U.S. Society

Ethics Dunce: Gov. Rick Perry

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

GOP Presidential Candidate History: The Battle of Concord, fought in 16th Century New Hampshire

I’ve been down this road too many times with various Tea Party favorites, so I’ll make it brief:

  • If you are going to keep talking about the Founders, the Declaration, the Constitution and the Revolutionary War, get your facts right. Paul Revere was not warning the British (Sarah); the Shot Heard ‘Round the World was not fired in New Hampshire, no Founding Father  did  spend his life trying to get rid of slavery,  and John Quincy Adams wasn’t a Founding Father (Michele); and “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” isn’t from the Constitution (Herman).
  • Don’t make the public more cynical than it already is about the intelligence and competence of its elected leadership by sounding like an ignoramus.
  • Don’t make our already historically ignorant public even more ignorant by giving it  bad information, from a supposedly trustworthy source. Continue reading →

How Do I Write A Measured Ethical Analysis When I Am Shaking With Indignation and Rage?

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

None of these men had the arrogance to believe it would be appropriate to apologize for the difficult choices made by their predecessors. They were right.

UPDATE, 10/13 Readers: This post has been proven wrong, based on a misinterpretation of a diplomatic cable that has been clarified to Ethics Alarms by a reliable and objective source. You can read  the explanation, and my apology, here.

I will try.

A secret cable dated Sept. 3, 2009 was recently released by WikiLeaks.  Sent to Secretary of State Clinton, it reported that Japan’s Vice Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka told U.S. Ambassador John Roos that “the idea of President Obama visiting Hiroshima to apologize for the atomic bombing during World War II is a ‘nonstarter.'”*

The Japanese did President Obama and the United States an enormous  favor, but the utter foolishness and lack of comprehension of national principles, American history and the duties of presidential leadership shown by the fact that the idea of such an apology could get to the point where the Japanese had to reject it goes beyond mind-boggling and shocking to frightening, infuriating and offensive. Continue reading →

Abusing Stutterers: I Am Surprised and Disappointed

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

A prominent stutterer. She managed to be rather popular in groups despite the problem, or so I hear.

The New York Times related the story of County College of Morris student Philip Garber Jr., who stutters badly. He is also confident and inquiring, and likes to participate in class discussions, though naturally his speech problems make that process challenging for him, his teachers, and his classmates.

One instructor, an adjunct professor named Elizabeth Snyder, simply refused to call on him, and informed him that his stuttering was disruptive, and to keep his questions to himself or write them down. He reported this to the Dean, who told him that he should transfer to another class.

What? Continue reading →

“The 48 Laws of Power”: Robert Greene’s Recipe for Power, Greed and Misery

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

“The 48 Laws of Power” is a 1998 book by Robert Greene, a best-seller, and a re-packaging of ideas from multiple sources, including “The Prince” and “The Art of War.” Those who wonder why it is that certain sub-cultures in the United States—business, Hollywood, the entertainment industry, politics, finance— appear to be incurably cynical, amoral, corrupt and untrustworthy would do well to read it, provided they are able to resist being persuaded by its brutal philosophy.

Greene, who has other similarly-oriented best-selling books on business success, is considered a guru by the music industry, and has been embraced with special enthusiasm by hip-hop moguls. What is remarkable about his 48 laws is how completely they discard all ethical virtues, as if fairness, honesty, integrity, responsibility, respect and trustworthiness were irrelevant to the topic of power. In fact, the five most important laws of power are…

1. You must prove your worthiness to hold power by your manner of acquiring it.

2. Power without competence, wisdom and good will lead to tragedy.

3. Do not use power to restrict the welfare, autonomy, freedom, and pleasure of  others, but to enhance them.

4. Regard power as a means, not an end.

5. When retaining power itself becomes the goal, it is time to surrender it. Continue reading →

Double Standard Ethics: What the “Occupy Wall Street” Demonstrations Have Revealed So Far

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments

1. When well-behaved middle-class Americans held rallies protesting specific U.S. policies, notably excessive spending, a CNN  reporter challenged them on camera and accused the effort of being a creation of Fox News. When incoherently chanting anarchists, radicals and unemployed youths hold rallies advocating nothing constructive whatsoever, reporters are invariably respectful.

2. Thanks to the efforts of snickering CNN and MSNBC hosts, the emerging Tea Party was immediately referred to using a crude term for a gay sexual act. No such denigrating term has been employed to describe “Occupy Wall Street.” Continue reading →

Unemployment Check Ethics: “The Ethicist” Gets It Right

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I regularly check the competition, and “The Ethicist,” Ariel Kaminer, has been solid lately. This past week, she avoided falling into a trap that I am certain her predecessor, Randy Cohen, would have charged into.

The questioner asked Kaminer whether it was unethical “for a relatively wealthy person” to receive unemployment checks, even if he or she met  the requirements. Moreover, “Is the answer different in times like the present, when government resources are extremely strained?” Continue reading →

Ethics Confusion in Ken Burns’ “Prohibition”

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

I enjoy all of Ken Burns’ documentary series, and I am grateful for them. They do a better job of teaching history than the schools, and they are always thought-provoking and, of course, beautifully executed. At the same time, I am aware of the limitations in Burns’ approach, beginning with his genre. Documentaries are inherently misleading works, more misleading in the hands of some, like Michael More, than others. The sifting of which material to use, how to balance issues, choices of photographs and film footage and even the inflections of voice betrayed by narrators (To his credit, Burns has all of his narrators deliver their script in the exact same measured and deliberately-paced tones; I found myself wondering how many times Burns forced “Prohibition” narrator Peter Coyote to listen to previous Burns stand-ins David McCullough and John Chancellor in “The Civil War” and “Baseball” until he sounded as much like their clone as they sounded like identical twins) unavoidably slant the final product, sometimes unintentionally, but usually with a motive. To the extent that viewers realize this, it is an ethical medium, but for most, especially those unfamiliar with the subject matter and with no independent knowledge to draw on, it is not.“Prohibition,” Burns’ latest PBS series that debuted last week, has a more obtrusive agenda supported with more dubious logic than his previous documentaries, reminding me, at least, that his historical conclusions should always be taken with a measure of skepticism. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week: GMU School of Law Dean Daniel Polsby

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

George would be proud.

“Student organizations are allocated budget by the Student Bar Association in order to allow them, among other things, to bring speakers to the law school.  Neither the law school nor the university can be taken to endorse such speakers or what they say.  Law school administration is not consulted about these invitations, nor should we be.  Sometimes speakers are invited who are known to espouse controversial points of view.  So be it.  So long as they are here, they are free to say whatever is on their mind within the bounds of law.   They cannot be silenced and they will not be.

“Just as speakers are free to speak, protesters are free to protest.  They must do so in a place and in a manner that respects the rights of speakers to speak and listeners to listen, and that is in all other ways consistent with the educational mission of the university.  Student organizations which hold contrary points of view have every right to schedule their own programs with their own speakers, and these speakers’ rights will be protected in just the same way.

“The law school will not exercise editorial control over the words of speakers invited by student organizations, nor will we take responsibility for them, nor will we endorse or condemn them.  There has to be a place in the world where controversial ideas and points of view are aired out and given space.  This is that place.”

——  Daniel D. Polsby,  Dean of George Mason University Law School, responding to calls from the Council on American-Islamic Relations for the Law School to disinvite activist Nonie Darwish, who had accepted an invitation from the campus Federalist Society and the Jewish Law Students Association to speak on campus.  Continue reading →

When Unethical Meets Stupid

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Cuation! Moron at Work.

Pilots flying multi-million dollar aircraft to Navy Air Station Oceana say that beams coming from laser pointers are blinding them as they make their approach. The Navy says there has been a sharp increase in the number of laser sightings within the last 18 months. “You’re getting ready to land–you’re getting ready to go through a number of steps configuring the airplane to touchdown. In the two-seaters, there aren’t any sticks in the back. So if you lose the ability to fly it in proximity to the ground, it gets pretty dangerous,” says Webb. In short, the laser pointers are risking military planes and lives. Continue reading →

America’s Untouchables, Continued: Persecution in Huachuca City, Arizona

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Wait! I've got a great solution! Why not a YELLOW STAR for registered sex offenders?

Huachuca City, Arizona has approved an ordinance banning registered sex offenders from all public facilities, including schools, parks, libraries, pools, gymnasiums and sports facilities. As discussed in an earlier post, the willingness of municipalities to continue to oppress and stigmatize law-abiding citizens who the justice system has deemed fit to re-enter society is ignorant, cruel, and unconscionable. And it is getting worse.

Mayor Byron Robertson is mouthing the same rationalization that others in his position have: it’s all for the children. “As a town and as a community, we have to protect our children. As a council, we have to make the right calls. Our police chief indicated that we were having a serious problem with some pedophiles that were being a nuisance and we took steps to overcome that.” The “steps” involve forcing innocent American citizens to move out of town, because “some” individuals, who are not necessarily registered sex offenders, are posing problems.This isn’t good for the children, because it isn’t good for children to grow up in a community that engages in cruel and invidious discrimination based on presumed criminal tendencies. Continue reading →