fairness

Comment of the Day: “Unethical Website of the Month: Third Tier Reality”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Okay, so you weren’t born on third base like this guy. It doesn’t mean you can’t score.

40 yr. old Gen-Xer delivers a worthy Comment of the Day, leveled at my criticism of the Angry Unemployed Law Grad blog, “Third Tier Reality.”  I think it provides valid perspective, though I also think the post’s characterization of how this issue has been handled on Ethics Alarms is somewhat unfair. (You can read my response under the original article.)

Here is the Comment of the Day, on the post, “Unethical Website of the Month: Third Tier Reality”:

“My point is that the situation Nando is railing about is more complex than the scenario of a bunch of disgruntled youth, unwilling to “work hard”, whining for a hand-out. Nando may pour it on thick with name calling and scatological imagery; fair enough. However, to dismiss the underlying message is overly simplistic, dismissive of people’s good-faith effort and ignores the real economic hardship that many face. Continue reading →

Unethical School Disciplinary Decision of the Year: Highland Middle School, Anderson, Indiana

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments

This story just can’t be true as reported—can it? Please, please, let it be a hoax!— but every source confirms it, so I am awarding an early Ethics Alarms 2012 Award for the Unethical Disciplinary Decision of the Year to the addled, ethically-inert and incompetent administrators of the Highland Middle School of Anderson, Indiana. I am doing this now, instead of late December, when the rest of the awards are handed out, because no school, anywhere, could make a more unjust and outright stupid disciplinary ruling, this year, or any year.

By the way, this horrifying tale is a rare “Naked Teacher Principle”-“No-Tolerance”  policy hybrid. And what do you get when you cross these two? Jaw-dropping, blood-pressure-spiking incompetence! Imagine: Continue reading →

Funny! But Wrong: The Democratic National Committee’s Fake Romney Site

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Unethical.

Don’t tell me I have no sense of humor. I get it, and it’s clever. Kind of fun, too. But just because a form of dirty campaigning is funny doesn’t change the basic principles it violates. Putting out a fake version of a political opponent’s supporter, poster, flyer, campaign material, web address, Twitter feed or website in order to trick people into either believing that the opposition campaign’s campaign or candidate is saying or doing something they are not really saying or doing for any purpose, including satire, crosses ethical lines into unethical campaign tactics territory. In a word, it’s cheating. It is unfair, deceptive and dishonest, but mostly, it is irresponsible, because it opens the door to far worse things, like sending obnoxious plants carrying racist signs to the other party’s rallies, robocalls making outrageous statements on behalf of the opposition, or putting the Obamaphone lady in fake Obama ads.

It has been a despicable campaign, and this Democratic National Committee fake Romney website not only makes it worse, it creates a slippery slope that leads right to the sewer.

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Pointer: Althouse

Ethics Alarms Verdicts: The Second Debate

/ Jack Marshall / 46 Comments

Some Ethics-related conclusions on Wednesday’s second Presidential debate:

Were the candidates uncivil?

I didn’t think so. There were a lot of Twitter comments about Gov. Romney being disrespectful to the President. The deference due to the President of the United States isn’t an issue when debates hew to the formal, detached format of the past. In those debates, the tone of the exchanges are so muted that the two candidates could be in different time zones. Once a different tone is set, with either candidate directly challenging statements while the other candidate is speaking, that tradition has fled, as it did last night. The challenger to a sitting President can hardly be told that he needs to be deferential in a debate; that is the equivalent of asking him to fight with one hand tied behind his back. I thought that both candidates were within the bounds of civility under the circumstances. It was certainly not the civility that I complimented in the second debate—it was a heated, sometimes rancorous argument, but it was the argument of two passionate, forceful, serious public servants, and it served the public well. Neither candidate displayed the contemptuous, rude attitude that Joe Biden adopted in the Vice-Presidential debate. Biden crossed the civility line, but the President and his challenger did not.

Was the moderator biased? Continue reading →

Ken Blackwell’s Obamaphone Smear: Yes, Ohio, A Black Man CAN Make Racist Ad

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Proving that a black man can do anything a white man can, like making a racist anti-Obama ad!

There are three things wrong with Ken Blackwell’s anti-Obama attack ad, courtesy of the Tea Party Victory Fund, which the former Cincinnati mayor and former Ohio Secretary of State leads:

1. It focuses on the Obamaphone, which is not an Obama give-away program, but an old program that has always offered free cell phones to the poor under certain conditions. Thus it is misleading and dishonest.

2. It stars the “Obamaphone Lady,” one of the ignorant and embarrassing Obama supporters captured on video by James O’Keefe clones to stereotype Obama supporters as fools. Yes, she’s a particularly appalling idiot. Both parties have plenty of them, however, and using any idiot to mock the candidate he or she supports is the epitome of cheap-shot, unethical politics. In this regard, the ad, like the video, is unfair and irresponsible.

3. The particular idiot chosen for this exercise is black, used to criticize a black President, whose strongest support comes from the black community. As a result, the ad is racist and offensive. Continue reading →

Political Bloodsport Déjà Vu: Democrat Kelly Steele Gets The Pat Rogers Treatment In Washington State

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

There’s nothing funny about racism. Somebody tell Norman Lear.

Remember Pat Rogers? I posted about him twice (here and here): he is the New Mexico lawyer and RNC member whose self-evidently satirical (and private) e-mail mocking a Republican rival of Governor Susan Martinez was hacked and intentionally twisted by progressive activists, and used to trigger protests by Native American tribes, a huge voting bloc in that state. It didn’t matter that any fair and intelligent person who was meant to see the e-mail knew exactly what it meant; it didn’t matter that the interpretation of the e-mail  that supposedly justified the public uproar—that Rogers was extolling Gen. George Armstrong Custer—was obviously false, and moreover, that it made neither historical nor political sense to read the message in a way that insulted Native Americans; and it certainly didn’t matter that Rogers career and reputation were being unjustly trashed for pure political gain. State Democrats, aided by the news media and frightened Republicans unwilling to oppose classic minority group grievance-mongering, forced Rogers to leave his law firm, and are still trying to use the incident to turn Native Americans against the Republican Party in time for the election.

It was and is a revolting episode. Given the opportunity, would Republicans behave this way, intentionally finding offense in an unoffensive joke ? We know the answer to that question—YES—because this is exactly what Republicans have done to a Democratic advisor to Sen. Maria Cantwell, Kelly Steele. Continue reading →

Don’t Listen To John Feinstein, Nats Fans: He’s Wrong, And He’s Bad For You

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

I know how you feel, Nats fans. BOY do I know.

For me, as a Boston Red Sox fan, what befell the Washington Nationals last week stirred unpleasant memories of having my own hopes dashed by the cruel bounces and turns of that little white ball, as it turned my team from sure winners to embarrassed losers faster than you could say”Bucky Dent.” Luckily, as I have explained here, my temporary abandonment of the beloved Hose did not turn me into a Nationals devotee, so I could watch the horrors of the Nats’ ninth inning, decisive game catastrophe, which occurred when they were one strike away from victory and a step closer to their first World Series in 79 years, with analytical detachment. I have consoled my heart-broken friends, and am prepared to help them through the long, hard winter, when visions of “what ifs?”will dance through their heads instead of sugarplums. John Feinstein, the acclaimed sports writer, isn’t helping, however. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces: Arthur Allen, CEO of ASG Software Solutions and David Siegel, CEO of Westgate Resorts (UPDATED)

/ Jack Marshall / 44 Comments

MSNBC has discovered two CEO’s who have told their employees that if they don’t vote for Mitt Romney—if the Republican isn’t elected—their jobs are at risk. I’m sure there are others like them; probably many others. They are all unethical, and seriously so.

In some jurisdictions what they are doing is illegal, but illegal or not, it is wrong. Nobody with power over others, be they bosses, parents, ministers, teachers, military officers or police officers, should attempt to use that power to influence individual political choices. To do so is coercive, unfair, an offense to personal autonomy and the rights of citizenship, an abuse of power and an abuse of position.

Chris Hayes, who has publicized the efforts of Arthur Allen, CEO of ASG Software Solutions, and David Siegel, CEO of Westgate Resorts to influence the votes of his employees, opined that their efforts were inappropriate and felt “fundamentally coercive.” Exactly. The CEOs have power over their employees’ welfare, and such appeals come with an implied threat.

Telling someone how to vote is presumptuous. Telling someone how to vote when you have authority over him is unethical.

UPDATE: Think Progress has found yet another leaked audio of Mitt Romney talking to supporters, this time to what the progressive website calls the “very conservative” National Federation of Independent Business. I guess when your that far left, almost anything looks “very conservative,” but the NFIB is just a business association, and not especially conservative. Romney, in addressing the excutives, urged them to do essentially what Allen and Siegel did:

“I hope you make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections. And whether you agree with me or you agree with President Obama, or whatever your political view, I hope — I hope you pass those along to your employees. Nothing illegal about you talking to your employees about what you believe is best for the business, because I think that will figure into their election decision, their voting decision and of course doing that with your family and your kids as well.”

Mitt’s exhorting them to abuse their power. His advice is unethical.

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Graphic: Ars Technica

The Zumba Instructor’s List and Public Shaming In Maine: Choose Your Ethical System

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

What those Zumba ads never told you…

Kennebunk, Maine’s popular Zumba dance instructor Alexis Wright and her “business partner” are being charged with solicitation and prostitution. Now the Maine Supreme Judicial Court is about to decide whether  Wright’s substantial client list should go on the public record, as it will unless the court agrees to put it and its names under seal.  Defense attorneys will argue that the harm that will result from allowing Wright’s “johns” to be outed to their families, employers and neighbors is too great. “We think there’s a really important principle at stake here: These people are presumed innocent,” defense attorney Stephen Schwartz said. “Once these names are released, they’re all going to have the mark of a scarlet letter, if you will.” Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: Vice-President Joe Biden

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

“With regard to the assault on the Catholic Church, let me make it absolutely clear. No religious institution, Catholic or otherwise, including Catholic Social Services, Georgetown Hospital, Mercy — any hospital — none has to either refer contraception. None has to pay for contraception. None has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact. That is a fact.”

—– Vice-President Joe Biden, in a rare moment during Wednesday’s Vice Presidential candidates debate when he wasn’t interrupting, mocking, shouting, or otherwise setting new lows for national debate civility and decorum, on the topic of the Administration’s contraception and abortion mandate. The problem: it isn’t a fact. In fact, it isn’t true at all.

I was not going to touch on the substance of any of the debates, because I do not want to play the “fact check” game that has already warped the campaign and given partisan journalists the opportunity to misrepresent any the statement of any politician—usually a Republican—whom they disagree with as “a lie.” Perhaps inspired by this trend, the Obama-Biden campaign’s strategy has devolved into calling Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan “liars” when 1) they may be mistaken, they may be inexact, they may be overstating, and they may be wrong, but are not lying, and 2) President Obama and Vice-President Obama, not to mention other Democrats involved in the campaign, have not set their own bars for accuracy, honesty and fairness any higher than the GOP side. But the refrain of “Liar!” has been so emphatic and repetitive that the fans of the Democratic ticket are adopting it as a rallying cry, usually without the slightest idea of whether there have been any actual lies or not. Meanwhile, the tactic demeans the electoral process and our democracy. Columnist Dan Henniger expressed my feelings on this topic well when he wrote, before Wednesday’s debate: Continue reading →