Ethics Quote Of The Day: George Will

/ Jack Marshall / 36 Comments

trump-salute

“Ted Cruz’s announcement of his preferred running mate has enhanced the nomination process by giving voters pertinent information. They already know the only important thing about Trump’s choice: His running mate will be unqualified for high office because he or she will think Trump is qualified.”

—-Conservative columnist George Will, in a piece nicely consistent with the Ethics Alarms position that the Republican Party’s ethical duty is to refuse to nominate Donald Trump, whatever the cost.

Will’s observation is concise, logical, and absolutely true. Nothing I can add will improve on it.

“Yo, Barry, You Did It, My Nigga!”

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Larry Wilmore

Wrong.

“Yo, Barry, You Did It, My Nigga!” This was “The Nightly Show’s” Larry Wilmore’s final salute to the President of the United States during an alleged comedy routine at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Here’s what’s wrong with it:

1. The comment was cynically calculated to cause an uproar, even at the cost of embarrassing the President and causing a racial incident. This is neither good hosting, nor ethical citizenship. Wilmore was only aiming at exploiting an opportunity to expand his rating, which aren’t so great.

2. It is disrespectful, no matter how one interprets the word. Barack Obama isn’t “Barack,” “Barry,” “Bro’,” or “Nigga” to Wilborn. He’s “Sir” or Mr. President. His job as M.C. didn’t permit that liberty.

3. It adds to a widespread and societally disruptive belief that Barack Obama is the black community’s President, and the black community has special privileges as a result. It certainly suggests that’s how black America views him. That’s not the legacy the President seeks, and thus the comment was uncomfortable for him.

4. Most white Americans and a lot of black ones do not agree that “nigger” and variations thereof are taboo when uttered by whites but benign when wielded by blacks. Why look, even Al Sharpton objected! “Many of us are against using the N-word period,” Sharpton told the LA Times. “But to say that to the President of the United States in front of the top people in media was at best in poor taste.”  “So we end the WHCD by touting the historical implications of 1st black president… and we use the N-word. Not cool,” tweeted  ABC producer Sarah Thomas, also an African-American.

5. The comment fed the racial divisiveness that has been the hallmark of Obama’s presidency. “Black Twitter,” as it is called, was full of African American celebrities and commentators making it clear that they didn’t care what white people thought. Mediaite’s resident race-baiter Tommy Christopher approvingly cited many of them, including his own.

I wonder who it was who convinced African-Americans that it was either wise, strategic, fair, reasonable or ethical to simultaneously express contempt for the opinions and feelings of whites while demanding hyper-sensitivity from whites about any word, innuendo, opinion or topic that could be considered the least bit uncomfortable for blacks?

6. “Barry” did what, exactly? What is “it”? Massively increasing the national debt? Dangerously dividing the nation? Undermining the rule of law, free speech and the system of checks and balances? Making a mockery of his promise to be transparent? Nurturing the anger, despair and cynicism that led to the rise of Donald Trump?

Barack Obama’s singular and historical accomplishment was being elected the first black President. Yes, he did that, but he did that almost eight years ago, and it’s old news. After that, his job was to be a good, fair, hard-working, effective, unifying and successful President of the United States, and his color was and is irrelevant to those tasks.  He hasn’t been any of those things, so what has he done? Finished his terms? That not a big accomplishment. I guess he created an environment in which a TV personality thought it was appropriate to call him a “Nigga” in public.

He did that, all right.

I’m not applauding.

Ethics Quiz: The Aborted No-Hitter

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments

Friday night, Miami pitcher Adam Conley  was pitching a no-hitter against the Milwaukee Brewers with two outs in the eighth inning, meaning that he was just four outs away. A no-hitter—no hits, no runs, for an entire game—places a pitcher name in the  Hall of Fame. It makes him an instant part of sports history. In today’s hyper-celebrity culture, it means interviews and endorsements.

Moreover, the Marlins needed something to make their fans feel better. Dee Gordon, the team’s star second baseman, had just tested positive for steroids and was suspended for 80 games. Nonetheless, Marlins manager Don Mattingly lifted Conley because he had exceeded his pitch count. Though baseball paid little attention to the statistic for 70 years, today teams carefully monitor how many pitches a hurler throws, both to anticipate ineffectiveness, and to guard against injury.

In Conley’s case, he had never thrown more than a hundred pitches in a game, and had topped out at 116. To Mattingly and Marlins pitching coach Juan Nieves, that meant that even on the verge of immortality, Conley had to be removed. Conley was angry, though he said all the right things after the game. Still, knowing the alleged risk to his arm and career, he wanted to try to finish his masterpiece. (The Marlins blew the no-hitter and the shutout in the 9th, though still managed to win 5-3.)

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:

Was removing Conley “for his own good” when he wanted to have the chance at a no-hitter fair?

Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Week: President Obama

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

Safe Airlane

“Today, I want to update you on some important progress we’ve made to protect our communities from gun violence. As I said in January, these commonsense steps are not going to prevent every tragedy, but what if they prevented even one? We should be doing everything we can to save lives and spare families the pain and unimaginable loss too many Americans have endured.”

—- President Barack Obama, announcing new measures that his administration will pursue to help curb gun violence.

This is at least the second time, related to gun deaths, that President Obama has invoked the logically, practically, philosophically and ethically absurd “if only one life is saved” argument. President Obama isn’t as smart as his blindly loyal supporters think he is, and definitely not as smart as he thinks he is, but he must be smarter than that.

Yet he uses this ridiculous logic anyway. In Obama’s defense, his entire, nauseatingly inept administration has been rationalized on this basis, so it is a mindset that may be set in cement. Obamacare has allowed some Americans to get insurance that they desperately needed, so, the flawed logic goes, the fact that the legislation has also divided the country, caused millions to lose health care plans that they were satisfied with in favor of new plans they can’t afford, caused rates to skyrocket, suppressed hiring and done nothing to lower health care costs doesn’t alter the official conclusion that the policy is a success.

It isn’t just that the ends justify the means; the theory is that a single designated positive result justifies not only the means but other negative results too. True, prematurely withdrawing from Iraq caused the country to collapse and Isis to run amuck, but the United States withdrew, and that’s enough. Yes, the Education Department’s “Dear Colleague Letter” has caused male students to be unjustly tarred with unproved rape accusations, been the target of false charges and have had their educations disrupted without sufficient evidence or due process, but as long as some female sexual assault victims receive fair attention to their complaints that would not have occurred before, this gender-based persecution is acceptable collateral damage. Sure, Obama’s refusal to acknowledge that radical Islam is a terrorist threat have allowed irresponsible immigration and migrant policies to continue despite their existential risks, but what matters is that some, many–just one!—peaceful, law-abiding Muslims not be the victims of bigotry, fear and hate.

Obama’s latest “just one is enough” assertion is a direct call to the most naive, least aware and most cognitively impaired among us. If saving just one life were enough, then automobiles should be made of soft plastic and travel no more than a few miles an hour. Requiring airlines to use only airplanes that don’t fly, like the one pictured above, would surely save at least one life. Ships and boats never launched on water are very safe. Continue reading →

Where Do You Get The Idea That It’s OK To Insult My Dog?

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Rugby2

I was walking Rugby yesterday—that’s him above from a recent commercial photo-shoot–and ran into a young woman walking her West Highland Terrier. I like Westies, as does Rugby (but then, he also likes mail carriers, squirrels, my sister and once wagged his tail at a cockroach…), and I made some positive comments about the breed.

“Well, your dog certainly looks like he hasn’t missed many meals!” was her response. The ethicist programming blocked me from saying what first popped into my head, which was, “Well, neither do you, bitch,” and instead I attempted to enlighten her by saying, in a moderate tone,

“Actually, Rugby is an authentic, Jack Russell Terrier Association-certified Jack Russell, meaning that he is not the long-legged, faux monstrosity the AKC calls a “Parson Russell Terrier,” nor the much smaller toy-like version it calls the “Russell Terrier.” Jack Russell Terriers of the Irish, as in genuine variety, are certified by their personality and hunting traits, and not by looks alone. Thus they vary more in physical traits than AKC breeds, bred for show, and since the bulldog is part of the strange and wonderful alchemy that makes these dogs the bundles of joy they are, some Jacks, like Rugby and his still mourned predecessor Dickens, have a thick bulldog build, with a broad chest and stocky body. They are all muscle (“unlike your simpy terrier”–the ethicist filter blocked this too), and you may be surprised to learn, given the fact that he is at this moment acting more lively than your young dog, that Rugby is just short of 13 years-old, and thus just a bit heavier, but not much, than he was in his youth when the vet said he was as perfect a specimen of the breed as he has ever seen. Val Kilmer or Kirsty Alley he isn’t. He remains unslowed by time, and those meeting him for the first time often mistake him for a puppy, which is undoubtedly how he sees himself.”

She just walked on, hearing little of it.

Why do people think that making gratuitously critical comments about a stranger’s pet is any less rude and disrespectful than insulting a child or anything else that the individual obviously cares about? Continue reading →

Talia Jane, Public Jerk, Grabs Credit For Yelp’s Pay Raise

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments
She's baaaaaack!

She’s baaaaaack!

Remember the fifteen-minutes of infamy of Talia Jane, an entry-level Yelp employee who posted an article to the social media site Medium titled, An Open Letter To My CEO?    Cheekily addressed to “Jeremy” (Yelp Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Stoppleman), the letter/rant/ classic of arrogant entitlement was a long, snotty whine about her low compensation—you know, like all entry-level jobs—alleged abject poverty (which was quickly shown to be a lie), high Bay Area living expenses (because they were a secret until she moved there), company policies and the fact that Yelp creator Stoppleman was rich.

Jane was thoroughly shredded by every online commentator (including Ethics Alarms) over the age of 21 and not a Bernie Sanders supporter. The obnoxious screed showed a complete lack of personal responsibility for her own choices, and made her a strong candidate for Most Unattractive Job Candidate of 2016. My conclusion:

I wouldn’t trust Talia Jane to run my lemonade stand.

Hey, but she’s young, she made a mistake, and she’ll learn and grow through this misstep, understanding the error of her ways and going forward to become a fair, reasonable, ethical member of society, right?

Fat chance. I hesitated to pronounce her essay as signature significance, a misbegotten ethics botch of a magnitude that indicated the author was probably an incurable toxic jerk, because 25 is too early to write off even the most egregious offenders. She may learn yet, I suppose, but the most recent evidence is not encouraging. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Comment of the Day (1): ‘Unethical Quote Of The Week: Chelsea Clinton’”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments
Hysterics, obviously...

Hysterics, obviously…

The gun-banning deceit is revving up again, so to pace the blog on this topic, which already had been discussed in a recent post and a Comment of the Day on it, I held out this excellent post by lively Ethic Alarms regular Steve-O-in-NJ for a few days.

By deceit, I mean statements like White House spokesman Josh Earnest yesterday regarding so-called “smart gun” technology, on which the White House is preparing a legislative push. He said in part:

“I think what is true is that I couldn’t think of another industry off the top of my head that isn’t interested in looking at new technology that could make their product safer. Just about every other industry that I can think of, that’s what people do. That’s what manufacturers do. That is a source of innovation in a variety of fields. I think the best example of this is in the auto industry. Auto manufacturers actually market the degree to which they use new technology to make their products safer, to make cars and trucks safer. It is surprising to me that so many gun manufacturers shirk that responsibility.”

It is amusing that Earnest—is he the worst of the three professional liars the Obama White House has employed to mislead the press, deny the truth and spin misconduct?—prefaced his remarks by dismissing “wild conspiracy theories” that the new initiative was designed to make guns less accessible, then uttered this whopper. Guns aren’t supposed to be safe, or what anti-gun zealots regard as safe, which would mean that they would have to be made out of foam rubber. They are designed to kill things, including, when necessary, people. Cars are not supposed to kill  anyone: making safe cars is nothing at all like making safe guns.

You know, Josh, I can’t think of any another industry off the top of my head–which is apparently quite a bit more well-furnished than yours–that makes killing tools and machines and does look for technology to make them “safer” by the anti-gun lobby’s definition. Hunting knives? Baseball bats? Have you ever seen a safe hammer? A safe bomb? Safe poison? Of course “smart gun” requirements would make guns less accessible (meeting regulations costs money and adds to purchase price, “smart” features that don’t work right engender lawsuits, guns that are more cumbersome to use are less desirable to people who want guns…) by making them more expensive and difficult to use. And that’s just what the President, Hillary, Chelsae and the rest want.

You’re a liar who treats the press and public as if they were idiots, Josh. Just off the top of my head. Yes, I know: I don’t care that you are just channeling your boss. The line about gun-makers “shirking responsibility” is a transparent effort to grease the skids for product liability lawsuits that would make it impossible to make guns, which is exactly the agenda being pursued here. Gun rights supporters know it, and are derided as conspiracy nuts. Anti-gun advocates also know it, and think it’s just fine.

Here is Steve-O-in-NJ‘s Comment of the Day on the Ethics Alarms post “Comment of the Day (1): ‘Unethical Quote Of The Week: Chelsea Clinton’”: Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: San Antonio District Attorney Nico LaHood, The FUN Prosecutor!

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

my_cousin_vinny_9

Casual Friday was always a blight on the professional workplace landscape,and, predictably, it has come to this.

There is a cultural battle going on in San Antonio, Texas, where in the 187th District Court, District Judge Steven Hilbig  announced that he would not allow prosecutors in his courtroom if they were dressed like a local version of Joe Pesci’s Vinnie in “My Cousin Vinnie,” garbed in jeans and guayaberas rather than Vinnie’s leather jacket and leather pants. This wouldn’t be a problem for any sane DA’s office, since almost everywhere else no self-respecting (judge-respecting, court-respecting, law-respecting, respect-respecting…) lawyer would dream of appearing in the halls of justice dressed like an Acapulco tourist, or Cousin Vinnie, for that matter. It is a problem in Bexar County, however, because there District Attorney Nico LaHood thinks that local tradition trumps the legitimate needs of the justice system.

It is Fiesta time, you see, in Bexar county, a ten-day celebration that migrated legally from Mexico to parts of Texas, and previous judges foolishly allowed it to be recognized in their courthouses by permitting prosecutors to “dress down.”  The rough, and equally stupid, equivalent farther from the border would be allowing prosecutors to dress like elves during the Christmas shopping season or Minnie Mouse on Halloween.

Judge Hilbig, an adult, finally decided to put a stop to this nonsense by declaring, as did Judge Fred Gwynne, old Herman Munster himself in “My Cousin Vinnie,” that no lawyer was going to make a mockery of justice in his courtroom by setting foot in it dressed unprofessionally.

I love this guy! Continue reading →

The Fraudulent Sperm Donor

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Sperm Bank

The British cartoon above give me the willies the first time I saw years ago it, and it does still. I tracked it down after reading legal commentary on a nightmarish incident in Canada.

Canadian couple Angela Collins and Elizabeth Hanson chose a sperm donor for their planned child who claimed a 160 IQ, a neuroscience PhD, and a perfect medical history.  After their child was born, they learned the surrogate father’s name though an error by the sperm bank, and discovered that Dad had lied: he never graduated from college, was a convicted felon, and had a history of schizophrenia. His sperm bank profile picture was also a fake; I’m guessing he really looked like the guy in the cartoon.

Other than that, he was fine.
Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The University Of Washington Cheerleader Do’s and Don’ts

/ Jack Marshall / 37 Comments

 

I have to admit that for me, one potential benefit of the viral political correctness malady that makes virtually any communication a potential threat to one’s career, reputation or physical well-being would be the obliteration of the embarrassment known as “cheerleading squads” from athletic events sidelines and the culture forever.

Nevertheless, this episode from earlier this week warrants examination.

The University of Washington cheerleading team posted an infographic on Facebook Monday night, giving out aspiring cheerleader audition tips.  The team said that it created the graphic “in response to a high volume of student questions about cheer and dance team tryouts.” Similar “do’s and don’ts”  had been posted by the squads at Washington State University and Louisiana State University  but this one caused a full social media freakout.

University of Washington cheerleader tryout advert.

“I can’t believe this is real,” exclaimed UW student Jazmine Perez, director of programming for student government. “One of the first things that comes mind is objectification and idealization of Western beauty, which are values I would like to believe the University doesn’t want to perpetuate,” she said. “As a student of color who looks nothing like the student in the poster, this feels very exclusive.” Another UW student complained, “I think it’s really upsetting and kind of disheartening the way it’s basically asking these women who want to try out to perform their femininity — but not too much. Such a message would never go out to men trying out for a sport.”

The graphic was taken down quickly, because university officials deemed that some might find it offensive….a standard that if followed routinely these days would preclude virtually any statement or graphic about anything. I am sure someone is at work on software right now that will devise within seconds a basis for outrage and offense for any form of expression.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz today:

Was this an unethical—as in hurtful, irresponsible, incompetent, insulting or unfair—graphic?

Continue reading →