censorship

Magazine Cover Ethics: The Cute Terrorist and The Rolling Stone Boycott

/ Jack Marshall / 73 Comments

tsarnaev-rolling-stone-feature

Is it just my flawed impression, or are Americans increasingly less supportive of free speech, free thought, and artistic expression? If so, that is a worrisome development for our democracy and its culture, and if so, yes, I believe the willingness of our government and its leaders to maneuver around the Bill of Rights in “ends justify the means” conduct has fueled the trend.

Now Rolling Stone is the target. The Sixties magazine icon had the nerve to place Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaevon its latest edition’s cover, looking like a male model, and, we hear, the families of the victims are outraged and their communities prefer their sensibilities over liberty. Jumping on the bandwagon, retailers have decided to make all publications afraid to challenge its readers by announcing that they won’t sell the issue in Boston, and there are hints of an advertiser boycott.

Unfair, un-American, dangerous and silly. Continue reading →

Unethical Website of the Month: Chimpmania…And The Unethical Petition Opposing It

/ Jack Marshall / 150 Comments

CensorshipA good friend sent me a link to a Change.org petition put up by Heidie Stanton-Sharpe of Mukilteo, Washington, suggesting that I sign it. Heidi had announced that she wanted to take down a website called Chimpmania, writing,

“This website spews hatred and promotes violence against people of color. It targeted my family and posted pictures of my children. It is vile and extreme and if the internet is an international forum we should have regulations about promoting violence against people. It’s not humane, it’s barbaric and there is no place for that type of behavior anywhere in society and most definitely not on a public forum.”

Heidi did not articulate a legal or Constitutional justification for closing down a website (because there is none) , and I was surprised that my friend would support such an effort. Spewing hatred is acceptable free speech for the most part. I think the Daily Kos  and right wing talk show host Mark Levin spew hatred, but I’ll defend to the death their right to do spew it.  “Promoting violence” has to become threatening and genuinely illegal before it qualifies as conduct that can justify censorship; what is inhumane and barbaric is a matter of opinion. Being in the mood to flag civic ignorance as I watched live feeds of a responsible, brave, unquestionably correct jury verdict in the Zimmerman case being protested around the country, I started to write my friend a little primer on the First Amendment. I decided to check out the website in question first, though, and “Cowabunga!” as Bart Simpson used to say* in such situations. Chimpmania is one ugly, hateful racist website. Continue reading →

Ken at Popehat Weighs In On The Justin Carter Persecution

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

justin-carter-1

At Popehat, where I hoped the Justin Carter arrest and imprisonment would eventually attract interest, Ken White—attorney, civil libertarian, blogger extraordinaire—writes in part…

“We have fully and foolishly subscribed to the “Think of the Children!” culture. In an era in which violent crime has plunged dramatically, we think it is up. We think so because the media — hungry for money and attention — serves us bloody context-free meat every night. We think so because law enforcement — hungry for more funding, more power, more toys — relentlessly tells us we are in danger and that our children are in danger and that the only answer is to trust and fear. We are bid to trust not ourselves and our good judgment, but law enforcement. We are bid to fear not the power of the state, but the criminal forces arrayed against us and our children — forces that only law enforcement can hold at bay. We accept this. But who poses more of a risk to us, and to our children: the Justin Carters of the world, or the state that will file dishonest and misleading warrant applications against him, the state that will confine him to be beaten and stripped naked in a cell, the state that will confine him for a crass joke?”

Read the entire, excellent post here.

Ethics Alarms hopes Popehat joins with us in promoting…

August 1, 2013

as “Quote Justin Carter On Social Media Day.” Even more, I hope that the charges against Justin Carter are dropped before the first, though the protest should go forward. The Justice Carter prosecution for free expression on his Facebook page is infinitely more significant and important to the nation than the show trial of George Zimmerman, though they are related: in both cases, deliberate efforts to inflame the public for political gain resulted in the flagrant abuse of prosecutorial power. It isn’t enough that Justin is spared…we need to make sure this stops now, and forever.

Note: You can register your support for the protest at Jeff Field’s event page, here.

 

I Propose A “Quote Justin Carter On Social Media Day”—Because His Imprisonment Is A Disgrace To Our Nation

/ Jack Marshall / 75 Comments

Justin Carter

Ethics Alarms is not an activist blog. That is not its purpose. However, for some reason that mystifies and frightens me, most of the nation appears to be unaware, or not to give a damn, that in this nation, supposedly free and governed by the principles of the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence, a young teenaged man has been imprisoned and abused because he wrote this in a non-threatening exchange on Facebook:

“Oh yeah, I’m real messed up in the head. I think Ima shoot up a kindergarten and watch the blood of the innocent rain down and eat the beating heart of one of them.” lol. jk.”

I wrote about the ridiculous, Kafka-esque series of events that put this innocent kid in prison here. I asked in that post, “what are we going to do about it?” The answer, apparently, is nothing.

The confiscate-the-guns, save-the-children, anything-goes-to-save-one-child hysteria that marinated everyone’s brain since Newtown apparently worked, and just a few observers are even paying attention to Justin’s persecution any more. It’s gotten worse for Justin, you know. He’s still in jail; he has apparently been beaten. He’s on a suicide watch, and for some reason a judge set his bail at $500,000, which defies sanity. The ACLU, which one would think exists to come to the rescue of victims like Justin, has been silent as far as I can tell. Texas Governor Rick Perry hasn’t lifted a finger either. While President Obama clearly intends to stick his nose into every local incident he gives a damn about, he doesn’t appear to feel the imprisonment of a kid for making a black humor joke on Facebook is worthy of his meddling. Outside of the Huffington Post, the National Review and NPR, only the conservative websites have expressed outrage at Justin’s case. None of the major news networks have reported it. Nor has the Washington Post or The New York Times. Indeed, read the comments to some of the web coverage, and you encounter disgusting reactions like this, from HuffPo reader Rita Phel:

“It is unbelievable how many people are defending this young man and making light of what he said. There is NOTHING funny about that comment and there never will be. The victim’s families are still grieving for goodness sake. And just because somebody says they’re just kidding doesn’t mean they actually are. Also, he’s not a kid – he was 18 at the time and that makes him an adult. He knew very well that what he posted was inappropriate or else he would not have quickly followed it with ‘lol’ and ‘jk’. This world is clearly more messed up than I thought if people could boldly defend something so obviously cruel, offensive and insensitive”

That’s right Rita, you Nazi, when someone offends you with an insensitive remark on his own webpage, lock him up.

All you self-righteous civil libertarian cartoonists out there: you thought it was worth insulting an entire world of Muslims because one of your number was bullied by Islamic crazies for drawing Mohammad. Is it worth your time to do anything to protest your own country throwing teens in jail for making sarcastic jokes? Why are you, indeed, why are any of us sitting by and allowing our news media to ignore the fact that in this country, someone is being jailed for nothing more than a lack of political correctness…and is allegedly facing many years in jail? The big protest action undertaken in Justin’s behalf appear to be a Change.org petition. Yeah, that’s powerful.

lol. jk.

He’s “just one” individual? He’s one citizen, and if it can happen to one, it can happen to any of us. (It already happened to another.)

So let me propose some more high profile action that might rouse our media and our elected officials out of their disgraceful apathy. I’m not going to organize it, but the social media will do that, if anyone else cares.

I propose that we make August 1 “Quote Justin Carter On Social Media Day.” Circulate this post, or just spread the word yourself. Everyone with a Facebook, Twitter or other social media account post Justin’s prison-worthy threat….

“Oh yeah, I’m real messed up in the head. I think Ima shoot up a kindergarten and watch the blood of the innocent rain down and eat the beating heart of one of them. lol. jk.”

Maybe that will get some attention. That busy-body in Canada can’t have all of us arrested…unless its just me. Come to think of it, I live next to a school. Hmmm. I sure hope I have some company on August first, because in Barack Obama’s America, I’m not sure what I may be arrested for, or who may be watching.

I’m not doing this alone.

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Graphic: New York Daily News

The Persecution Of Justin Carter And The Consequences Of Fear-Mongering: If This Doesn’t Make You Angry, Something’s The Matter With You

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

strike

Here I was, naively thinking that the threatened jailing of a student for resisting a teacher’s efforts to make him remove his T-shirt with the image of a rifle on it was the most shocking proof of how imperiled free thought and expression are in today’s fearful, dim-witted and child abuse-rationalizing America. Then this jaw-dropping story came across my screen, and I realized that the situation is far worse than I imagined or could imagine—and I have a pretty good imagination.

Now the question is, I think, this: what are we going to do about it?

Nineteen-year-old Justin Carter has been in prison since March. You will not believe why, or perhaps, being both paranoid and right,  you will. A Facebook friend and video game pal described him in an exchange as “crazy” and “messed up in the head,” and Carter replied, with sarcasm detectable by anyone who isn’t an SS officer. “Oh yeah, I’m real messed up in the head, I’m going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts. lol. jk.” A Canadian busybody read the exchange, and decided to report Justin to the Austin police, who then arrested him–he was 18 at the time—searched his family’s house, and charged him with making a “terroristic threat.” Continue reading →

Resolving An Ethics Alarms Ethics Conflict

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

poof-smallI just took down a post, something I have only done four times previously. This decision, unlike the others, was the resolution of a genuine ethics conflict, created in part by the recent discussions here.

Tonight I received a terse demand, phrased as a request but with a time deadline,* from a former commentary subject insisting that I remove a critical post here from nearly a year ago. The post was not factually incorrect, nor  did it make any factual assertions that could support a credible defamation claim. My commentary was pure opinion, though a fairly harsh one. I have pledged, following the inspirational example of Ken at Popehat and also attorney/blogger Marc Randazza, not to countenance web censorship involving bogus legal threats, and thus drafted and came within a finger-stroke of sending a rejection of the demand, and a strongly worded one.

Then I re-read the post at issue. It was a criticism of a tweet from a professional that I believed, and believe, had the effect of unfairly impugning an entire workplace and the identifiable colleagues of the tweeter. The tweet was wrong, but I realized that I was also wrong to highlight it here. I have been writing quite a lot lately about the inherent Golden Rule violation of web-shaming individuals for single and isolated unethical acts that fall short of illegality or such outrageous callousness or cruelty that there is a duty to warn others. I think there is a toxic cultural trend, fed by the power of the internet, that will soon make web bullies and assassins of us all, and potential victims as well. I want to fight that trend, not contribute to it. I think, in the case of that post, I was on the side that I now believe is the wrong one. It was a stupid and thoughtless tweet. It did not justify a web-shaming on Ethics Alarms. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce + Incompetent Elected Official = Censorship In North Carolina

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments
Thank-you. I see no reason to believe that your funding is in any jeopardy, by the way."

Thank-you. I see no reason to believe that your funding is in any jeopardy, by the way.”

Central Carolina Community College pulled the plug on a public affairs  talk show airing on its radio station after a legislative assistant for State Rep. Mike Stone complained about an online post by one of the show’s hosts, criticizing the  Sanford, N.C. Republican.  Susan Phillips, Stone’s legislative assistant, wrote the school’s president, T.E. “Bud” Marchant, with pointed questions about the program’s affiliation with the school, funding sources, and budget.  Central Carolina Community College is one 58 community colleges in North Carolina that depend on the  legislature for funding, and Stone’s message was received loud and clear. Marchant shut down the show, known as “The Rant,” two days later. He also denied that Stone’s interference had anything to do with it.

Sure.

There shouldn’t be any question over what happened here. An elected official in a supposedly democratic nation decided to abuse his position and power as well as violate his oath of office  by using veiled threats and intimidation to stifle Constitutionally protected criticism of his job performance, and a craven educator caved to his pressure, violating his duty of respecting academic freedom and standing against efforts by the state to stifle free speech and political dissent. Marchant, if he had even a rudimentary backbone, would have told Stone’s minion to back off and reported this clumsy attempt at extortion to the area’s news media. Stone, if he had any integrity or respect for the founding principles of the United States, would have taken “The Rant’s” host’s criticism like an adult and a believer in free speech, and responded with a defense or a rebuttal, not by leaning on the radio station’s management. As for Marchant’s incredible claim that Stone’s complaints and the show’s demise were unrelated, even if that were true, his creating the appearance of censoring campus speech in response to government disapproval would be nearly as offensive as censorship itself, because it would still have the effect of chilling First Amendment rights.

I’m certain, considering what appears to be the generally low quality of state legislators across the country (which figures, given the abysmal quality of national legislators), that this kind of thing occurs far more frequently than we know. Let’s see if Stone’s bedrock, conservative supporters are sufficiently offended by his efforts to use government power to muzzle adverse opinion, and send him on a new career path. My guess? This incident won’t make any difference to his election chances at all, if voters like Stone’s politics and believe the radio host is a nettlesome lefty. We are constantly told how much of the country is willing to dispense with the Second Amendment, as if that proves that amendment is archaic. Sincere public support for the First Amendment is similarly shaky.

All right, let us agree that both legislator and college president are unqualified for their positions by virtue of their abandonment of their ethical obligations in their respective roles—Stone’s duty to respect free speech and observe proper limits on government power, Marchant’s duty to protect academic freedom and oppose government efforts to stifle free expression. That still doesn’t justify the elitist coverage of this story by Jonathan Turley, whose blog post first alerted me to it. For some reason, the noted civil rights expert and law professor believes that it is Stone’s wan academic credentials and humble work experience that explain his bullying tactics. Why else would Turley feel it is germane to note that Stone lists his education as ‘“Attended, Accounting, Central Carolina Business” and lists his experience as “Business Owner, O’’Connell’s Grocery Store”’ ? Why is any of that relevant? The law school professor is evidently a bigot, and believes that one’s ethical instincts and character are directly proportional to one’s degrees and work experience.

Rep. Stone is a citizen of the United States, and like every citizen, should be presumed to know about the Four Freedoms whether he graduated from Harvard or the School of Hard Knocks. There are plenty of well-credentialed bullies, fools and ignoramuses in elected office. It is sufficient to judge Stone by what he did; Turley’s implied ridicule of his educational and work background is a cheap shot, and reflects badly on the commentator, not his target.

_____________________________

Pointer: Res Ipsa Loquitur

Facts: NC Policy Watch

Graphic: Pozniak

Ethics Dunce (Sandy Hook Ethics Train Wreck and U.S. Public School Incompetence Divisions): Logan Middle School in Logan, W.Va.

/ Jack Marshall / 42 Comments

Sigh.

Send him to the re-education center...

Send him to the re-education center…

I’ll stop flagging the unethical conduct of anti-gun hysterics during the Sandy Hook Ethics Train Wreck when they stop abusing kids and law-abiding citizens in their deranged determination to turn America into a gun-free zone through fear-mongering and intimidation. I’m genuinely sick of writing about this stuff, but not as sick as I am of the idiocy that produces it. Has any sane, prominent, respectable voice from the gun-regulation side registered strong objections to incidents like what happened in Logan? If so, I must have missed it. That’s illuminating, don’t you think?

Jared Marcum, an eighth-grader boy at Logan Middle School in Logan, W.Va., was suspended and arrested by police for wearing a pro-NRA T-shirt that depicted a firearm and the phrase “Protect your right” to class. He was charged with “obstruction and disturbing the education process.” It appears that his teacher asked him to remove his shirt, and he refused, prompting the arrest. Marcum was on solid ground, and his teacher was not.  The school dress code reads in part: Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week: Tom Hawking

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

“It’s not the role of our media and our journalists to shield us from truth; it’s their job to confront us with it. In this respect, the plurality of imagery is both a blessing and a curse, because in the sort of panic that follows an event like yesterday’s bombing, anything could be real. But equally, it’s also the volume of images and coverage — graphic and otherwise — that help us get a clearer picture of reality than we ever did in the days when our opinion was shaped by one journalist and a few photographs.”

—- Tom Hawking in his essay “The Ethics of Disaster Photography in the Age of Social Media,” discussing the controversy over whether graphic images from catastrophes like the Boston Marathon bombing ought to be published by the mainstream media, or should be toned down, edited, or withheld altogether.

Boston Marathon ExplosionHawking’s conclusions are spot-on, and you should read the entire essay here. Obviously horrendous photographs shouldn’t be thrust in readers’ and viewers’ faces; we should all have the opportunity to avoid seeing images we know would upset us. ( I have not looked at any of the graphic images from Boston. The text descriptions are plenty for me, thanks.) Leaving it to editors and journalists to decide how much realism we can stand, however, is folly. To be blunt, there is no reason to trust them. One of the blessings of the web and social media is that the traditional media no longer have the power to withhold information based on their biased and paternalistic judgement, which they are thoroughly unqualified by intellect, education  to render.

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Source and Graphic: Flavorwire (Tom Hawking)

Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at  jamproethics@verizon.net.

Sen. Chris Murphy: Would-be Censor, Position-Abuser, and Mega-Ethics Dunce …But That’s All Right, Because He Wants To Save All Those Children From Being Slaughtered By Semi-Automatic Weapons

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments
All in all, I'd prefer Daffy...and he hates guns too.

All in all, I’d prefer Daffy…and he hates guns too.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: as a long-time supporter of more effective gun controls, the sickeningly dishonest and unethical campaign for them in the wake of Newtown has placed me in a camp I never thought I’d be. Such tactics should never be allowed to succeed, because they debase democracy.

Yesterday, I noted that CNN has abandoned reporting for issue advocacy, a bright-line breach of journalistic ethics. Now Connecticut’s Senator Chris Murphy (D) has attempted to use his position and influence to abridge free speech, unfairly restrict the advocacy of an issue opponent  and encourage media censorship of a political viewpoint.

Eugene Volokh published Murphy’s letter to Fox, the text of which tells me he has no more business sitting in the Senate than Kim Jong-un or Daffy Duck. The letter, addressed to Rupert Murdoch, reads… Continue reading →