Category Archives: Ethics

Letter of the Week: A Note from Bobby, Terri Schiavo's Brother

Conservatism, Criminal Injustice, Ethics, Justice, Law, Morality, Natural Law

Dear Ms. Mercer,

I wanted to sincerely thank you for your column regarding my sister Terri.

It seems to me that many of our conservatives brethren began their exodus when the media made it their mission to justify Terri’s death by misreporting the autopsy report, which by the way, was prejudiced in order to avoid any legal ramifications.

I firmly believe that the jaundiced autopsy results have been and are still being erroneously reported by our popular media as a reason to negatively influence the constituents of those politicians that supported my family’s efforts to help my sister. As a result, it seems to me that no one in Washington had/has the courage to make the point that regardless of someone’s condition, intentionally killing an innocent disabled person, guilty of nothing more than becoming an inconvenience, is intolerable.

However, as you pointed out so eloquently in your column, Terri’s condition (or the autopsy results) should have made no difference in the decision to kill my sister, particularly when so much uncertainly existed in regards to her “wishes”. Not to mention Terri’s suspicious collapse.

It truly was unfortunate that many of our “friends” in Congress were duped by the deliberate inaccurate reporting of Terri’s autopsy and went voiceless when Terri’s issue became an election topic. Just as frustrating, however, was many of your media colleagues also went silent when at one time they were very supportive of Terri and our family. Their silence served to exacerbate the horrible injustice that was endured by my sister.

We all need to recognize that what happened to Terri was happening for many years prior to her death and continues everyday across our nation.

Sincerely,
Bobby Schindler
Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation
5562 Central Avenue, Suite 2
St. Petersburg, FL 33707
727-490-7603
www.terrisfight.org

The Liberal Worldview: We’re all Just Monkeys

Ethics, Morality, Natural Law

When liberals fought tooth and nail to dehydrate and starve Terry Schiavo for her imperfections, I wrote that “What distinguishes civilized beings from animals, primitive societies, and liberals is that they don’t see nature as an exemplar of all that is fine and good.”

Watch this hateful little video doing the rounds on the Internet. Its narrator—Ernest Cline—has a tinny robotic voice, which you just know is attached to a smug mug with trendy eyewear. He goes through a litany of human achievements and their alleged, attendant evils, and concludes contemptuously: “We’re all just monkeys.”

Note how irrational the liberal philosophy is: This primate (Ernest Cline) can’t tell you logically why he thinks the specimens that designed the microchip and painted the Mona Lisa are no better than monkeys—creatures that have never created anything, live in trees, throw coconuts, and hoot to communicate. There is no rational basis upon which to equate man and monkey. Since the position is irrational, it is also manifestly false. Feelings—not reason—inform this hackneyed and deeply silly narrative (disguised as sophisticated, like all liberal dogma).

Ergo, the reason Cline feels (for he can’t be thinking) that man is merely a glorified ape is because he hates people and civilization and idolizes animals and primitive life.

Refresher readings on human rights and animals are here:

a href=”http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35022″ target=”_blank”>No Rights for Animals

How Much is that Doggie in the Window?

Gaga for Gaia

Shark Tales

The Liberal Worldview: We're all Just Monkeys

Ethics, Morality, Natural Law

When liberals fought tooth and nail to dehydrate and starve Terry Schiavo for her imperfections, I wrote that “What distinguishes civilized beings from animals, primitive societies, and liberals is that they don’t see nature as an exemplar of all that is fine and good.”

Watch this hateful little video doing the rounds on the Internet. Its narrator—Ernest Cline—has a tinny robotic voice, which you just know is attached to a smug mug with trendy eyewear. He goes through a litany of human achievements and their alleged, attendant evils, and concludes contemptuously: “We’re all just monkeys.”

Note how irrational the liberal philosophy is: This primate (Ernest Cline) can’t tell you logically why he thinks the specimens that designed the microchip and painted the Mona Lisa are no better than monkeys—creatures that have never created anything, live in trees, throw coconuts, and hoot to communicate. There is no rational basis upon which to equate man and monkey. Since the position is irrational, it is also manifestly false. Feelings—not reason—inform this hackneyed and deeply silly narrative (disguised as sophisticated, like all liberal dogma).

Ergo, the reason Cline feels (for he can’t be thinking) that man is merely a glorified ape is because he hates people and civilization and idolizes animals and primitive life.

Refresher readings on human rights and animals are here:

a href=”http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35022″ target=”_blank”>No Rights for Animals

How Much is that Doggie in the Window?

Gaga for Gaia

Shark Tales

Updated: Plagiarism

Ethics, Etiquette, Morality

The dictionary defines plagiarism as “taking someone’s words or ideas as if they were your own.” Imitation might be the sincerest form of flattery. But unacknowledged, lifting a someone’s ideas without attribution is disgusting—it tells me all I need to know about a character.

I once submitted a version of “How Things Would Work in a Copyright-Free Universe” to the editor of a well-known American libertarian magazine. It had been published previously in the Canadian Financial Post. The editors there had been excited about it and were not disappointed—the piece generated a good deal of mail.

The editor of the libertarian magazine, however, replied that the thing was not comprehensive enough for his publication. A week or two later, the exact ideas appeared in his column, including a reference to one or two utterly obscure sources used in my article.

There have been other such unpleasant instances.

More recently, on March 3, 2006 in “The People Vs. Dubya & Dubai,” I observed that libertarians had joined neoconservatives to tarnish security conscious Americans as anti-Arab racists and Islamophobes for their rejection of the Dubai transaction.

On March 11, I reiterated that observation on Barely a Blog, writing that neoconservatives and their left-libertarian allies in this affair truly showed their skunk appeal, and that the Dubai debacle has served as the all-time low-life litmus test because of this lot’s self-righteous haste to substitute ad hominem arguments for substantive debate.

In the March-27 issue of a certain magazine, a member of the small and well-acquainted libertarian community of writers used the rather obscure observation vis-a-vis the neoconservative/libertarian momentary alignment to segue into a discussion of the Dubai debacle. Missing from the analysis were five words: “As Ilana Mercer has observed.”

At the time of writing, if you Googled Ann Coulter and H. L. Mencken together my name came up first. That’s how idiosyncratic my June-8 commentary on this pairing was. In his latest July-17 magazine article, the aforementioned libertarian uses the analogy (in a totally inappropriate context, mind you). Missing again are these simple words: “As Ilana Mercer has observed.”

Of course, this is not about an ignorance of the rules and etiquette of attribution, but about an unfamiliarity with morals. My

About the natural law, Sir William Blackstone noted that it “should include such precepts as that human beings should live honestly, hurt nobody, and render everyone their due” (in Conway, 2004). Clearly an instinct alien to some.

Update: a good friend and a professional writer offers that such practices are abominable, but points out that a well-known magazine gambit is to reject a query but take its ideas. Call me naive, but I once expected more from libertarians. No longer. Said writer has also directed me to Copyscape, another helpful online resource.