Tucson shooting

Unethical Quote of the Week AND Unethical Apology of the Month: Rep. Steve Cohen

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

First, the quote:

“I said Goebbels lied about the Jews, and that led to the Holocaust. Not in any way whatsoever was I comparing Republicans to Nazis. I was saying lies are wrong…I don’t know who got everybody’s panties in a wad over this statement.”

—–Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), in his initial dismissal of criticism over his rant on the House floor regarding Republican characterizations of the health care bill.

This quote is really remarkable, for it is hard to pack so many kinds of dishonesty into so few words.It’s hard to know where to begin. Continue reading →

Unethical Web Post of the Month: William Rivers Pitt

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

I had been unaware of the existence of a writer named William Rivers Pitt before yesterday, and I now I will look back on those days of naive and blissful ignorance with nostalgia and deep mourning for innocence lost. The face of unreasoning hate and bigotry is always ugly, but one seldom encounters such purple-complexioned, vein-popping, spittle-spewing fury on the web, especially from a published author with a vocabulary exceeding “Deliverance” levels. I had been aware of the website Truth-Out, a hard Left commentary site that I now know exercises no editorial discretion whatsoever.

Mr. Pitt’s rant is entitled “The Wrath of Fools: An Open Letter to the Far Right,” which, if it were written by anyone with a history of the relative moderation of, say, Richard Cohen, Nancy Pelosi or Bill Maher, I would assume was satire. Continue reading →

Marketing the Glock and Corporate Social Responsibility

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Dr. Chris MacDonald has a thoughtful post on this topic on the always excellent Business Ethics Blog. “The social benefits of selling handguns may be fundamentally contentious; in other words, reasonable people can agree to disagree,” he writes. “But I doubt that the same can really be said for marketing moves designed, for example, to foster the sale of high-capacity magazines (ones that hold 33 bullets instead of the usual 17).”

You can read the whole article here.

Tucson Aftermath: Don’t Let The Barn Door Close On Freedom, Please

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

In the wake of Jared Loughner’s attack, the “barn door fllacy” is in full operation as intensely, and foolishly as I’ve ever seen it. Everyone from social reformers to yellow-bellied Congress members are proposing changes and suggesting “dialogues” aimed at stopping Jared Loughner’s completely unpredictable conduct, which, they seem to forget, has already occurred. Almost always, when everyone rushes to lock the metaphorical barn door after the horse is gone, they make the barn and everything around it uglier, less useful, more expensive, and less respectful of basic human dignity and freedom: witness the TSA’s outrageous new pat-down procedures, designed to stop 2009’s exploding underpants terrorist, who was unsuccessful. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces: Rush Limbaugh and the Spinners

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

No, Rush Limbaugh and the Spinners isn’t a new singing group. It is a chorus, however, of graceless, cynical or malicious commentators who are determined to re-cast the President’s well-chosen, non-partisan and healing words in Tucson into something they can use as ammunition in exactly the kind of destructive wars of rhetoric that Obama properly condemned. Continue reading →

Now THIS, On The Other Hand, Promotes Political Violence:

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The good news, I suppose, is that the Palmetto State Armory decided to take down its webpage advertising the “You lie!” etched rifle component, in belated recognition of the fact that promoting such a product after the Tucson shootings would be irresponsible and in terrible taste. Continue reading →

Who Is Setting The Stage For The Next Fatal Shooting? (Hint: It’s Not Sarah Palin)

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Irony of ironies: even as the news media is trying hard to blame the inflammatory words of conservatives for the Tucson massacre, its own conduct is increasing the likelihood of more carnage in the future. Continue reading →