QUESTION ONE: If you are the House Ethics Committee, and you find that investigations of two prominent House members have resulted in convincing evidence of serious wrongdoing and ethics violations, and they both are African-American, the most ethical course is to: Continue reading
U.S. Society
Integrity, Rep. Mark Kirk, and the Citizen’s Duty to Pay Attention
The defenders of G.O.P. Rep. Mark Kirk, who has been caught in more than one misrepresentation of his achievements, will argue (as such people always do) that these “mistakes” are simply campaign gotchas that tell voters nothing about what really counts, which is how he will perform when he is elected, as he hopes he will be, a U.S. Senator from Illinois.
In fact, a candidate who lies about his past honors and job history, as Kirk has, cannot be trusted. He continues to show voters that quality, or lack of quality, as this incident, reported in several sources, proves. From The Plum Line: Continue reading
Charlie Rangel’s Defense and Buster Olney’s Fallacy
Charlie Rangel’s defense against the ethics charges against him is, in part this: I’m not the only one, so it’s unfair to punish me.” From the Washington Post:
“He was not the only lawmaker to solicit donations in this manner, his lawyers argue, saying that peers who did the same thing were not punished. With a trial of Rangel by the House ethics committee possible by mid-September, his legal team reached across the Capitol to point a finger at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who helped raise money for a center named for him at the University of Louisville. Rangel’s team cited similarities with the recently deceased Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) and with former Republican senators Trent Lott (Miss.) and Jesse Helms (N.C.).”
OK, a question: what’s the matter with that argument? Continue reading
Ethics Tip For Police Being Videoed: Smile!
Every now and then one learns about a practice that seems so obviously wrong that it is difficult to believe it could really occur in America. The police’s broad power to confiscate property used in the commission of a crime stunned me when I first read about it in law school. Municipal government use of the power of eminent domain to take private property and turn it over to corporate interests for profit-making development, as in the Kelo case, was another example. During the health care reform debate, I learned that our elected representatives not only didn’t bother to read major legislation, they thought there was nothing wrong with not reading it. I’m still scratching my head over that one.
The increasingly common phenomenon of police arresting citizens for recording arrests and other police activity on video is the most recent example of conduct that is so wrong it is hard to believe it happens—but it does. Continue reading
The Ground Zero Mosque and “The Niggardly Principles”
Fine, reasonable, ethical commentators, not to mention Mayor Bloomberg, have argued that the moderate Muslim group seeking to build an Islamic center and mosque within a hand grenade’s throw of Ground Zero is blameless, persecuted, and as pure as the driven snow in its ethics.
They are ignoring the Second Niggardly Principle, which is understandable since I just formulated the Niggardly Principles One and Two today, after carefully reflecting upon what it could be about this matter that has led so many wise people astray.
Several years ago, a white Washington D.C. government worker, the Shirley Sherrod of his time, was fired for using the word “niggardly” in the work place, which was found to be racially insensitive to those whose vocabulary was so limited they didn’t know that the word had nothing to do with race. This incident embarrassed the D.C. government, which is used to being embarrassed, and inflamed pedants. Eventually the worker was reinstated, and the First Niggardly Principle was born, which is as follows: Continue reading
Ethics Dunces: Charlie Rangel’s Birthday Celebrants
“Democratic leaders and major party donors plan to hold a lavish 80th birthday gala for Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) at The Plaza Hotel in Manhattan next month, despite 13 ethics charges pending against the veteran lawmaker.”
Apparently New York’s U.S. Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand plan to attend, as well as New York Gov. David Paterson and gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo—Democrats all.
Here is the ethical problem—and it is hardly rocket science. When a public figure’s misdeeds are more prominent in the public’s view than his or her lifetime accomplishments, it is impossible to celebrate the latter without appearing to endorse, support, or other wise fail to show sufficient disapproval of the latter. Continue reading
The Ethics Of The Ground Zero Mosque
The proposed Ground Zero mosque should be a straightforward ethics issue, but it is not. Now it is bound up in a thoroughly confusing debate that confounds and blurs law, ethical values, history, rights, and human nature. Everyone is right, and everyone is wrong.
Yes, it’s an Ethics Train Wreck, all right. This one is so bad I hesitated to write about it—ethics train wrecks trap commentators too—in the vain hope that it would somehow resolve itself with minimal harm. That is obviously not in the cards, however; not when the Anti-Defamation League weighs in on the side of religious intolerance, thus forfeiting its integrity and warping its mission. The wreck is still claiming victims, and there is no end in sight. Continue reading
John Avlon’s “Ten Congressmen Who Should Be Fired”: Too Short, By Far
John Avlon, a senior political correspondent at The Daily Beast and author of the book Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America, has posted his list of “Ten Congressmen Who Should Be Fired.” Though Avlon’s definition of “wingnut” is too often “conservative,” and picking the ten most embarrassing members of Congress is like choosing the ten most offensive reality TV stars, it’s a reasonably good list, if far too short and only the beginning. The members on it seem to split into four main categories: outrageously uncivil, clearly incompetent, corrupt, and too outspokenly conservative for Avlon, who regards all Tea Party sympathizers, for example, as dangerous “wingnuts.”
Here’s the list, with highlights of Avlon’s reasons: Continue reading
Bottled Water Ethics
The Nation, with some good links, makes the rather easy case that giving up bottled water is the most ethical course, not to mention the frugal and logical one.
The one exception where bottled water can be justified is for air travel, since one can’t bring bottled anything through security and the airlines are stingy with drinks. Even in that case, there is a more responsible alternative: bringing empty water bottles and filling it from a water fountain after going through security.
If only I could remember to take the damn thing…
The Left’s New Black Panther Rationalizations
“All looks yellow to the jaundiced eye” (Alexander Pope, 1711) could have been written about the media handling of the New Black Panther voter intimidation case. To conservatives, it is ominous proof of race-conscious law enforcement in the Obama Justice Department. To liberals, it is more proof that the Right is determined to stir up racial suspicion about Barack Obama’s administration.
I don’t think the incident proves anything conclusively at this point, except this: liberal journalists and commentators are embarrassing themselves and misinforming the public by arguing that the case is trivial, and employing intellectually dishonest arguments to do it.**
Whatever the case is, it isn’t trivial. Voter intimidation isn’t trivial; it strikes at the core of our system of government. I would argue that the government should be unequivocal, strict and unyielding regarding the prevention and punishment of it, by white or black, no matter how manifested. If you don’t think so, then I challenge you to explain why. If there is any conduct that should receive no tolerance by law enforcement, this should be it. There is no excuse for it.
Nevertheless, supposedly respectable commentators like columnist E.J. Dionne feel compelled to make excuses for the Justice Department’s actions while intentionally or incompetently misrepresenting the facts. Continue reading
