MSNBC host Chris Matthews was a guest on Larry Elder’s conservative radio talk show, a visit arranged by his publicist to market Matthews’ new hagiography on Jack Kennedy. Elder was hardly friendly, immediately shifting into an adversarial mode and challenging the surprised Matthews on his integrity as a journalist, objectivity and fairness. After Matthews absurdly described himself as “slightly to the left” politically (actually a fair description one upon a time, but no longer), Elder produced a recent clip of Matthews declaring that Republicans want “people who don’t have insurance to die on the gurney,” and enjoy “causing cruel pain on people.” When Matthews tried to explain, Elder broke in, saying, “I’m sorry for cutting you off the way you cut your guests off.” Continue reading
fairness
Comments of the Day: “Incompetent Elected Official of the Week” : Rhode Island legislator Lisa Baldelli-Hunt”
Several powerful and moving responses were posted in response to yesterday’s “Incompetent Elected Official of the Week” article about Rhode Island legislator Lisa Baldelli-Hunt’s crusade to make it impossible for registered sex offenders to live in her state. I was unable to choose between the three that follow, one by the mother of a registered sex offender, another by Sherika, who includes a letter written on behalf of the families of registered sex offenders, and the third by Shelly Stow, who offers a letter she wrote to the legislator (and that was bounced back to her). I find myself wondering if Baldelli-Hunt has spoken to or listened to any residents of her district with stories and opinions like theirs, whether she has considered these perspectives, or, as her own comments suggest, just doesn’t care about fairness and collateral damage when it involves the people she regards as “the worst of the worst.”
Here are the Comments of the Day on Incompetent Elected Official of the Week: Rhode Island State Rep. Lisa Baldelli-Hunt: Continue reading
Wild Card Ethics and Cultural Expectations
Bad ideas are contagious, especially popular ones.
Major League Baseball just expanded the number of teams that qualify for post-season glory from eight to ten. Yes, there are ethical calculations involved in this, whether baseball cares or not. Supposedly, questions of fairness were part of the reason for the change, though I doubt it—in pro sports, the engine of change is always profit. And whether the change results in more fairness or less depends on what you consider fair—or perhaps whether you are sleeping intents in various U.S. cities.
Sports is such a big part of our cultural consciousness that what the National Pastime calls fair and just cannot help but influence cultural standards. Before 1969, there were two leagues of eight, then ten, Major League teams, and the two teams with the best records in each league met in the World Series. It was a simple meritocracy, with just 10% of the teams being allowed to advance after the regular season. Oh, there was always complaining about how the rich Yankees got into the Series more often than not, while the Senators, Phillies, Astros and A’s never did, but nobody camped out in the middle of Manhattan to protest baseball talent disparity. If you lived in one of the smaller Major League cities you just scaled back expectations, that’s all. And if, by some miracle, you won, then victory was all the sweeter, because you had bucked the odds by being harder working, stronger, better. Continue reading
Incompetent Elected Official of the Week: Rhode Island State Rep. Lisa Baldelli-Hunt
Funny, she doesn't LOOK vicious...
The Penn State scandal will have one good effect: it will embolden victims of sexual molestation to confront those who harmed them. Unfortunately, it will also embolden political grand-standers to propose draconian and unconstitutional measures that will encourage fear, bigotry, hate and persecution. Rhode Island’s Lisa Baldelli-Hunt, D-Woonsocket, is ready for her close-up.
Baldelli-Hunt proposed a law this year that would allow local police to place signs on public sidewalks or streets in front of the homes of sex offenders, designating them as threats. This shows a nice 17th Century strain, placing her in the ranks of town elders of the past that encouraged various forms of branding former offenders to ensure their perpetual mistreatment. To give her credit, though, she also can claim international inspiration from the past, and may want to consider requiring registered sex offenders to wear, say, brightly colored star-shaped badges.
The Anti-Golden Rule logic of such a proposal is stunning: how would you like a sign proclaiming the worst thing you ever did in your life in front of your home? How would Baldelli-Hunt like a sign in front of her house that says, “Outspoken endorser of persecution and hate”?
An elected official who has no concept of ethics is not only unqualified for office and incompetent, but dangerous, because there are always a lot of ethically-challenged people to lead. Baldelli-Hunt is squarely in the “the ends justify the means” camp with every brutal dictator, vigilante killer, and mad scientist fictional and real, from Dr. Frankenstein to Josef Mengele. “I have some concerns regarding sex offenders because, quite frankly, they don’t walk around with signs telling people they are sex offenders,” Baldelli-Hunt told reporters. “I’m not interested in their rights or protecting them. I have no concern for them because they are the worst of the worst.”
Baldelli doesn’t walk around with signs telling people she is a vicious fool, either, but her words do the job:
1. She doesn’t know who “they” are or what “they” did. The vast majority of former sex offenders have paid their debt to society and are not dangers to anyone. She is, therefore, selling and facilitating bigotry.
2. Every registered sex offender did not commit an offense of equal seriousness. An 18-year-old boy who has consensual sex with a 15 year-old girl is not “the worst of the worst,” or any kind of worst at all.
3. Elected officials in a community are obligated to care about every citizen’s rights, not just the citizens they like and admire. Officials like Baldelli-Hunt brought America witch trials, lynchings and segregation.
She, in fact, is this worst of the worst.
Consider this her sign.
Chelsea’s New Job: A Rant on Suck-up Ethics
Now THIS is what the newscasts call "talent"...
I’m trying to locate some of the critics of “Dancing With The Stars,” many of them professional Palin-haters from the media’s left, who screamed of the injustice when Bristol Palin was chosen as a competitor on the popular has-been, D-list, fat-celebrity-looking-for- a-Jenny Craig-gig TV dance show. Remember that? I want to ask them why, if it bothered them so much for the talentless, dance-challenged Bristol to be elevated over the likes of Eve Plumb (“Jan Brady”) or Phyllis Diller or Joey Heatherton (Oh, go look her up!) for pop trash exposure for a few weeks because she has a famous mother, how they feel now about NBC hiring Chelsea Clinton as a full-time news correspondent.
I’ll tell you how I feel: it’s offensive, unfair, and an insult to just about everyone, but NBC’s own profession most of all. Continue reading
Ethics Dunce: An Unknown Diner
A waiter’s tale from a website called An Orange Box:
The waiter vows vengeance.
Here’s tip to the Faithful: this isn’t the way to convert anybody.
Judging McQueary: Child Rape Bystander Ethics
You have no excuses, Kal-El. But the rest...
“It was cowardly for a 6′4″ graduate assistant to witness the rape of a child by an older man and not only take no action to stop it but also not even call the police,” writes David French in the National Review.
He is, of course, referring to Mike McQueary, then a 28-year-old graduate student assistant coach for Joe Paterno at Penn State. Others have declared that it was an “absolute moral imperative” that McQueary physically intervene to stop the sexual assault.
It is interesting that the absolute moral imperative is nonetheless linked to qualifiers. French references McQueary’s size and the fact that the alleged assailant, Jerry Sandusky, is older. Some critics have focused on his gender. Still others, making the argument that McQueary failed to intervene because he didn’t take a child rape seriously enough, have suggested that he would have acted differently had Sandusky been beating, rather than raping the child. Of all the ethical debates surrounding the Penn State scandal, the question of how much scorn should be heaped on McQueary for not acting immediately to stop the rape in progress has been the most fascinating, and to my mind, the most disingenuous. It appears that every commentator, male or female, young or old, fat or fit, is convinced that would have charged in and battled the 57-year-old former wide-receiver, pummeling him into wet submission while the child escaped. Maybe. Studies and anecdotal evidence indicate that in fact, most people wouldn’t physically intervene. Perhaps sportswriters and op-ed writers are made of sterner stuff that the rest of the public.
Yes, that must be it.
None of this is to suggest that physically stopping a child rape in progress isn’t the right thing to do; it is. For his part, McQueary reputedly didn’t take any action to stop the assault,* which in order of effectiveness would be… Continue reading
Death Bed Extortion Ethics
The new Mrs. DeVita holds a picture of her matchmaker, the old one.
There are few things more unfair, or that represent more of an inherent abuse of power and loyalty, than dying requests.
In 2007, Jackie DeVita , a 42-year-old mother terminally ill with brain cancer, removed her wedding ring and handed it to Colleen Leary, her unmarried sister, saying, “I want to know that this is the three of us,” referring to Colleen, Jackie and her husband, Richard. “Don’t ever leave my kids.”
A year later, in 2008, Jackie died, and three months after Jackie DeVita’s funeral, Colleen Leary became Mrs. Richard DeVita.
I hope it works out. Jackie’s request, however, was a terrible thing to do, the equivalent of emotional extortion. Continue reading
Ethics Exercise: Being Fair To Herman Cain Now
The other shoe.
In the wake of Sharon Bialek’s press conference describing an alleged incident involving of attempted quid pro quo sexual harassment by Herman Cain in 1997 [read the account here] , and the Cain camp’s instant and unequivocal denial, fair Americans are posed with a classic ethics challenge: how do they assess her accusations while being fair to the accused? It is a daunting problem, with many components. How do can we compare Cain’s credibility with Bialek’s? What, relevance, if any, does the timing of her appearance have? How are the previous, still anonymous, un-detailed allegations of hostile work environment harassment to be factored in to our calculations?
Addressing this conundrum requires wading into a jungle of biases, presumptions and caveats. Among them:
1. Is Bialek credible? Continue reading
Ethics Dunces: 53% of the American Public
If only Herman Cain could have been tried by the same standards of fairness as the Salem Witch Trials...
I am as sick of the Herman Cain sexual harassment issue as you are, I swear. But still..
A new Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted over the weekend among 1057 respondents revealed that 53 percent now believe that allegations of sexual harassment against Cain are true. This, despite the fact that none of the 53% know what it is he is supposed to have done that constitutes sexual harassment, and, I am quite confident, almost none of them sufficiently understand what the definition of sexual harassment is. But they are still sure he did it, whatever it is, to at least one of these women, whoever they are.
I cannot image imagine a more unfair, irresponsible and indefensible opinion. Two women who have not revealed their identities and who have not had their allegations tested, examined or confronted, and whose accusations have no descriptions or facts connected to them whatsoever, have convinced 53% of the public of a political candidate’s wrongdoing despite his denials, and despite the fact that they know of no instance where he has engaged in conduct that could fall under the category of sexual harassment. It is one thing to pronounce someone guilty of a specific act of misconduct in the absence of evidence and without the accused having a chance to challenge it. That is wrong. But to pronounce an individual guilty of an unknown act that has only been characterized but not described, in the absence of evidence and a named accuser?
The judges in the Salem Witch trials were more reasonable and just.
Congratulations to the news media for a successful smear campaign.
Ethics Alarms 