Archive for the ‘Ethics-general’ Category
July 12, 2012
House and Senate Republicans have forfeited any claim to ethical behavior. They were sent to Washington to do the people’s business; they make a mockery of their oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” and to “well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office.”
Congressional Republicans are doing anything BUT “well and faithfully discharging the duties” of their offices. They have now voted 33 times to repeal or defund all or part of the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”). Yesterday every one of the House Republicans voted for repeal, along with five Democrats. Before any of the hours of sham debate and the wall-to-wall press and TV coverage, every last one of them knew that their vote would have no effect. None. Nowhere. Never.
For to repeal the ACA, they well knew, after the bill passes the House it would have to be passed by the Democratic-controlled Senate, then signed by President Obama. Did any of them expect that the President would sign repeal of his (for better or worse) signature legislation?
Meanwhile, the Senate Republicans are keeping pace with their House colleagues’ renunciation of their Constitutional oath. (more…)
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Tags:advise and consent, Affordable Care Act, duty, ethics, House, House Republicans, judicial nominations, Mitch McConnell, oath of office, Obamacare, one-term President, repeal, Senate, Senate Republicans
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Health care, hypocrisy, Politics | Leave a Comment »
June 17, 2012
Joanne ____ is one of America’s twelve million illegal immigrants. She was brought to the United States from Mexico as a baby by her parents. She has a younger sister and brother who are American citizens because they were born in the United States. Her sister is in her last year at Harvard; her brother is in high school.
Five years ago alumni of the North Hollywood High School Class of 1957 decided, as part of their 50th reunion, to give a scholarship to a deserving senior. The school’s top choice was Joanne, and so she was awarded the scholarship. With that financial help and her own tenacity and hard work Joanne got her degree from the California State University, Northridge, a year ago. She’s spent much of the past year looking for work, but it’s been a hopeless case because she can’t produce the necessary papers.
Until yesterday, when President Obama announced that the United States would no longer consider deporting people like Joanne—people who had been brought here illegally as children, earned a high school diploma or GED, or served in the military, and had behaved well—had what we would call a record of good citizenship, were they citizens. Moreover the government will give them permits to work in the US for two years, renewable indefinitely.
In effect the President granted by executive action much of what the Dream Act—stymied only by an especially ugly Republican filibuster (more…)
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Tags:California State University Northridge, Class of 1957, deportation, Dream Act, ethics, executive action, illegal immigrants, Mexico, Mitt Romney, North Hollywood High School, Obama, path to citizenship, Republican filibuster, scholarship, veto, work permits
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Immigration, Politics | Leave a Comment »
April 29, 2012
On Being is a public radio program and podcast hosted by Krista Tippett, and dedicated to conversations about religion, meaning, and ethics. Tippett often finds commonality and conjunctions among a variety of religions and philosophies, and recently she outdid herself with a conversation among:
- · the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people
- · Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, University Professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University,
- · Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks of the British Commonwealth, and Most Reverend Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church.
During a wide ranging conversation about happiness, the Dalai Lama observed, “One of my Muslim friends explained to me one interpretation of Jihad, not only sort of attack on other, but real meaning is combative attack your own wrongdoing or negativities.”
“The greater Jihad*, the bigger Jihad, is to combat your own negative forces within you. Yes, yes,” Dr. Nasr agreed enthusiastically.
The Dalai Lama made the connection: “So in that sense, the whole Buddhist practice is practice of Jihad.”
“Exactly, absolutely,” concluded Dr Nasr.
In the same way one could say our struggle to be ethical is the practice of jihad—an inner struggle to be the virtuous person that we know how to be, but sometimes fall short of. It’s easier (more…)
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Tags:Buddhists, Dalai Lama, ethics, holy war, inner struggle, jihad, Jonathan Sacks, Katharine Jefferts Schori, Krista Tippett, Muslims, On Being, religion, Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Posted in Ethics-general, Religion, Tolerance | 1 Comment »
April 21, 2012
After Top-Level Struggle Confronted with evidence of widespread corruption in Mexico, top Wal-Mart executives focused more on damage control than on rooting out wrongdoing, an examination by The New York Times found.
The headlines are from Saturday’s New York Times. The news article details how Walmart de Mexico—that nation’s largest employer—regularly paid huge bribes to Mexican government officials to approve permits for new stores; how senior management of the Mexican subsidiary was party to the bribery; how Walmart headquarters in Arkansas investigated the allegations of bribery, and how, when the investigations turned up hard evidence, hq proceeded to bury it.
“It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up.” So goes the conventional wisdom, but in this case it was both: the crime was committed by top management of the Mexico subsidiary, and the cover up was by top management of the parent company.
In my business ethics courses we use Walmart as a case study: Is the company ethical or unethical, and is it good or bad for America.
On the plus side Walmart gives employment to hundreds of thousands (more…)
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Tags:bribery, Business ethics, corruption, cover-up, criminal enterprise., ethics, Mexico, New York Times, Wal-Mart
Posted in Business ethics, Ethics-general, International, Retail | 1 Comment »
April 21, 2012
Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) is a darling of the Republican right, so much so that many pundits have tagged him as a front runner for the #2 spot on the Republican ticket with Mitt Romney. If Romney were to choose Rubio, goes the reasoning, it would solidify his position with the party base that has always mistrusted him. And as a bonus, Cuban-American Rubio might help Romney with the growing numbers of Latino voters who have been turned off by his unbending anti-immigrant position.
Immigration is the one issue on which Romney and the right are together: seal the borders and hunt down and deport everybody who isn’t here legally, all 12,000,000 of them.
Rubio showed he’s not one who goes along to get along, in all likelihood forsaking any chance at the VP spot on the Romney ticket. He just announced his sponsorship of a modified version of the DREAM Act, which would allow children of illegal immigrants to obtain legal status in the United States.
Some on the Left have rejected Rubio’s proposal as a betrayal of American values, but chalk that up to hyper-partisanship. Rubio clearly wants to help young people, brought here illegally when they were small children, to stay in America legally and to get an education and a job.
Rubio’s is a story of courage and compassion, and of a too-rare politician who rejects ideology in favor of solving a serious national problem. Hooray.
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Tags:children of illegal immigrants, compassion, courage, Cuban-Americans, Dream Act, ethics, hyper-partisanship, immigration, Latino voters, legal status, Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney, party base, Republican right, Republican ticket, Vice Presidential nomination
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Immigration, Leadership, Politics, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
April 17, 2012
I’ve visited Turkey eleven times, and always return in awe of the honesty of Turks. I’ve written here about the lengths Enver Beyazyuz went to in order to return my wallet, which he had found in the men’s room at an Istanbul Starbucks. And here, about the Gaziantep cab driver who trusted us to call him for a return trip so we could pay him after he had been unable to change the TL 20 bill (about $12) I had offered.
On my latest visit my daughter, Susan Le, was lingering over breakfast coffee when Johann, a fellow guest at our hotel in Cappadocia (the Esbelli Ev—visit Cappadocia and stay there if you can!) sadly recounted how he had lost his wallet, stuffed with IDs and credit cards, at the huge Goreme Open Air Museum (photo).
“No problem,” Sue replied cheerfully. “Nobody ever loses a wallet in Turkey. It always gets returned. Tell Atıl (our guide, Atıl Cuce of Middle Earth Travel, hire him when you visit Cappadocia), he’ll know what to do.”
Two minutes later Atılhung up the phone. “They have your wallet.”
My friend Arzu Tutuk (best guide in Istanbul, hire her when you go there) says if you lose your mobile phone in Turkey the finder will first refill with additional minutes, then track you down and return it. I wouldn’t be surprised.
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Tags:Arzu Tutuk, Atıl Cuce, Cappadocia, Enver Beyazyuz, Esbelli Ev, ethics, Gaziantep, Goreme Open Air Museum, honesty, Istanbul Starbucks, lost wallet, Middle Earth Travel, Susan Le, Turkey, Turks
Posted in Ethics-general, Turkey | 7 Comments »
April 16, 2012
Jackie Robinson played his first Major League baseball game 65 years ago today. We’ve long become inured to stories of “firsts,” since our society has come so far on the road to judging each person by the content of his character, but in a century of firsts, Jackie Robinson was extra special. Nobody has explained his significance as well as Jack Marshall in his Ethics Alarms blog. Read it here.
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Tags:baseball, ethics, Ethics Alarms, firsts, integration, Jack Marshall, Jackie Robinson
Posted in Ethics-general, History, Sports, Tolerance | 3 Comments »
April 4, 2012
Why did neighborhood-watch-wannabe George Zimmerman kill Trayvon Martin? We don’t know yet. But don’t believe anything you hear on NBC News, after they doctored a transcript of Zimmerman’s 911 call to make Zimmerman out to be racist.
Here’s what NBC broadcast on its Today show:
Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.
Here’s what was on the real recording:
Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good. Or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.
Dispatcher: OK, and this guy — is he black, white or Hispanic?
Zimmerman: He looks black.
NBC doctored the record to strengthen the popular narrative that Martin was followed and shot because he was black. It’s a narrative that has thousands of protesters out calling for Zimmerman’s scalp—some literally. The crowd’s tempers—and mine, for that matter, have been inflamed by NBC’s mis-reporting. If there’s more violence NBC will rightfully share the blame.
So what does the network have to say? An error was made. Here’s NBC’s only statement, in its entirety.
“During our investigation it became evident that there was an error made in the production process that we deeply regret. We will be taking the necessary steps to prevent this from happening in the future and apologize to our viewers.”
Americans have had reason to be distrustful of the reporting of the media, even the most respected organizations. All have earned that distrust, but NBC has brought “news” to a new low. They just made it up. And apologize? Not exactly. You see, it was “an error.” Vile.
(Thanks to EthicsAlarms.com for its original commentary.)
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Tags:911 call, doctored recording, ethics, Ethics Alarms, George Zimmerman, NBC News, Today, Trayvon Martin
Posted in Apologies, Ethics-general, Media, Tolerance | 2 Comments »
March 26, 2012
This article from the Orlando Sentinel website appears to explain why the Sanford, FL, police haven’t arrested George Zimmerman, the shooter of Trayvon Martin. The article says Zimmerman claimed he was attacked by Martin, knocked down, had his beaten against the ground, and cried for help, before shooting the 17-year old. His story apparently has been corroborated by a witness.
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Tags:ethics, FL, George Zimmerman, Orlando Sentinel, Sanford, Trayvon Martin
Posted in Criminal justice, Ethics-general, Leadership, Media, Tolerance | 5 Comments »
March 23, 2012
When tragedy strikes Americans turn for solace and wisdom to their President. When Challenger blew up Ronald Reagan comforted and inspired us. When the Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed Bill Clinton grieved with us. When Congresswoman Gabby Gifford was gunned down along with nine others President Obama helped the whole nation understand.
Now America is riveted on the killing of 17-year old Trayvon Martin by a neighborhood watch person. The killer has not been arrested a month after the shooting, and the media are in World War III mode. Protests spread, and a million people have signed a partition calling for the shooter’s arrest.
President Obama addressed the nation today. He first explained that, as head of the Executive Branch he has to take care not to prejudice any investigation. He can’t call it the murder it appears to be. Instead he calls it a tragedy, and says how it relates to him:
“But my main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon. And I think they are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves, and that we’re going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened.”
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Tags:Bill Clinton, Challenger, ethics, Gabby Gifford, leadership, neighborhood watch, Obama, Oklahoma City bombing, Reagan, Trayvon Martin
Posted in Criminal justice, Ethics-general, Government, Leadership | 14 Comments »
House and Senate Republicans have forfeited any claim to ethical behavior. They were sent to Washington to do the people’s business; they make a mockery of their oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” and to “well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office.”
Ethics Bob 