U.S. Society

Ethics Quote of the Week: Prof. Glenn Reynolds

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments

“A 20-year-old lunatic stole some guns and killed people. Who’s to blame? According to a lot of our supposedly rational and tolerant opinion leaders, it’s . . . the NRA, a civil-rights organization whose only crime was to oppose laws banning guns. (Ironically, it wasn’t even successful in Connecticut, which has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation.) The hatred was intense. One Rhode Island professor issued a call — later deleted — for NRA head Wayne LaPierre’s “head on a stick.” People like author Joyce Carol Oates and actress Marg Helgenberger wished for NRA members to be shot. So did Texas Democratic Party official John Cobarruvias, who also called the NRA a ‘terrorist organization,’ and Texas Republican congressman Louis Gohmert a “terror baby.” Nor were reporters, who are supposed to be neutral, much better. As The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg commented, ‘Reporters on my Twitter feed seem to hate the NRA more than anything else, ever. ‘Calling people murderers and wishing them to be shot sits oddly with claims to be against violence. The NRA — like the ACLU, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers or Planned Parenthood — exists to advocate policies its members want. It’s free speech. The group-hate directed at the NRA is ugly and says ugly things about those consumed by it.”

–—- University of Tennessee law professor (and conservative blogging icon) Glenn Reynolds, in a USA Today op-ed piece called “Reflections on Newtown.”

Stop the NRAI’m tempted to go further than Prof. Reynolds and suggest that this also says ugly things about what the extended recession has done to our culture, which once was characterized by the initiative, determination and innovation to solve problems, but now increasingly resorts to the useless strategy of  pointing fingers. The tradition of picking out convenient public scapegoats to blame and demonize in response to complex societal problems is a long-running historical phenomenon around the world, but it seems to me that the United States has never before embraced it with the fervor we are seeing now.

Unethical Quote of the Month: 34,812 Americans*

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

“British Citizen and CNN television host Piers Morgan is engaged in a hostile attack against the U.S. Constitution by targeting the Second Amendment. We demand that Mr. Morgan be deported immediately for his effort to undermine the Bill of Rights and for exploiting his position as a national network television host to stage attacks against the rights of American citizens.”

—- The language on a petition posted at whitehouse.gov and signed by 34,812 American citizens,* asking the Obama Administration to deport Piers Morgan.

brainless-empty-open-head-screamingYou can’t get much more ignorant, hypocritical and dumb than this, can you? A talk show host criticizes the Second Amendment, and these fools think the appropriate remedy for “his effort to undermine the Bill of Rights” is for the government to punish him with deportation, thus violating the First Amendment, from the Bill of Rights.

Passionate, engaged, and completely incapable of rational thought: what a frightening combination.

* UPDATE, 12/26/2012  The number is now over 75,000, and still rising. If every American who can’t see that this petition represents an absurd contradiction signs it, we’re looking at about 200,000,000 people, maybe more. This would probably spell doom for Morgan’s show, as it would mean that the only people conceivably dumb enough to watch him want him deported.

_______________________________

Pointer: Drudge

Ethics Bob Asks: “Did Torture Lead Us To Bin Laden”? My Answer: “So What If It Did? It Was Still Wrong.”

/ Jack Marshall / 36 Comments
It's all for the best.

It’s all for the best.

The last time my friend “Ethics Bob” Stone blogged about ethics, it was way back in August, and he was writing about some guy named “Romney.” Now he’s back on the job, thank goodness, with a comeback post titled “Zero Dark Thirty: Did torture lead us to Osama bin Laden?”. And he’s ticking me off.

“Zero Dark Thirty” is Hollywood’s treatment of the search, apprehension and execution of Osama Bin Laden. The film suggest that methods of torture were employed by the CIA to uncover crucial intelligence that led to the terrorist mastermind’s demise. Torture opponents, including some U.S. Senators, are alarmed by this, and disputing the film’s account. (Imagine that: a movie that misrepresents history!) Meanwhile, conservatives, neocons, Bush administration bitter-enders, talk radio hosts and admirers of Dr. Fu Manchu and James Bond villains are citing the film as confirmation that they were right all along: torture is a wonderful thing.

I am puzzled that Bob got in the middle of this debate as an ethicist. “It worked!” and “It came out all right in the end!” are not valid ethical arguments or justifications. The first is an embrace of a pure “the ends justify the means” rationale, a favorite tool of Auric Goldfinger and Dr. No. The other is consequentialism. When ethicists and principled opponents of torture allow the issue to be adjudicated on this basis, they are surrendering their principles at the outset. “Torture doesn’t work” is a pragmatic argument, not an ethical one. If the societal consensus regarding torture is going to be determined by how much we can benefit by returning to the rack and wheel, then ethical considerations have already been jettisoned. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: W.G. Hamm

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

“What I know about Lance Armstrong is that he inspired thousands of cancer victims and made their lives better. What I know about Mr. Armstrong is that when my wife and my son were both suffering from cancer, his story and his book helped them cope with their diseases. What I know about Mr. Armstrong is that the good that he did far outweighs the fact that he was trapped in a culture of drug use within the cycling fraternity. What I know about Mr. Armstrong is that he has been needlessly demonized by people who do not realize the balance between his good deeds and his bad deeds.”

—-W. G. Hamm, in his Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post. Hamm was praising a fatuous, rationalization-riddled  column by Post sportswriter Sally Jenkins in which she catalogued and endorsed every excuse and justification trotted out by Armstrong’s enablers and defenders.

would have loved Vlad.

W. G. would have loved Vlad.

I don’t know W.G. Hamm. I’m sure he’s the salt of the earth, and a part of me is queasy about picking on his letter praising Jenkins’ ridiculous column rather than tackling the truly ethically offensive and brain-dead column itself. One reason is that I have written extensively, frequently and recently about the arguments, if you can call them that, made by Jenkins. Her column really is spectacularly bad; here’s one passage that send me to the bathroom, for example:

“Maybe I’m not angry at Lance because for two decades now I’ve had serious questions about the wisdom and fairness of the “anti-doping” effort, which consists of criminalizing and demonizing athletes for what boils down to using medications without a prescription.”

No, it boils down to using medications without a prescription and using them to cheat in athletic contests for money and fame, while defrauding the public, you silly, dishonest woman. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The Murderer On The Sidelines

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments
Support the man, not the drunk-driving killer, who also happened to BE the man. Right?

Support the man, not the drunk-driving killer, who also happened to BE the man. Right?

Eight days after he was locked up for manslaughter as a result of being drunk at the wheel in a car accident that took the life of a team mate, Dallas Cowboys player Josh Brent was allowed on the sidelines with his team during its game against the Philadelphia Eagles.  Brent’s teammates had requested that he be present to show their support, and apparently this had the blessing of Jerry Brown’s mother, whose deceased son was the victim in the crash.

ESPN commentator Dan Graziano took to his keyboard to pronounce the Cowboys public embrace of a player charged with killing someone while driving drunk misguided and wrong: Continue reading →

Unethical Quote, Conduct and Organization: The Hacking Collective Called “Anonymous,” No Matter How Despicable Its Targets Are

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment
I think the missing heads explain a LOT

I think the missing heads explain a LOT

I considered making Anonymous the subject of an ethics quiz, but there isn’t any genuine ethics question about the group that an ethical 7th grader shouldn’t be able to answer while playing a videogame.

It is an arrogant and  lawless group of vigilantes, and nobody ought to be confused into admiring it or applauding its actions because Anonymous has chosen adversaries even more revolting than it is. The fact that Anonymous is currently tormenting the Westboro Baptist Church, those homophobic religious fanatics who think harassing family members of fallen soldiers at funerals is a reasonable method of proclaiming  opposition to homosexuality, certainly triggers a positive response on the Cognitive Dissonance Scale, but that is visceral, not rational. Citizens do not forfeit their rights because you don’t approve of their conduct, even if their conduct is objectively offensive.

First, the unethical quote, from an email sent to a website by a representative:

“Just hacked Westboro’s site. Freedom of speech is one thing. But freedom to hate is another. A domain such as “godhatesfags.com should not exist despite rumblings of members picketing Sandy Hook. Those families have enough anguish to deal with.” Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Unethical Quote of the Month: The Washington Post”

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

militia

I don’t agree with everything in Michael’s  take-down of a comment by Eric R. to my post, “Unethical Quote of the Month: The Washington Post,” but as an example of the genre ( mastered on Ethics Alarms by the 2011 Commenter of the Year tgt and others), it’s a gem. The main point, that the Second Amendment has significant symbolic value as a right that reminds the government that the citizens of a democracy will not bare their throats to central power, is a crucial one, which I touched on in an earlier Ethics Alarms post. An armed insurrection against the government would be a catastrophe, of course. Still, while those Americans who believe that arming citizens against possible government tyranny trust too little, the citizens who argue that the government should be able to disarm the populace in the name of safety trust far too much.

I did remove one small non-substantive part of the post, because I really dislike mockery as a device on Ethics Alarms (the unedited comment is still under the original post.) I particularly think Michael’s identification of the reasons underlying the recent spate of mad dog killings is seriously off the mark. My own list, in order of influence would be…

  1. The difficulty of getting seriously disturbed individuals institutionalized, and the lack of places to keep and treat them.
  2. The availability of assault-type weapons to such disturbed individuals.
  3. The failure to enforce existing gun regulations
  4. The increasing difficulty and complexity of life generally, making it harder for those who are poor, poorly trained, not especially bright, or emotionally fragile to compete and succeed.
  5. The pervasive media, which creates false norms of success and happiness that are unachievable for most Americans.
  6. The culture of guns and violence, which is intensified by the entertainment media, but which is also a core American characteristic that isn’t going away.
  7. The publicity given to mass murderers by the news media.

But I digress.

Here is Michael’s tough Comment of the Day, to the post “Unethical Quote of the Month: The Washington Post”. The bold sections below are quotes from Eric’s comment: Continue reading →

The SyFy Channel, Settting A New Low In Political Correctness Censorship

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

This is so incomprehensibly stupid that I hardly know how to react to it.

The SyFy Channel, as is its wont, was running a movie this morning that has nothing to do with science fiction, John Landis’s  odd horror/comedy “An American Werewolf in London,” from 1981. When the two doomed hikers visit a gloomy pub in the English countryside, one of the locals tells a joke:

“Here now, let me finish!  So halfway over the ocean the  engines run low on petrol so  they have to lighten the plane.  So they heave out all the baggage, but it’s still too heavy.  So they chuck out the seats, but it’s still too heavy!  Finally this Froggy steps up and shouts “Viva la France” and leaps out.  Then an Englishman steps up and shouts `God  save the Queen!’ and leaps out.  But the plane is still  too heavy.  So the Yank  delegate from Texas steps up,  shouts, `Remember the Alamo!’ and chucks out the Mexican!”

I’ve always liked that joke myself, but whether you like it or not, SyFy decided that your delicate ears shouldn’t be sullied by the punchline. In the edited version the channel showed, the last sentence could only be heard this way:

“So the Yank  delegate from Texas steps up,  shouts, `Remember the Alamo!’ and [ ?].” Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Month: The Washington Post

/ Jack Marshall / 50 Comments

“When will America choose to protect children instead of guns?”

—- The headline writer for the Washington Post, introducing columnist Petula Dvorak’s column this morning on the Newtown, Connecticut elementary school shooting, which took the lives of 26, including 20 children.

Newtown shooting

Presumably the Post’s headline writer was inspired to come up with that headline by the similar statement from Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund, who was quoted in Dvorak’s essay. Edelman said,

“This latest terrible tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School is no fluke. It is a result of the senseless, immoral neglect of all of us as a nation to fail to protect children instead of guns and to speak out against the pervasive culture of violence. It is up to us to stop these preventable tragedies.”

This is not quite as irresponsible and dangerous as the Post’s headline, but it is close. The suggestion that greater safety and security compels and justifies abandoning the core rights that make the United States unique and free is the ticket to tyranny, benevolent or otherwise. Continue reading →

The Costs of Ignorance and Stupidity: Not Unfair, But Obvious

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments
Now, if I were a psychic, I would have seen this argument coming...

Now, if I were a psychic, I would have seen this argument coming…

A rather uncontroversial Ethics Alarms post from September is suddenly getting bombarded with links from Reddit, heaven knows why. This was the article where I took The Learning Channel to task for building a reality show around a psychic (a.k.a “fraud”) and advertising it as if her abilities were real (Irresponsible TLC, Promoting Ignorance and Fraud). I appreciate the traffic when Reddit focuses on a post, but the experience is usually annoying. Reddit readers never make comments here, but make snarky, often ill-informed snipes on their own site, where it’s too much trouble to set them straight.

One of the Reddit critics of the Ethics Alarms post had a complaint that surprised me. He wrote…

“For an article about yelling at someone who makes unverified claims, it sure starts off with a doozy.

‘Public ignorance and stupidity costs the nation billions of dollars, kills untold people in the hundreds of thousands, vastly increases crime and unemployment, and generally makes life far less productive, safe and enjoyable for the minority that are not ignorant and stupid, as well as for those who are.'”

It never occurred to me that anyone would find that statement “unsubstantiated,” or even debatable. To begin with, it is obviously an opinion, though there are few opinions I am more certain about than this one. It is also not remotely like the assertion of a psychic that she communicates with the dead, which isn’t just an unsubstantiated claim, but an outright lie. Continue reading →