Oh, how I LOVE LOVE LOVE this comment, from “ruralcounsel,” regarding my post about Michele Bachmann embarrassing herself, and not for the first time. Seldom does a commenter employ such shameless rationalizations and staples of intellectual dishonesty, and for his grand finale, he breaches one of the explicit Comment Policies by employing that all-purpose fallacy, “you’re just using ethics to go after political enemies.” I’m especially happy about the latter, because no one has accused me of being biased against the Right since “Ronbo.” I can’t hope for as much entertainment from ruralcounsel, but I am certainly grateful for this (Forgive me. I have to give interlinear commentary. I can’t resist): Continue reading
mistakes
Ethics Dunce: Rep. Michele Bachmann
Ah! Historical New Hampshire...
Rep. Michele Bachmann (D-Minn), Tea Party leader and potential presidential candidate, recently told a Manchester, New Hampshire crowd that she was in the state of “the shot heard ’round the world.” Ethics Foul. Minnesota disgrace. Congressional Disgrace. Tea Party disgrace. National disgrace.
U.S. educational system disgrace!
As most grade school children know (Some grade school children? Grade school children in New England, maybe? Please?), the source of that loud shot, the Battle of Concord (the Battle of Lexington was fought on the same day) was fought in Concord, Massachusetts, which, like Lexington, is a next door neighbor of my home town, Arlington, Massachusetts, known as Menotomy on April 18, 1775 —which, as Rep. Bachmann can tell you, was also the date of Phil Sheridan’s ride. Oops! I mean Paul Revere’s ride! Continue reading
When Law Professsors Attack!
On his excellent blog “The Ethical Lawyer,” Franco Tarulli sounds a perceptive, and unusual, ethics alarm.
On January 11, 2011, there was another botched police raid at the wrong house, this time in the San Francisco suburb of Castro. Police had apparently given a mistaken description of the house that was supposed to be raided when they sought the warrant. As a result, innocent law professor Clark Freshman was put in handcuffs and scared out of his wits, as police ignored his objections that they had the wrong house. Continue reading
National Anthem Ethics
Pop songbird Christina Aguilera has been ridiculed and condemned in every forum imaginable for botching the lyrics of “The Star Spangled Banner” at the Super Bowl. The last time a performer got this kind of abuse for a National Anthem performance (not counting Roseanne Barr’s infamous crotch-grabbing, off-key screeching of the anthem to begin a San Diego Padres game, which was not so much a performance as a clinical demonstration of what boorishness looks and sounds like) was when the late Robert Goulet massacred the lyrics before a national radio audience to introduce the Cassius Clay-Sonny Liston Heavyweight Championship fight. The incident haunted Goulet the rest of his life, although he was a good sport about it.
As with Goulet (he was Canadian, for heaven’s sake!), the condemnation of Aguilera is not merely unfair, but ignorant. Continue reading
Police Raid Ethics
At 5:30 a.m. on Thursday of last week, police officers, weapons drawn, burst into the home into the house and pointed guns at the McKay family of Spring Valley, New York. David McKay said officers were screaming for someone named Michael, and when he tried to explain that nobody by that name lived there, the police pulled him, in his underwear, outside into the freezing cold. Then officers ordered McKay’s 13-year-old daughter out of her bed at gunpoint, a trauma that caused her to vomit, faint, and later to have an asthma attack. Continue reading
Sarah Palin Blows the Whistle On A Classic Media Bias Trick
After Sarah Palin, during a televised interview, said North Korea when she meant South Korea (me, I always mix up North and South Carolina)—an obvious slip of the tongue, since she had correctly identified our ally among the Koreas previously in the same interview, multiple media reports decided the gaffe was newsworthy, or at least another opportunity to show the American public that the former Alaska governor is, as they believe, an idiot. Palin, who is nothing if not feisty, took to the New Media with a Facebook post pointing out that equally egregious flubs out of the mouth of President Obama had been ignored, and listed some of them, including the time Obama raised the number of states to 57, momentarily confusing them with ketchup. Continue reading
Kelli Space’s Cyber-Begging? Not Unethical, Just Desperate
Northeastern alum Kelli Space, 23, owes $200,000 on her student loans, and has to pay federal student loan agency Sallie Mae $891 per month. That figure will nearly double in a year, and Kelli doesn’t make enough to pay off her debt. In desperation, she has launched a website called Two Hundred Thou, asking for donations. These aren’t charitable donations, now—you won’t get any deduction for giving to Kelli, any more than you will giving to the homeless guy on the street. This is begging, plain and simple.
Her pitch: Continue reading
Ethics Dunces: Elyse Siegel and Craig Kanalley of the Huffington Post
It should go without saying that before you author a post about “unforgettable lies” to a popular website, you should probably know what a lie is. This detail seems to have eluded Elyse Siegel and Craig Kanally, however. Their Glenn Beck-inspired retrospective of lies by prominent Americans acts to further muddle the public’s understanding of a basic concept, degrading communication and spreading misinformation.
A lie is a statement that intentionally misrepresents facts in order to mislead or deceive someone. A mistake is not a lie. When one makes a statement believing it to be true, and subsequent revelations prove that the statement to be false, that is not lying, though those who want to ascribe bad motives to the statement may incorrectly characterize it as one. Such a statement is not a lie even when it is made recklessly, or out of ignorance, stupidity, or misplaced trust.
Nor is a broken promise a lie, if the promise was sincere when it was made. Promise-keeping is a different virtue than honesty.Then there are disagreements over definitions. Some terms have more than one meaning, and using one of them when a listener is thinking of a different definition may be poor communication or sloppy thinking, but it is not a lie unless it is intended to deceive.
The Huffington Post piece blurs these important distinctions, and this is a problem. Lying suggests malice, and it has become increasingly common for civic debate to feature the epithet of “Liar!” being directed at writers, pundits and politicians who are simply stating sincere opinions. In fact, many of the bloggers at the Huntington Post do this routinely, which may be why no editor pointed out that Siegel and Kanalley’s post showed that they didn’t understand what they were writing about. In fact, by their definition of the word, the post contains several lies.
It doesn’t, though. It is just wrong.
You can pick out the non-lies in their honest but incompetent post here. By my count, at least five and maybe six of the “lies” are not lies at all. Of course, the authors would not have had to resort to non-lies if they weren’t so dedicated to featuring conservatives and Republicans on their list. There are plenty of clear-cut lies by Democrats and non-political types that were worthy of the list if their post didn’t have to double as a political hit piece. Where, for example, are Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s serial claims of Viet Nam combat service? Isn’t Ted Kennedy’s infamous statement about his negligent homicide of Mary Jo Kopechne just a bit more famous and important than Glenn Beck’s fib at his Lincoln Memorial rally? How about former Justice Souter’s claim, under oath before the U.S. Senate, that he had never given any thought to the abortion issue? Or Senator Roland Burris’s statement to the Senate that he had no contact with Rod Blagojevich prior to being appointed to his seat, a statement he recanted as soon as he was confirmed?
These were all real lies, significant, intentional, and infamous.
Progress, with a dash of…WHAT???
Penguin Group Australia had to reprint 7,000 copies of its new cook book, Pasta Bible, last week,when it was discovered that the recipe for tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto called for “salt and freshly ground black people.” (“It’s a cook book!!!!!“—“To Serve Man,” The Twilight Zone)
Guess what it was supposed to say. That’s right. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 