revenge

“Ethics Dunces Assemble!” Supporting Vigilante Justice In The U.S.

/ Jack Marshall / 37 Comments

“You know…morons.”— The Waco Kid, “Blazing Saddles.”

This really does explain a lot…

The Waco Kid’s (Gene Wilder) sage description of “the common clay” to Sheriff Bart (Cleavon Little) when the latter was devastated by his treatment at the hands of the good (but  racist) citizens of Rock Ridge often comes to mind in times like this, when I see a large portion of the public, pundits and the media taking a position that is not merely ethically indefensible, but suggestive of brain death.

Such a position is the rush to rally around Emilio Chavez III, an understandably enraged father who caught a naked peeping Tom masturbating outside his  teenaged daughters’ bedroom window. From media reports:

“Police said Emilio Chavez III, his brother and a family friend beat the alleged peeper, Dylan Maho, 29, so badly that he was hospitalized, a local television station reported. The district attorney wants to charge Mr. Chavez with aggravated battery, a third-degree felony that could land him in jail for three years…Mr. Maho is in stable condition at the hospital and will be charged with voyeurism, a fourth-degree felony that only brings between one and two years of jail time.”

The headlines in the majority of national news sources—all what the mainstream media would call “the conservative media”— that have covered this story, for this is the feature of the incident that they deem makes it “national news,” is the “Believe It or Not!” angle that so backward are the priorities of the U.S. justice system that the father will face harsher punishment for his conduct than the sick pervert will for his! Here’s passage and quote included in most of the reports:

“Community members voiced their outrage and sympathy for their neighbor’s plight. ‘There’s a naked man outside his daughter’s window,” Mr. Chavez’s neighbor Bill Morgang told the station. “I think he was well within his rights chasing him down and beating him.”’

The overwhelming majority of the online comments to these news reports agree with Morgang.

From the Washington Times: Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: Michael Moore

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

“If a man with an assault weapon goes into the school where Harry Reid’s grandchildren go to school tomorrow and kills his grandchildren, would he stand in front of that microphone at five o’clock and say, ‘I know how Dianne [Feinstein] had to witness the mayor getting murdered, but my grandchildren just got killed today, but, you know, we can’t get it passed because we just don’t have the votes.’”

—Documentary Film-Maker Michael Moore, ranting about Senate Majority Harry Reid’s decision to remove Sen. Feinstein’s assault weapons ban from the Senate gun reform package.

This is when I should not say anything at all, my mother told me.

This is when I should not say anything at all, my mother told me.

I know ad hominem attacks are uncool, but truly: what an awful, awful man Michael Moore is. He lies in his documentaries; he engages in deceit routinely; he abused Charlton Heston, knowing he was in the throes of Altzheimer’s Disease; he praised Fidel Castro; he is, for all intents and purposes a Communist, his public statements are fueled by and designed to ignite hatred more often than not, and, on top of it all, he says unethical and asinine things like this. Moore is to progressives what Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump are to conservatives: any group that can endure, indeed, applaud such people has serious, deep-rooted ethical and cognitive problems. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: Progressoverpeace’s “Fool’s Golden Rule”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

“There is nothing more ethical and fair than reciprocity.”

—- Conservative web pundit “progressoverpeace,” one of the approximately 300 commenters who attempted to make the ethically impossible argument that spreading the falsehood on the internet that “Harry Reid is a pederast (or pedophile)” is “ethical and fair” in opposition to my post, Funny! But Wrong: “The Harry Reid is a Pederast” Rumor.

This is, of course, a profoundly unethical distortion of the real ethical principle of reciprocity, as embodied by the Golden Rule and its many similar ethical systems from various cultures, philosophies and faiths. The Golden Rule is benign, and urges prospective and aspirational reciprocity, advising us to treat others as we would want to be treated ourselves, were we in the other individual’s circumstances. Progressoverpeace—let’s call him “Pop”—embraces a punitive form of reciprocity—I’ll dub it the Fool’s Golden Rule— that endorses retribution, and precludes generosity, kindness, forbearance, perspective, peace—and civilization.

Pop’s “reciprocity” holds that once someone has treated another human being badly, it is ethical for that person to treat him or her just as badly in the same manner, presumably on the false assumption that this will teach him better “ethics.” Of course, what it is more likely to teach him was that he was correct to mistreat that individual in the first place. Such warped reciprocity seeds a perpetual cycle of hatred and escalating feuds, because it begins a cycle that can never stop short of death, terror, or surrender. Continue reading →

Web Hoaxes: Not Funny, Always Unethical

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

P.T. Barnum’s “Fiji Mermaid:. At least in 1842,. it wasn’t on the web.

Ethics Alarms is swearing off “angry ex-boyfriend/girlfriend takes cruel outrageous revenge” stories, no matter how juicy the ethics lesson may be. First it was the tattoo artist who defaced his ex’s back with a huge and ugly drawing of steaming dog excrement that was fantasy masquerading as news, and now it’s the Polish dentist scorned…remember? The one who pulled out her cheating boyfriend’s teeth? Yes, it seems that horror story was a hoax too.

A lot of people who should know better think that web hoaxes are funny and hoaxers are clever. I regard them as the ethical equivalent of  chefs and waiters who spit in restaurant customers’ food. The web creates—a web!—of information and communication across nations and cultures, and poisoning that web with bogus stories creates a chain of unpredictable harm. At very least, hoaxes make every trusting source that passes along the lie an unwitting accomplice in a despicable act. It harms long-nurtured relationships of mutual trust between those who post on blogs and websites and those who read them. Continue reading →

Now THIS Is Unprofessional Conduct: The Lesson of the Jilted Dentist

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

No! It's NOT safe! It's not safe at ALL!

The hallmark of professionals is trust. We should be able to trust professionals to do their duty on our behalf despite their personal feelings. Lawyers often dislike or even fear their clients, for example: a defendant charged with murder who has stabbed his previous three attorneys with pencils is now back in court with a fourth, though certain precautions have been taken. When a professional finds that his or her personal feelings are so intense that they jeopardize the professional’s ability to fulfill their duties objectively, fairly and well, then that’s a conflict of interest, and it must be dealt with, usually by stepping aside.

A professional who doesn’t step aside despite an evident conflict has determined that he or she has the detachment and self-control to overcome it. A recent news story from Poland, however, suggests that it is not a good idea to risk too much trust on a professional’s determination that she can remain objective. Continue reading →

The Marianne Gingrich Ethics Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Ugh. What a mess.

The ethics miscreants:

Marianne Gingrich: Seething with hate for Newt, she decided to try to metaphorically stick a shiv in his back by airing dirty laundry from their marriage right before the South Carolina primary, a do-or-die for him. Her interview with ABC was unfair and an act of pure revenge. You couldn’t call it whistle-blowing, since anyone who doesn’t already know what a likely sociopath Gingrich is has been watching too many re-runs of “NCIS.” Gingrich’s character, or lack of it, was established and in the books by 1998. Marianne should have not had to say a word, but everything she did say, she had said before, in an interview in 2010 in Esquire. Continue reading →

OK, So the Vengeful Tattoo Artist Story Is A Web Hoax. It’s Still A Great Ethics Topic.

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

This comment was received on the post about the tattoo artist who tricked his cheating girlfriend into letting him draw a steaming pile of manure on her back:

"Never mind!" Wait, Emily---not so fast!

“You are all dumb. This is fake and I called it fake the first time I saw it. And guess what? The Smoking Gun did a little research and concluded that it is also fake. There appears to be no such person with the “victim’s” name in existence and nobody with the guy’s name. Further, the photo of the girl with the tattoo was first found as a submission on a blog about 18 months ago for “worst tattoo of the day”. And, further, they contacted the court in the jurisdiction where this allegedly happened and there has not been and is not any lawsuit filed with the names of either person nor about a tattoo like this. In other words, the story was made up on a website to generate hits and google ad generation (they’ve done this type of thing before).

Sort of makes all the arguments up above pointless.”

Since whoever this charming individual is didn’t include a name or a valid website, I deleted his comment, and since he had to be obnoxious while delivering this information, I’m not thanking him. But he was right, and his information was correct: the story is probably a hoax. The Smoking Gun did some digging, and exposes the deception here.

The commenter is also wrong, in several ways. Nobody is dumb. Web hoaxes are despicable and hard to catch, and especially hard for a site like Ethics Alarms to catch, a one-man, unfunded operation that is not a news source. I’m glad the commenter is puffed up with pride because he wasn’t fooled; the fact is, somebody somewhere refuses to believe every story, from moon landings to Elvis’s death. Sometimes they are right. I’m not impressed.

Mostly, however, he is wrong about the arguments generated by the story being pointless. Continue reading →

The Tattoo Artist’s Revenge: Funny! But Wrong.

/ Jack Marshall / 50 Comments

She wanted something like this to decorate her back, but the artist had something more appropriate in mind….

UPDATE HERE!

It is not unethical to be entertained by the revenge schemes put into action by others, as long as we understand that revenge is unethical in a civilized society. A culture that embraces revenge as a norm will be a violent and unforgiving one. Because the perfect act of vengeance is viscerally indistinguishable from justice, it has the power to make us feel vicariously satisfied, and that should be taken as a warning. Revenge feels good, which is why revenge fantasies have been a popular genre from “The Odyssey” to “Kill Bill”…and also why revenge can easily expand from a guilty pleasure to a bad habit.

This tale of revenge from a trailer park in Dayton, Ohio, for example, makes me want to chuckle and tip my metaphorical hat to the avenger.
Rossie Brovent asked her boyfriend, tattoo artist Ryan L. Fitzjerald, to ink a large and lovely panorama from “The Chronicles of Narnia” on her back. Little did she suspect that Fitzjerald’s insistence that she sign a consent form agreeing to accept his “artistic discretion” was but the first step in a diabolical plan. Rossie also didn’t realize that her boyfriend was on to her secret infidelity: he had just learned that she had been cheating on him with one of his close friends. Continue reading →

A Tip For Victoria Liss—In Fact, Two: Read the Golden Rule, and Don’t Use The Internet For Revenge

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

The right Victoria Liss...I hope!

Victoria Liss was tending bar at Bimbo’s Cantina in Seattle last week, when a customer named Andrew Meyer not only refused to tip her on his $28 bill, he added insult to injury by scrawling on his credit card receipt that she “could stand to lose a few pounds.” Liss, outraged, decided to employ the full power of the internet against the unmannerly cad. She posted a picture of the receipt and the customer’s name, Andrew Meyer, on her Facebook page. 

Soon angry web-Furies were gathering to exact their revenge on Meyer, whom Liss called “yuppie scum.” Andrew Meyer’s photo and Facebook page were located and posted around the web like it was a Post Office wall. News sites, including the Seattle Weekly, the Stranger, Gawker and Jezabel, used the photograph. Soon Andrew Meyer was being flamed by thousands, and receiving vicious e-mails from strangers intent on carrying on Victoria Liss’s vendetta.

One problem: Liss had the wrong Andrew Meyer! The photo she posted was of a different Andrew Meyer who lived in Texas, not Washington, and it is his face and reputation she sent to web perdition. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “America’s Untouchables”

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Among the many provocative, informative and heart-breaking comments to the Ethics Alarms post about the continued persecution of convicted sex offenders after they have completed their sentences is the following Comment of the Day by Peekachu (not to be confused with the Pokemon of the same name—different spelling). This is obviously an emotional topic for many, and I am somewhat surprised that there have not been any comments in defense of the increasingly restrictive limits placed on the Constitutional rights of sex offenders to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness….perhaps because there is no defense.  I hope to explore this issue more thoroughly in the future, but in the meantime, I urge readers to visit the other comments to the original post, and also to read Ethics Bob Stone’s take on the topic.

Here is the Comment of the Day, by Peekachu, on “America’s Untouchables”: Continue reading →