previously. This decision, unlike the others, was the resolution of a genuine ethics conflict, created in part by the recent discussions here.

Tonight I received a terse demand, phrased as a request but with a time deadline,* from a former commentary subject insisting that I remove a critical post here from nearly a year ago. The post was not factually incorrect, nor  did it make any factual assertions that could support a credible defamation claim. My commentary was pure opinion, though a fairly harsh one. I have pledged, following the inspirational example of Ken at Popehat and also attorney/blogger Marc Randazza, not to countenance web censorship involving bogus legal threats, and thus drafted and came within a finger-stroke of sending a rejection of the demand, and a strongly worded one.

Then I re-read the post at issue. It was a criticism of a tweet from a professional that I believed, and believe, had the effect of unfairly impugning an entire workplace and the identifiable colleagues of the tweeter. The tweet was wrong, but I realized that I was also wrong to highlight it here. I have been writing quite a lot lately about the inherent Golden Rule violation of web-shaming individuals for single and isolated unethical acts that fall short of illegality or such outrageous callousness or cruelty that there is a duty to warn others. I think there is a toxic cultural trend, fed by the power of the internet, that will soon make web bullies and assassins of us all, and potential victims as well. I want to fight that trend, not contribute to it. I think, in the case of that post, I was on the side that I now believe is the wrong one. It was a stupid and thoughtless tweet. It did not justify a web-shaming on Ethics Alarms. Continue reading →

The Trustbusters Circle The Wagons: Why?

/ Jack Marshall / 57 Comments

Why do they always do this?

"Thank you, Sen. Reed, for your comments. You can stop spinning now."

“Thank you, Sen. Reed, for your comments. You can stop spinning now.”

Republicans, Democrats—why? Why do they think, when they are caught in an obvious example of misconduct, it is smarter and more useful—it certainly isn’t honest, courageous or ethical—not to simply confess and apologize, even if it’s with hardly an ennobling statement no better than, “You got us. Yeah, we were lying. That was wrong. Sorry,'” rather than continue to lie? The now ridiculous contortions of Democrats (and their knee-jerk supporters in the public and the media, but forget about them, for they are merely pathetic) are doing independent harm, because they destroy trust in government generally, and that, for a democratic republic, is potentially fatal.

Way back in September, when U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice disgraced herself by going on five Sunday talk-shows and stating with deceitful certitude ( “our current best assessment”…”we believe”)  that the deadly attack on the U.S. outpost in Libya was solely the result of spontaneous outrage on the part of extremists over a video, and not an organized terrorist attack, critics said that the Administration was covering up what really happened, and lying about what they knew. The accusation was shouted down and indeed ridiculed by Administration officials, Democrats in Congress, and the Obama-promoting media (it was in the middle of an election campaign) as a partisan smear, but in fact the critics, partisan though they were, were right. Rice was disseminating disinformation. The Administration and its State Department were intentionally blaming a video when they knew better. Why is another story: conservative pundits believe it was to avoid having to admit, mid-campaign, that the signature accomplishment of the President’s term, killing Osama bin Laden and supposedly crushing al Qaida, was not quite the complete victory the Democrats were claiming. If that was the reason, it was a stupid reason, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen that way. Hiding inconvenient facts before an election is despicable, but lying to the public and the world is serious enough, whatever its motive.

When she was questioned in Congress about the misleading descriptions, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signaled that the Administration was in cover-up mode, both by lying outright (“I did not say … that it was about the video for Libya.”) and making her infamous and ethically indefensible statement,  ”With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided to kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?” Now, thanks to multiple revelations, the testimony of whistle-blowers, and newly released e-mails, there is no question that Clinton’s State Department took the lead in scrubbing the CIA talking points that immediately attributed the attack in Benghazi to identifiable terrorist elements connected to al Qaida, and not a spontaneous demonstration against the video. Not only are the Administration’s defenders refusing to admit that what happened happened, they are recycling old tactics from other scandals to do it, which if nothing else is lazy and boring:

  • “This is old news.” Or, as (Liberal! Obama-loving!) NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd termed it, “It’s not true, it’s not true, it’s not true, it’s old news.” Dowd also correctly identified this as a classic from the Bill Clinton playbook, used for too many bona fide scandals to list. Continue reading →