August 16, 2010
It’s hard to find words to describe Newt Gingrich’s statements opposing the mosque project planned for 2-1/2 blocks from Ground Zero:
“The folks who want to build this mosque, who are really radical Islamists, who want to triumphfully (sic) prove they can build a mosque next to a place where 3,000 Americans were killed by radical Islamists. Those folks don’t have any interest in reaching out to the community. They’re trying to make a case about supremacy… This happens all the time in America. Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington..”
The first sentence equates the folks who want to build this mosque (radical Islamists) with the people who killed 3000 Americans (radical Islamists.) So Newt is saying, in plain English, that Imam Rauf and his associates are morally equivalent to the 9/11 attackers—notwithstanding that Imam Rauf was as outraged as anyone at the attack, and justifies the project as strengthening the American alternative to radical Islam.
The last sentence equates Rauf and his colleagues to Nazis. This is where Gingrich forfeits any claim to leadership in America.
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Tags: 9/11, ethics, Ground Zero, Holocaust Museum, Imam Rauf, mosque, Nazis, Newt Gingrich, radical Islamists
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
August 13, 2010
President Obama defended the right of New York Muslims to build a house of worship in lower Manhattan, 2-1/2 blocks from Ground Zero. Hosting a White House Iftar–a sunset ceremonial dinner marking the breaking of a Ramadan fast. he gave an inspiring 9-minute speech about freedom of religion, and about the historic place of Islam in America.
Made me proud.
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Tags: ethics, freedom of religion, Ground Zero, Islam in America., mosque, Obama, Ramadan, White House Iftar
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics, Tolerance | 1 Comment »
August 13, 2010
Keeping in shape has gotten easier for me since I got an iPhone and discovered a PBS program, Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippet. I listen to this on a podcast on my iPhone, and it makes the hour at the gym go by much faster.
This week’s program is called Revealing Ramadan, and Krista describes it this way:
“14 Muslims, in their own words, speak about the delights and gravity of Islam’s holiest month. Through vivid memories and light-hearted musings, they reveal the richness of Ramadan — as a period of intimacy, and of parties; of getting up when the world is quiet for breakfast and prayers with one’s family; of breaking the fast every day after nightfall in celebration and prayers with friends and strangers.”
I found this a fascinating window into Islam, American style. It’s a little foreign to a non-observant Jew like me, but what was so striking to me was not its foreignness but its sameness—nothing about the people speaking seemed any different from the family next door—to any one. I wish the people railing about mosques at Ground Zero, in Murfreesboro, or Temecula, could listen to the stories these Americans—and one Brit—tell.
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Tags: American Muslims, ethics, Ground Zero, iPhone, Krista Tippet, Murfreesboro, podcast, Ramadan, Revealing Ramadan, Speaking of Faith, Temecula
Posted in Ethics-general, Tolerance | 1 Comment »
August 12, 2010
No controversy is covered until Jon Stewart covers it,
here.
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Tags: Ground Zero mosque, Jon Stewart, Muslims
Posted in Ethics-general, Politics, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
August 11, 2010
I’ve been writing in favor of Park 51, the so-called Ground Zero mosque, because ethics demands that we treat others as we would be treated, and because religious freedom is a precious American birthright.
But sometimes the ethical thing is also the best strategy. Fareed Zakaria, one of America’s most insightful political commentators (and an Indian-born, Yale- and Harvard-educated Muslim) writes in this week’s Newsweek that encouraging groups like the one behind Park 51 is part of a “lasting solution to the problem of Islamic terror.”
Zakaria has been tagged by New York Magazine as a possibility to be the first Muslim Secretary of State. All his columns are worth reading, but this one is a must for understanding the national security reason for supporting Park 51 and other efforts by moderate American Muslims.
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Tags: ethics, Fareed Zakaria, Ground Zero mosque, Islamic terror, national security, New York Magazine, Newsweek, Park 51, religious freedom
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
August 10, 2010
I recently offered a wallet-sized code of ethics to replace — or at least, mitigate — the bureaucratic system of rules, supervision and oversight that stifles initiative and deadens workers’ spirits. The ethical guides were simple:
I will:
· Do my best at work
· Avoid conflict of interest
· Speak truth to power
· Be a good citizen
· Shun any private gain from public employment
· Act impartially
· Treat others the way I would like to be treated
· Report waste, fraud, and corruption
When in doubt, my test is can I explain my actions to my mother or to my child.
Many people are hungry for this sort of simple, straightforward guide and have asked me how they can introduce such a tool in their organizations. Here’s what to do next:
· Decide on your organization’s principles of ethical behavior.
· Print wallet-size cards (plastic is best) and hand them out like crazy.
· Teach: look for coachable moments to align people with the principles.
First, what’s right for your organization? Chances are the code isn’t exactly right for you. Give the workers a chance to own the code. Announce that you’re in the market for a new code of ethics that can fit on a wallet-size card. Offer a $100 prize (your $100!) for the best one submitted, and Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Bureaucracy, code of ethics, ethics, mission statement, Organizational ethics, oversight, unenforceables
Posted in Business ethics, Ethics-general, Government, Organizational | 2 Comments »
August 9, 2010
I came home from my tenth grade history class and announced, “Today we learned about the fall of Christian Constantinople to the Muslim Ottomans, and what a tragedy it was.” My father corrected me; “Not for the Jews, it wasn’t.” He went on to explain that the Ottoman Sultan, Beyazit I, in 1492 invited all the Jews of Spain, just expelled by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, to come live in peace in the Ottoman Empire, then the world’s most powerful. Thousands did, and lived peacefully and prosperously there for centuries, to this day.
Jews and Muslims have gotten on well for most of the time since the days of Mohammed, who honored Jews as “people of the book.” It’s easy today, looking at the enmity between Israel and some of her neighbors, to forget that Jewish culture thrived as never before or since in the “golden age of Jewish culture” in Muslim-ruled Spain, or that the Muslim Beyazit rescued the Jews of Spain and Portugal. Even the Jewish-Muslim conflict in the Middle East is over land, not religion.
So it’s nice to see so many Jews standing up for the rights of American Muslims to build Cordoba House, a community center with prayer area, 2-1/2 blocks from New York’s Ground Zero. NBC News reported, “Jewish Leaders Gather to Support Ground Zero Mosque.”
And Washington’s Jewish Week criticized the position of the Anti-Defamation League Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: 1492, Anti-Defamation League, Cordoba House, expulsion of Jews from Spain, fall of Constantinople, golden age of Jewish culture, Israel, Jerrold Nadler, Jewish Community Center of Manhattan, Jewish Leaders, Jews, Michael Bloomberg, Mohammed, mosque at Ground Zero, Muslims, Ottoman Empire, Ottomans, people of the book, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, Scott Stringer, Shalom Center, Sultan Beyazit I, Washington Jewish Week
Posted in Ethics-general, Politics, Tolerance | 3 Comments »
August 1, 2010
The Anti-Defamation League has in the past stood against, not only anti-Semitism, but against all kinds of racial and religious bigotry. Those days sadly are gone. In a shameful statement the ADL summed up its position this way:
“Proponents of the Islamic Center may have every right to build at this site, and may even have chosen the site to send a positive message about Islam. The bigotry some have expressed in attacking them is unfair, and wrong. But ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right. In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain – unnecessarily – and that is not right.”
So if you are a victim and you blame Islam—not al Qaeda—for 9/11, we should honor your bigotry by preventing American Muslims from building a community center/mosque 2-1/2 blocks from Ground Zero. For a Jewish group to make such a statement is remarkable, and especially reprehensible. It wasn’t long ago that Jews too were told to be unobtrusive because their presence where they were unwanted would cause pain Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: 9/11, al Qaeda, Anti-Defamation League, anti-Semitism, bigotry, diversity, ethics, fivethirtyeight.com, Ground Zero, Islam, Islamic Center, lunch counters, Nate Silver, polling, religious freedom
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics, Tolerance | 7 Comments »
July 30, 2010
With all the criminality in public life, why am I so disturbed with Charlie Rangel? Jack Marshall put his metaphorical finger on it in his EthicsAlarm blog: Rangel is an ethics corrupter. Marshall defines it this way:
“An ethics corrupter is a public figure of high accomplishment, a hero who encourages his admirers and followers to allow the hero’s achievements to excuse his flawed character and values…The ethics corrupter…weakens the public’s resistance to corruption and misconduct, and encourages a culture of privilege in which an individual is allowed to break the law and rules in direct proportion to his or her perceived value to society.”
As I’m disgusted by Rangel’s conduct, I’m alarmed by the people defending it. The only hopeful sign is that the House ethics committee, comprising four Democrats and four Republicans, brought charges against Rangel, and will try him on these charges, with the possible penalty upon conviction ranging from admonition to expulsion from the House of Representatives.
If Rangel had the tiniest sense of public responsibility or honor he would resign. But he doesn’t and he won’t. He’ll probably cost the Democrats control of the House in the coming election but he doesn’t care. And if they let him, neither should we.
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Tags: bribery, Charlie Rangel, ethics, ethics corrupter, EthicsAlarm, House Ethics Committee, Jack Marshall, tax cheat
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics | 1 Comment »
July 29, 2010
I got my weekly email yesterday from Newt Gingrich headed “No Mosque at Ground Zero.” It was quite scary—a 1500-word letter exposing Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf as “an apologist for Sharia supremacy” who “actually compared Sharia law with the Declaration of Independence, and who is spreading “moral confusion about the nature of radical Islamism.”
Newt leads up to this indictment of Rauf by warning us that “radical Islamists” are trying to impose Sharia law in parts of America, “no matter how deeply [it conflicts with] the democratic values undergirding our constitutional system.”
He then leads us through horrors like honor killings of family members, spousal torture and rape, and even threats against a disabled student with a [unclean] guide dog—all permitted by Newt’s version of Sharia.
Then Newt reveals the true intentions of Imam Rauf: to disarm America in the fight against “radical Islamism.”
Except it’s all a lie. Here’s what Rauf wrote recently on the subject of Sharia. It’s not about beheadings and amputations as a form of justice, or about women being stoned or forced into hiding behind burkas. Those things are not Shariah, but rather part of the penal codes in countries that deny fairness and justice, according to Rauf.
The mosque issue isn’t about defending American values against “radical Islamism,” like Newt says. It’s about defending American values against blind prejudice, like the Constitution and Declaration of Independence say.
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Tags: amputations, beheadings, burkas, Constitution, Declaration of Independence, ethics, honor killings, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, mosque at Ground Zero, Newt Gingrich, radical Islamism, Sharia
Posted in Ethics-general, Politics, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
It’s hard to find words to describe Newt Gingrich’s statements opposing the mosque project planned for 2-1/2 blocks from Ground Zero:
Ethics Bob 