Some animal abuse issues are ethics slam dunks, some should be, and some are more complicated than the wo people posture over them seem to think. Here are three examples from the news:
“I believe that if given the choice, animals would decline to having themselves undergo a painful procedure of being either tattooed or pierced,” said New York State Senator Mark Grisanti, a Republican who is supporting the measure introduced by Democratic Assemblywoman Linda Rosentha in 2011.
Ya think? The fact that a law would even be necessary to articulate that tattooing or piercing a pet for the owner’s amusement is horribly wrong and obvious cruelty foretells the approaching apocalypse. That such a law would take three years to pass also tells us something bad about, oh, New York, politics, partisan warfare, human intelligence…just about everything. The problem, was brought to public attention by the prosecution of this idiot.
Soon dogs and cats will be sleeping together, the world will stop spinning on its axis, and there will be snowball fights in Hell. It is the end of the world.
On the latest installment “Real Time with Bill Maher, “HBO’s weekly conservative/ Republican bash-fest, Maher, whom his progressive guests trust implicitly to be of a like mind, read a quote that the posted graphic identified as issuing from Rep. Paul Ryan. The 2012 GOP Vice-Presidential candidate had been slammed earlier in the week for “racially coded” comments about the need to change the culture in the inner city. Here is the quote:
“When it comes to getting an education, too many of our young people just can’t be bothered. They’re sitting on couches for hours playing video games, watching TV. Instead of dreaming of being a teacher or a lawyer or a business leader, they’re fantasizing about being a baller or a rapper.”
Then Bill let his guests take turns criticizing Ryan for blaming black Americans for problems over whichthey had no control, while sole conservative guest (Bill only allows one token punching bag from the right per show) Rick Lazio was mocked and laughed at by the studio audience for defending Ryan’s point. Finally, after letting everyone hang themselves, Maher revealed that the real speaker was…. Michelle Obama.
As Ralph Cramden…that is, the Great One, Jackie Gleason, used to say,
Thank you, Bill!
He was the perfect one to pull this revealing and damning stunt, being a reliable race-baiter himself (on an earlier show, Maher countered Bill Kristol’s challenge to the liberal cant that Republican opposition to President Obama is based on racial bias by asserting that he “absolutely” believed that.) But Bill isn’t above tricking and embarrassing his loyal allies and toadying audience for publicity and to pose as a truth-teller so his future deceptions, slanders and lies have more credibility. One can do the right thing, and a very beneficial thing, for unethical reasons, and I am absolutely certain that the despicable, amoral, cynical and vicious “comic” had nothing but base motives for this stunt. In fact, tricking invited guests who trust him into exposing their own bias was despicable, terrible host etiquette, and dishonest, but then Bill’s show is something of an ethics-free zone anyway. Anyone, right or left, who enables Maher by appearing on his show has waived the right to have my sympathy. In another case, I might argue that the end doesn’t justify the means, but anyone who voluntarily agrees to keep Maher’s show on the air deserves what he or she gets. This is the Scorpion and the Frog at its clearest.
THINK, Jack—if the best of the breed was a biased dimwit, why do you still want to trust these people?
I am grateful for the Chicago Tribune website readers who have followed blogger Eric Zorn’s link to the Ethics Alarms Noah post, but is it too much to expect a major newspaper’s columnist to read and comprehend the plain meaning of a post before criticizing it? Zorn, who authors the Trib’s Change of Subject blog, was cheering on Bill Maher’s atheistic take on God, the Bible and the Noah story, and then quoted me, writing…
I found this refutation of Maher particularly unconvincing and circular:
“God makes the rules, he is literally incapable of being immoral; it is a contradiction in terms. If God kills, it is by definition right and good, because God himself defines right and good. Does Bill really not get this? … If you don’t believe that God “works in mysterious ways” and that everything he does in the Old Testament is justifiable as part of some greater plan, Maher is indisputably right. God is a mass murderer.”
How more wrong could Zorn be?
1. I wasn’t refuting Maher, but defending his anti-God statement as completely accurate from his narrow and biased point of view, which includes a basic misunderstanding of what morality is and what it means to believe in an infallible deity. Continue reading →
There is nothing unethical about “Noah,” the biblical spectacular that harkens back to the grand old days when Cecil B. DeMille reigned supreme. I haven’t seen the movie, and yet I can say that with absolute certainty. The reason I can say it that there is no way on earth that a movie about Noah and the Ark, in this day and age, could possibly be unethical. Even if the Old Testament were literal fact, which it is not, cannot be and in all likelihood was never intended to be, “Noah” couldn’t possibly be unethical, because it is a movie.
Never mind that of all the Biblical fables, with the possible exception of Adam and Eve, the tale of Noah is perhaps the most obviously impossible. The movie is art—of one kind or another—and does not represent itself as a documentary or make any factual assertions whatsoever. Thus it can be distinguished from a truly unethical film like Oliver Stone’s “JFK,” which intentionally misrepresented recent historical facts to “prove” a theory of the Kennedy assassination that was irresponsible and almost certainly false. Is “Noah” dishonest? It is impossible to be dishonest about a presumptively non-historical event about which there is no direct evidence whatsoever, and when there is no intention to deceive. Is it disrespectful? Art has no duty to be respectful. Is it fair? Fair to who? An artist’s stakeholders are those who appreciate his or her art. Does it do harm, or intend to? No. Continue reading →
To be clear from the start: Rep. Michael Grimm threatened a reporter last night for doing his job. He behaved like a thug, which is to say that he behaved as a “ruffian, hooligan, vandal, hoodlum, gangster, villain, or criminal” might behave, which is unacceptable for any law-abiding citizen, and outrageous for an elected representative. NY1 political reporter Michael Scotto had the audacity to ask the Congressman a direct question at the State of the Union address relating not to the speech, but to the Congressman’s fundraising, which is the object of an FBI probe. Grimm refused to answer the question, then cornered the reporter (on camera, though he did not know it, and said ominously , in an excellent soto voce imitation of Michael Corleone telling Fredo that he knows he betrayed him…
“Let me be clear to you, you ever do that to me again I’ll throw you off this f***ing balcony.'”
As the shocked reporter tried to sputter out a defense, Michael…that’s Grimm, not Corleone…continued,
“No, no, you’re not man enough, you’re not man enough. I’ll break you in half. Like a boy.” Continue reading →
The last couple of days have added more embarrassing examples of desperate supporters of the Democrats, President Obama and/or the Affordable Care Act thoroughly disgracing themselves by adopting rationalizations, distortions, denial, tortured reasoning and worse to avoid holding President Obama accountable for intentionally misleading the American people for more than three years regarding whether they could keep their healths plan if they liked them, “period.”
Two aspects of this disgusting spectacle are remarkable. One is that there is such a wide and creative variation among the integrity-defying tactics taken by this distinguished assortment of pols, elected officials, hacks, flacks, pundits and journalists. The other is that after this is all over, nearly half the American public will still loyally insist on trusting the promises and pronouncements of this very same group, though they proved themselves, in this episode, untrustworthy beyond a reasonable doubt. The first of these developments is surprising. The second extinguishes all hope.
Now the latest additions to the list of shame:
David Axelrod,Obama political advisor. Today on “Meet the Press, ” Axelrod chose as his truthbuster the rationalization that since the President wasn’t lying to all of the Americans he was addressing, he wasn’t lying at all.Continue reading →
When Bill Maher seems more ethical than the White House, it’s time to hit the life boats…
Yes, today Kathleen Sebelius joined the growing group of pols, leaders, pundits and journalists—and maybe some of your friends and associates—who have flunked the integrity and trustworthiness test created by the undeniable evidence that public support for Obamacare was predicated on a calculated lie. Asked in today’s hearing about the fact that so many Americans are now receiving letters cancelling their health care plans that they were “happy with” (including me, by the way) because of the requirements of the Affordable Care Act, despite the President’s repeated assurances that…
“If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your healthcare plan. Period.”
…Sec. Sebelius replied that insurance companies have always been able to cancel plans, essentially making the deceitful argument that the current calculations were brought about by the exact same law the President promised would NOT lead to such cancellations.
This is despicable. It is also the same dishonest, insulting argument used yesterday by Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services. So this is apparently the talking point agreed upon by the Obama Administration: “Hey, we never said you wouldn’t be cancelled, just that this law wouldn’t cancel you.” But the President’s words actually did promise that nobody would be cancelled, and what he intended to convey was that nobody should fear losing their health care plan as a consequence of passing the ACA. Continue reading →
If Riley Cooper were black, of course, then he would be “cool.”
There are words, there are thoughts, and there is conduct. Thoughts are not unethical. Conduct can be unethical. Words can be considered conduct when they are intended to have, or do have, material and measurable direct effects. Verbal abuse is conduct. Using a rude, vulgar or hateful word may not be verbal abuse.
Although the NFL and his team, the Philadelphia Eagles have every right, and some good reasons, to punish, suspend or even terminate Riley Cooper because a video reveals the Eagles player as saying, “I will jump that fence and fight every nigger here!” at a Kenny Chesney concert, I don’t see any conduct there, just words. He did not direct the racial slur at any individual, and there is no evidence that it was intended to harm or intimidate any African-Americans. He did not intend for the outburst to be publicized of communicated to anyone but the friends he said it to. On a pure just punishment for harm intended or achieved basis, it is ridiculous for Cooper to be facing the loss of millions and his athletic career because he uttered a single racial slur that was captured on a video. It cannot be defended logically or as a reasonable position. Using one racial slur in that setting doesn’t prove that Cooper is a racist. It doesn’t prove hate. Even if it did, hate is not illegal or even unethical until the hater acts on it in an unethical way. And a word is just a word. We don’t, or shouldn’t, fear mere words in a rational American society. We shouldn’t have taboos, or people who “cannnot be named,” like in the Harry Potter books. The ease and certitude with which otherwise intelligent people capable of making judgments involving proportion and common sense blithely go along with the batty idea that uttering a word, only uttering it and nothing more, should result in devastating consequences, is frightening. It is a per se unethical position, because it is unfair, and incompetent, because it is essentially crazy.
Having said that, I can understand why, since so many people are irrational about words, why the NFL or the Philadelphia Eagles, as a business decision, may decide that they don’t want Cooper associated with them any more. That is a rational choice, and may even be the best choice. That is not the same as saying that he deserves that result. If the bulk of NFL fans are fanatically politically correct, then the NFL and its teams cannot afford to ignore that. Sorry Riley. Continue reading →
Bill Maher, bad boy comic, political satirist and host of HBO’s “Real Time”
Maher’s fans
Ron Futrelle, former sportscaster and Las Vegas media personality
Sarah Palin, former governor, VP candidate, Fox commentator and conservative icon
All clashed over a joke made by Maher during a stand-up gig, and your challenge is to decide who gets the lowest ethics grade. Here’s what happened: Futrelle was in the audience for Maher’s show in Las Vegas. Maher made a joke about Palin’s son, Trig, who has Down Syndrome. According to Futrelle, the joke upset him, as well as the fact that the audience appeared to enjoy Maher’s using Palin’s innocent and mentally challenged child as a comedy topic, and laughed heartily. Futrelle began heckling Maher, eventually prompting an annoyed audience member to remind him that he was not the attraction, and suggest that he shut his gob. Futrelle persisted, and when confronted by security, left.
Through Futrelle’s blog’s account of his experience, Brietbart and the miracle of social media, Mama Grizzly Palin learned that her young son had been (again) converted into joke-fodder, and tweeted her reaction to Maher:
“Hey bully, on behalf of all kids whom you hatefully mock in order to make yourself feel big, I hope one flattens your lily white wimpy a#*.”
Our grading scale:
A Exemplary ethical conduct.
B Ethical and appropriate conduct that could have been better executed.
CAcceptable conduct according to reasonable social norms
DUnethical conduct
F Despicable conduct
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz is, therefore, to accept this challenge:
Give Maher, Maher’s audience, Futrelle and Palin their ethics grades. Continue reading →
Normally the result of a tiff between Donald Trump and Bill Maher would interest me about as much as I would be invested in the winner of a battle between Godzilla and Megalon. Trump’s lawsuit against Maher in retaliation for an obvious joke, however, is unethical and indefensible no matter how much I enjoy seeing Maher, who could only avoid being the most obnoxious human being in world containing the likes of Trump, suffer.
Maher joked to Jay Leno last month that he would pay $5 million to Trump’s charity of choice if Trump could prove that his birth wasn’t the result his mother having sex with orangutan. I missed it, Jay having joined David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel in my talk-show host Hall of Ethics Shame, but the line did make me laugh, I confess. Maher’s faux challenge was an obvious riff on the offensive offer Trump made to President Barack Obama during the presidential campaign, in which Trump raised the birther canard again and offered $5 million to the President’s charity of choice if Obama released his college records and definitive proof that he was really born in the U.S.A.
Nonetheless, Trump decided to behave as if it were a real offer. He had his lawyers send the verification to Maher (Trump’s father, the brains of the family, was a legendary real estate innovator and mogul), and now Trump is suing for the $5 million on the pretense that the comic welched on a legitimate and enforceable unilateral contract. “I don’t know whether this case will be won or lost, but I felt a major obligation to bring it on behalf of the charities,” Trump said. Continue reading →
Ethics Alarms 