ethics

Oh, You Didn’t Think I Would Forget Presidents Day, Did You? [Embarrassing Gaffe Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Well, to be truthful, I almost did. The contrived holiday seldom occurs this early. Nevertheless, I’m going to recognize Presidents Day with re-posts of two essays about U.S. Presidents, neither of which were originally written for the holiday.

The first is one of my favorite mysterious tales about any President, in this case George Washington, and the second, from 2015 and re-posted five years ago, is my favorite story about any President ever.

Here they are:

Pssst! Bill Maher! The “Saved By God” Belief Has Inspired Some of Our Greatest Presidents. Shut Up.

Atheists and agnostics in the public sphere don’t have to be obnoxious, but an awful lot of them are. Their explanation for where the universe came from is no more persuasive that that of the faithful (The Big Bang? Come on.) but they just can’t restrain themselves. HBO’s Bill Maher is a prime example: along with mocking committed relationships (he hates the concept of marriage), extolling drugs and debauchery, and generally keeping his Axis of Unethical Conduct membership current, he ridicules Christianity at every opportunity.

The fact is, and it is a fact, that the United States of America had a much healthier and ethical culture before organized religion had discredited itself so thoroughly, driving whole generations away. Moral codes are especially essential for those who don’t have the time or ability to puzzle through ethics, and believing in God is the best catalyst for an ethical society that there is….and it has always been thus.

Heck, just look at what a jerk Maher is. That’s what atheism can do to you. But I digress.

My target here is more narrow. On last week’s “Real Time,” Maher sneered at the belief that God saved Donald Trump from being assassinated as stupid and “dangerous.” “People see signs because they want to see them. It’s why stalkers think Taylor Swift is blinking ‘marry me’ to them in Morse Code,” he explained. “It gets dangerous when the signs make someone think God is on their side,” Maher continued.  “Republican Congressman Mike Collins said after the shooting, ‘God spared Ronald Reagan for a reason. God spared Donald Trump for a reason. God doesn’t miss.’ Really? Tell that to John Lennon, Lincoln, JFK, RFK, and Martin Luther King. Look, the asshole who shot at Trump was cowardly, unpatriotic, selfish, vile, and weak, and he should rot in hell, but thinking that God protects your heroes but not mine? That isn’t cool either.”

How do you know, Bill, that God doesn’t protect your heroes for a very good reason? I can think of several good reasons for that, as well as for squashing you like a bug. Of course the certitude that God is responsible for anything is confirmation bias: my wife, the daughter of a Methodist minister, frequently expressed contempt for the faithful who simultaneously said that “God works in mysterious ways” and “there are no coincidences” while conveniently asserting that they had figured out those mysterious ways. But if Bill knew as much about American history, leadership and the Presidency as he should, he would know that the belief that God has saved them for a reason motivated many of America’s greatest leaders. It could have been dangerous, I suppose, but so far, that belief had been overwhelmingly beneficial to our nation. Perhaps even its salvation.

Leadership requires special character traits, the right formative experiences and a lot of luck. National leadership arises out of an individual’s conviction that they are uniquely qualified to do a better job than anyone else, accompanied by the passion, conviction and charisma necessary to convince others of their abilities. That’s why so many of our Presidents have been narcissists, true, but the anti-American trope that our leaders only seek power, wealth and personal benefits is, based on my lifelong study of history, garbage.

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Awww! The Knucklehead Is Offended By the “R-Word”!

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Good!

Tim Walz, the self-proclaimed knucklehead governor of woke-addled Minnesota, is complaining that mean people have been driving by his home and shouting “retard” out their windows. “This creates danger,” the censorship supporting governor said yesterday. “… I’ve never seen this before: people driving by my house and using the R-word in front of people. This is shameful, and I have yet to see an elected official — a Republican elected official — say you’re right, that’s shameful.”

“We know how these things go,” the hypocrite added. “It starts with taunts; they turn to violence.” Oh. You mean like you and your party calling Donald Trump Hitler, calling ICE agents Nazis, and Republican fascists? Funny, I don’t recall Walz making this argument after Trump had two assassination attempts against him and Charlie Kirk was shot dead during a speech.

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Reflections On The Ethical Holiday

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

 

“Christmas is built upon a beautiful and intentional paradox; that the birth of the homeless should be celebrated in every home.”

—G.K. Chesterton.

“It’s Christmas Eve. It’s the one night of the year when we all act a little nicer, we smile a little easier, we cheer a little more. For a couple of hours out of the whole year we are the people that we always hoped we would be.”

—Frank Cross (Bill Murray) in “Scrooged”

CHARLIE BROWN: I guess you were right, Linus. I shouldn’t have picked this little tree. Everything I do turns into a disaster. I guess I really don’t know what Christmas is all about. Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?

LINUS: Sure, Charlie Brown. I can tell you what Christmas is all about.  Lights, please?

“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them. And they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a savior, which is Christ the Lord.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace, goodwill toward men.’”

That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

—Charles M. Schulz

“Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.”

—Laura Ingalls Wilder

“Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before!

What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store.

What if Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!”

—Dr. Seuss, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”

“Want to keep Christ in Christmas? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive the guilty, welcome the unwanted, care for the ill, love your enemies, and do unto others as you would have done unto you.”

— Steve Maraboli, in “Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience”

“My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?”

— Bob Hope

“I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,’ returned the nephew. ‘Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”

—Fred, Scrooge’s Nephew, in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” Continue reading →

Why Almost Nobody Is Interested In Ethics…

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Kudos to Ann Althouse for finding this monstrosity: “3D Printing and the Murky Ethics of Replicating Bones.” Ann quips, “The murkiness in getting to the point of what’s murky in the ethics is evidence of what a sensitive problem it is.”

The forum, ironically enough, is RealClear Science, and the author is Sarah Wild, a South African science journalist and author. It may help to know that she hails from Undark, an e-mag that purports to to “explore science in both light and shadow, and to bring that exploration to a broad, international audience.” Should I be suspicious of the magazine because Charles M. Blow is on its board? No…but I am.

The article is incompetent structurally because it doesn’t begin to explain exactly what the “murky ethics issues” are until about  half way through a very long article, and it’s hard to read when one is asleep. Even after the issues are drip-drip-dripped out, it is never made clear by the author what established ethical principles are involved. The ethics issue of scientists taking bones of unidentified people from burial sites in other nations has always been, for me, an ick vs. ethics controversy. The original owners of the bones are not harmed in any way, and if those individuals’ families aren’t aware of the whereabouts of the remains and have taken no steps to assert control over them, they are not harmed either. Continue reading →

Officially Kicking Off The Holidays: The Complete “It’s A Wonderful Life” Ethics Guide, Updated And With A New Introduction For 2019

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

 

The Ethics Alarms Ethics Guide to Frank Capra’s 1946 masterpiece “It’s A Wonderful Life,” perhaps the greatest ethics movies of all time, has become this blog’s official welcome to the holiday season.  Once again, I have reviewed the post after another viewing of the film. It is a mark of the movie’s vitality that I always find something else of interest from an ethics perspective.

The movie is an important shared cultural touch-point,and exemplifies the reasons why I harp on cultural literacy  as so vital to maintaining our nation’s connective tissue. The film teaches about values, family, sacrifice and human failings unlike any other. I hope its power and uniqueness disproves the assertion, made in one online debate here this year, that new cultural creations inevitably and effectively supersede older ones, which, like copies of copies, eventually the cultural values conveyed get fainter and less influential.

Last year I wrote with confidence, “No, they really don’t,” but now I am not so sure. In , I learned that my druggist, about 35, married and with children, had never seen the movie. I gave him a DVD over the summer, and suggested that he watch it with his whole family, which he said he would: he moved on to another CVS branch, so I have no idea if he did or will. I used to be  amazed at how many people haven’t seen the movie; now I am not. Last year I wrote that my son’s girlfriend admitted that she hadn’t; this year he has a new girlfriend,  and she hasn’t either.

The movie is in black and white, and many Gen Xers and Millennials disdain uncolored films the way I once avoided silent movies.  Will anyone be watching “It’s A Wonderful Life” 20 years from now? I wonder. The movie begins in heaven, and has a strong religious undercurrent. Religion is increasingly mocked and marginalized today, and  I see no signs that the trend is reversing. Aside from the nauseating Hallmark Christmas movies, most of this century’s holiday fair is openly cynical about Christmas and everything connected to it.

Here’s an example of how rapidly  cultural touchpoints vanish: I’m going to poll how many readers remember this:

Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla, Wash., an’ Kalamazoo!
Nora’s freezin’ on the trolley,
Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo!

Don’t we know archaic barrel
Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou?
Trolley Molly don’t love Harold,
Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo!

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Polly wolly cracker ‘n’ too-da-loo!
Donkey Bonny brays a carol,
Antelope Cantaloupe, ‘lope with you!

Hunky Dory’s pop is lolly,
Gaggin’ on the wagon, Willy, folly go through!
Chollie’s collie barks at Barrow,
Harum scarum five alarm bung-a-loo!

Dunk us all in bowls of barley,
Hinky dinky dink an’ polly voo!
Chilly Filly’s name is Chollie,
Chollie Filly’s jolly chilly view halloo!

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Double-bubble, toyland trouble! Woof, woof, woof!
Tizzy seas on melon collie!
Dibble-dabble, scribble-scrabble! Goof, goof, goof!

Now just answer the poll, don’t go giving away the answer. Nobody knows all the lyrics that I just posted, nobody but the author ever did. The first verse, however, was once familiar.

Maybe there is hope: it was recently announced that a new musical adaptation of  the movie may be coming to Broadway as early as next year. The songs will be written by Sir Paul McCartney, and interest in The Beatles is surging.

“It’s A Wonderful Life” would be an excellent basis for a middle school ethics course. I haven’t seen a better, richer film for that purpose come along since, and I’ve been looking. Despite the many ethics complexities and nuances that the film glosses over or distorts, its basic, core message is crucial to all human beings, and needs to be hammered into our skulls at regular intervals, far more often than once a year.

What is this message?  In an earlier posting of The Guide I described it like this:

Everyone’s life does touch many others, and everyone has played a part in the chaotic ordering of random occurrences for good. Think about the children who have been born because you somehow were involved in the chain of events that linked their parents. And if you can’t think of something in your life that has a positive impact on someone–although there has to have been one, and probably many—then do something now. It doesn’t take much; sometimes a smile and a kind word is enough. Remembering the lessons of “It’s a Wonderful Life” really can make life more wonderful, and not just for you

Finally, I hope you all have a terrific Thanksgiving, and that the holiday season is joyous for all.

And now, heeeeeere’s GEORGE BAILEY!
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Open Forum, Or “I Guess I Picked The Wrong Time To Start Driving All Over Virginia!”

/ Jack Marshall / 93 Comments

Today’s legal ethics smackdown in Richmond went swimmingly, but I only got home in time to change clothes and head off to the site of tomorrow’s repeat performance. I actually started a post about the unfolding New York Times smear fiasco (and the astounding number of pundits and pols who are trying to spin it away from the only possible and fair conclusion), but I just couldn’t get it done.

I’ll be back in the blog saddle til late tomorrow. Meanwhile, I am once again turning the keys over to you, dear readers. You haven’t let Ethics Alarms, or me, or ethics, down yet.

Go to it.

A.M. Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 62 Comments

Unfortunately, I’m swamped right now, and with a 3-hour government ethics seminar to run in a few hours, I can’t say when I’ll have time to shoot off a post, though there are topics galore. Thus, once again, I am turning over the blog to you, threaders and commentators, in full confidence that you will go do that voodoo that you do so well.

See ya when I see ya.

Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 54 Comments

The way this trip is going, I have no confidence in getting more posts up, or, in fact, whether I will be attacked by rabid badgers or fall down an elevator shaft. So the prudent approach is to turn everything over to the co-pilots, you, and rely on the commentariatt here to keep the metaphorical ethics craft in the air and out of trouble.

Please stay on topic, be civil, and don’t be mean to Alizia. I won’t be back in my Alexandria office until around 8, and that’s only if the flight isn’t delayed, so who knows when I’ll see a keyboard again.

Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Well, not THAT funny—I’ve been swamped with ethics work.

I have several posts in various stages of completion, some of which should, I hope, make it up today, but I am now whipsawed by some deadlines, so, with the complete confidence that you will handle the responsibility as well as you have in the past, I’m going to turn Ethics Alarms over to you for a while.

As always, keep to the topic,  stay civil, and aim for productive and provocative commentary.