Category Archives: Ethics

Snowden: When A Government Contractor Gets It Right

Ethics, Homeland Security, Military, Morality, The State

I heard it said by Gretchen Carlson, another studiously dumb chick on Fox News, that the private, Virginia-based company that vetted former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden did a poor job.

Talk about inverted morals and ethics—Carlson’s.

In this instance, USIS (which lazy reporters fail to name in full) did a spectacular job.

In Snowden, USIS selected an intelligent, eloquent individual, with the highest moral character, who proved willing to put his life on the line—not for Uncle Sam, but for his countrymen.

Sometimes even a government contractor does a stellar job.

Manners: A Species Of Morals (Can’t Bother To Answer Your Mail? Read On)

Ethics, Etiquette, Morality, The West

Other than to hate mail or rude mail, I respond to all letters I receive—to each and every one. Many thousands since 1998, which is when I got my first newspaper column. Due to time constraints, my replies are laconic. But if a reader has bothered to read my work and comment on what I have to say—then it’s only decent to acknowledge the gesture.

I haven’t always been firm in this resolve, but I try my very best. If a colleague writes, I generally reply, whether I like them and their stuff or not. Ignoring a correspondent is a way of demonstrating contempt for that individual. If such contempt is deserved, well and good. If not; it is the unresponsive “interlocutor” who deserves contempt.

Most opinion-merchants, however, don’t reply to their mail. That smacks of hubris and pride, almost always unwarranted, as most are so uninspiring and mediocre. One wonders what they’re playing at, and why they’re not more humble.

A Golda-Meir zinger comes to mind. It’s a relic from a time when false humility was at least still practiced: “Don’t be so humble, you’re not that great.”

George Will once wrote that “manners are the practice of a virtue. The virtue is called civility, a word related—as a foundation is related to a house—to the word civilization.”

A riff on the Meir quip might go as follows: Can’t be bothered to answer your mail? “Don’t be so arrogant, you suck.”

Doughball DREAMS Of The White House

Education, Ethics, IMMIGRATION, Politics

“Members of the legislature elected by their constituents … have an obligation to sit in a room around the table and advance the interests of the people who gave them these jobs in the first place.” According to Chris Christie, New Jersey’s popular Republican governor, this obligation entails passing “his state’s so-called DREAM Act.”

The bill grants in-state college tuition rates to undocumented high school graduates who attended a New Jersey high school for at least three years. …
… “Our job, I believe, as a government, is to give every one of these children who we have already invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in, an opportunity to maximize the investment for their benefit, for the benefit of their families, for the benefit of our state and the country,” Christie said.

Who exactly are these “constituents” whom Christie represent with such zeal? Christie “won re-election by capturing a majority of Hispanic voters.”

It should surprise nobody to learn that, “Christie opposed the [DREAM ACT] legislation until last year on the grounds that the state could not afford the tuition breaks, but he changed his position at the height of his re-election campaign, saying that the state’s economic outlook had improved.”

Hurricane Sandy moved in mysterious ways.