Archive for the ‘Ethics-general’ Category
January 21, 2011
There are lots of reports that Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) apologized for likening the Republican opponents of Obamacare to Nazis, but don’t you believe them. His regret was not for his ugly accusation, but was “that anyone in the Jewish community, my Republican colleagues or anyone else was offended by the portrayal of my comments.”
His complete statement can be found here.
Kudos to Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz, the only people on the left who’ve been willing to say anything against Cohen’s House remarks. Maddow said, “Nothing is like the Nazis,” Schultz said “This can’t be tolerated.”
Tragically, no peep of criticism has come from Cohen’s Democratic colleagues. They remain silent; therefore they approve.
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Tags:apology, Ed Schultz, ethics, Jewish community, Nazis, Obamacare, Rachel Maddow, Steve Cohen’s
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics, Tolerance | 5 Comments »
January 20, 2011
Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley apologized—sort of—for his Martin Luther King, Jr day speech, in which he appeared to embrace fellow evangelicals as “my brothers and my sisters,” but to exclude everybody else.
The Associated Press reports that Bentley met for an hour with members of Alabama’s Jewish community and afterward told reporters he meant no insult with his words.
“What I would like to do is apologize. Should anyone who heard those words and felt disenfranchised, I want to say, ‘I’m sorry.’ If you’re not a person who can say you are sorry, you’re not a very good leader,” Bentley said.
Bentley’s apology seems to have been agreeably received by local Jewish and Muslim leaders, but it would have been better had he regretted what he said rather than that some people “felt disenfranchised” upon hearing it.
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Tags:Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, apology, Associated Press, ethics, evangelicals, Jews, Muslims
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Religion, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
January 19, 2011
A week ago Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) made an urgent plea for civility in public discourse. He warned,
“Reckless and hateful speech often has a terrible human cost. If the horrific events in Arizona are not enough to modulate our public discourse, it is likely there will be more violence, more deaths.”
Yesterday Mr. Cohen gave his own version of civil discourse on the House floor. Speaking of the opposition of the Republican majority in the House to Obamacare, he likened the other party to Nazis:
“They say it’s a government takeover of health care, a big lie. Just like Goebbels; you say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually people believe it.
“Like blood libel. That’s the same kind of thing. The Germans said enough about the Jews and the people believed it and you had the Holocaust. You tell a lie over and over again. And we’ve heard it on this floor; government takeover of health care.”
Anderson Cooper interviewed an unapologetic Mr. Cohen tonight. Cohen said that the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels had perfected the big lie, the Republicans were lying about Obamacare, “Just like Goebbels,” so his statement stands. Cooper’s guest, Democratic strategist and former Obama campaign pollster Cornell Belcher, defended Cohen’s remarks as (more…)
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Tags:Anderson Cooper, big lie, blood libel, civility, Cornell Belcher, Dana Bash, ethics, Goebbels, government takeover of health care, Holocaust, Joseph Goebbels, Nazis, Obamacare, Republican majority, Steve Cohen
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics | Leave a Comment »
January 18, 2011
Alabama’s Governor Robert Bentley gave a rousing Martin Luther King, Jr day speech at the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, where the late civil rights leader once was pastor. He told Alabamians that it was important ”that we love and care for each other.” He went on to proclaim, ”I think that Dr. Martin Luther King was one of the greatest men that has ever lived.”
Bentley said that even though he was a Republican he was governor of all the people. Except…maybe…
“There may be some people here today who do not have living within them the Holy Spirit. But if you have been adopted in God’s family like I have, and like you have if you’re a Christian and if you’re saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister.”
”Now I will have to say that, if we don’t have the same daddy, we’re not brothers and sisters. So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother.”
Bentley later explained, ”We’re not trying to insult anybody.” Not trying, but succeeding.
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Tags:Alabama Governor Robert Bentley, anti-Semitism, atheists, Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, ethics, Hindus, Holy Spirit, Islamophobia, Jews, Jr day speech, Martin Luther King, Muslims
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Religion, Tolerance | 1 Comment »
January 15, 2011
The Constitution, Article II, Section 3, requires that the President “shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient…”
By tradition the “Information” is in the form of a speech, and “from time to time” has become once a year, during the last week of January. This years SOTU, as it’s called in the White House, will be on Tuesday, January 25.
One of the majestic icons of America is the picture of the House chamber packed with every member of both houses of Congress, together with the Supreme Court, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and all the President’s Cabinet—all but one member who is kept out to be assume the Presidency in case some unspeakable catastrophe strikes the capitol during the SOTU.
This picture of the grandeur of our Republic stirs our blood and our hopes, from the cheers and protocol of the President’s arrival to the first applause line in his speech. Then any idea of comity is shattered, as every Democrat in the hall leaps to his or her feet and cheers and applauds wildly, while every Republican sits stony-faced. (more…)
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Tags:Constitution, Harry Reid, John Boehner, Mark Udall, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, political rhetoric, President Obama, Republicans and Democrats, sitting together, SOTU, State of the Union, TheHill.com
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics | 2 Comments »
January 12, 2011
President Obama gave a healing speech at the memorial service in Tucson, and near the end set the bar high for all of us to aspire to and work toward. Speaking of the nine-year old victim, Christina Taylor Green, he appealed to the better angels of our nature:
“Imagine — imagine for a moment, here was a young girl who was just becoming aware of our democracy; just beginning to understand the obligations of citizenship; just starting to glimpse the fact that some day she, too, might play a part in shaping her nation’s future. She had been elected to her student council. She saw public service as something exciting and hopeful. She was off to meet her congresswoman, someone she was sure was good and important and might be a role model. She saw all this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted.
“I want to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as Christina imagined it. I want America to be as good as she imagined it. All of us -– we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children’s expectations.”
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Tags:Christina Taylor Green, democracy; obligations of citizenship, ethics, memorial service, nine-year old victim, Obama, public service, Tucson
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics | 2 Comments »
January 11, 2011
At times of national tragedy there is sadness, mourning, and a search for someone to blame. In the case of Saturday’s shootings in Tucson that should be easy: 22-year-old Jared Loughner did it, with some help from whoever sold him a semi-automatic Glock 19 hand gun with extra large magazines.
But that’s not satisfying, to blame a crazy person for something so terrible. We want to pinpoint the cause of the evil, because if we have the cause we can prevent such things from happening in the future. Many on the left want to tag Sarah Palin and Fox News with at least contributory blame.
After all, didn’t Palin post a map showing Congresswoman Gifford as a target, complete with crosshairs? (see accompanying picture from her website and try to imagine whether seeing this might lead someone to murder.) And doesn’t Fox News regularly feature right wing rants by Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck?
Palin and Fox News head Roger Ailes seemed to grant some plausibility to the connection because Palin’s PAC took down the offending map on Saturday, and on Monday Ailes announced that his network would try to cool the heated rhetoric. But their moves toward civility are reasons to honor them, not to take the actions an admission of guilt.
Our greatest political commentator, Jon Stewart, put it best in his eloquent cry from the heart on his January 10 Daily Show: (more…)
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Tags:civility, Congresswoman Gifford, crosshairs, Daily Show, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Glock 19, hand gun, Jared Loughner, Jon Stewart, Kenya-born Muslim, national tragedy, Roger Ailes, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, Second Amendment remedy, toxic political environment, Tucson, You lie
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Media, Politics, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
January 9, 2011
The new Republican leadership of the House of Representatives opened the new 112th Congress with a reading of the Constitution that they are sworn to support and defend. Some Members on both sides tried to make political hay out of the action, but for the most part it was a bipartisan effort that served to remind all of what they were there for.
But purposely the document they read wasn’t the Constitution of the United States, but an edited, modernized version. The original, housed in the Archives of the United States, spells out the method for apportioning congressional seats in Article I, Section 2:
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
“Three fifths of all other Persons.” Those “other Persons” meant slaves. The formula was changed by the fourteenth amendment, which ended slavery and, eliminated the three-fifths language.
Why would anybody bowdlerize the Constitution? Simple—it’s to maintain the fiction that the founders had perfect foresight, and that their language—or their omissions—must be followed slavishly for all time. And so, for example, since they didn’t allow the federal government to require Americans to buy health insurance, then the health care law must be unconstitutional. And so, for another example (more…)
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Tags:112th Congress, Archives, Article I, ethics, founders, fourteenth amendment, health care law, health insurance, House of Representatives, Obamacare, original intent, political ads, reading of the Constitution, Republican leadership, Section 2, slavery, three fifths, unconstitutional
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Health care, Politics | Leave a Comment »
January 6, 2011
Auburn’s football team is rated #1 in the nation as it prepares for the national championship game Monday against the Oregon Ducks. Academically its team is rated #85 out of 120. It was rated #4 until a sociology professor spoke truth to power.
According to an article in today’s New York Times, one day in 2006 professor Jim Gundlach saw on TV that an academic player of the week was a sociology major. Gundlach had never had him in class, and two other sociology professors said they hadn’t either.
Gundlach smelled a rat in the football world, and dug around to expose widespread academic fraud in the Auburn football program. The Times broke the story back then, and Auburn, under pressure from the media and from the NCAA cleaned up its act—some—to publish honest academic ratings.
Gundlach didn’t get hero status at Auburn for correcting the football program: he was hounded out of the university by hate mail and calls assailing him for hurting the university. Gundlach doesn’t see it that way. The Times quotes him this way: “The things that I did in the process of going out was one of the best things I’ve ever done for Auburn,” (more…)
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Tags:academic fraud, academic ratings, Auburn football, hate mail, Jim Gundlach, national championship game, NCAA, New York Times, Oregon Ducks, Sam Goldwyn award, sociology major, Tiger football
Posted in Ethics-general, Sports | 2 Comments »
January 2, 2011
Ethics in sports means trying your best to win while behaving with integrity. Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith is an ethics hero for his stand in trying to win a game that was meaningless to the Bears but critical to the team they were playing.
The Bears were set as the no. 2 seed in the NFC playoffs after the Atlanta Falcons won their game and clinched the no. 1 seed and home field advantage. So the Bears final regular season game against the Green Bay Packers was meaningless to the Bears, but crucial to the Packers: if they won they were in the playoffs; lose and they’re out.
Some teams have rested their key players in such a game, notably—and shamefully—the Indianapolis Colts, who last year rested their best players in the regular season finale against the New York Jets and gave the Jets a playoff berth.
But Bears coach Lovie Smith stood up for the integrity of the game. If it was meaningful for the Packers it was the Bears’ obligation to try their best, so Smith played his starters all the way. The Bears lost, 10-3, but were fighting to the end, driving from their 2-yard line with 4:49 left in the game to the Packers 32, where an intercepted pass ended the Bears comeback and put the Packers in the playoffs.
The Bears made them earn it.
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Tags:Atlanta Falcons, Chicago Bears, Ethics Hero, ethics in sports, Green Bay Packers, home field advantage, Indianapolis Colts, Lovie Smith, New York Jets, NFC playoffs
Posted in Ethics-general, Tolerance | 2 Comments »
There are lots of reports that Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) apologized for likening the Republican opponents of Obamacare to Nazis, but don’t you believe them. His regret was not for his ugly accusation, but was “that anyone in the Jewish community, my Republican colleagues or anyone else was offended by the portrayal of my comments.”
Ethics Bob 