Tag: ethics

Should Police be Doing Mental Health Calls?

On By southwerkIn Government Failure

(One of Dante’s visions of Hell.)

No. It is a bad idea and has always been a bad idea.

Police are trained to respond to crimes and have resort to various means of restraint and violence. People with mental health problems are seldom criminals and often have no intent to cause a disruption but they lack the ability to discern the effects of their actions.

Police departments are ill equipped to handle mental health emergencies. These aren’t crimes. These are social problems we no longer treat in facilities because state legislatures got rid of the facilities in the half-baked loony idea that serious mental health problems could be handled on an outpatient basis. This was a massive failure and now the mentally ill wander our streets, are often homeless and provided continuous challenges for states, cities and counties. We’ve known this for years. When you are dealing with the mentally ill, untrained responses can result in death and injury.

This is wrong. The mentally ill should be dealt with by people trained and educated to do so.

Here is New York Mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani, suggesting that police no longer bear the burden of mental health calls.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/zohran-mamdani-tells-audience-nypd-020500302.html

(Quoted from the article linked to above.) Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani — who has faced heat lately over years-old social media posts critical of the police — came face-to-face with an audience of NYPD officers Tuesday night and told them he would, if elected, spare them the responsibility of responding to most mental health calls.

“We must stop asking them to respond to nearly every single failure of the social safety net,” Mamdani said at Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza as a contingent of cops from the nearby 78th Precinct flanked him for an annual “National Night Out” event. “We must stop making it impossible for them to do their jobs by asking them to do every other job we can think of.” (End quote.)

He’s right and I’ve written about this before. Police should not be doing this. If we are going to throw these people onto the streets we should create an organization with facilities to deal with the problems they make.

What is the ethics here?

How about the idea that when a heavily armed (militarized) police force is asked to deal with mental health calls without training or preparation that people are going to die?

Is that a moral problem? You bet.

Let’s build a better nation by dealing with mental health problems like these intelligently and capably.

James Alan Pilant

Listen to the Victims of Epstein’s Abuse

On By southwerkIn corruption

(The picture is in the public domain and does seem to have some satirical impact at this time!)

The victims of Jeffrey Epstein should have their time now.

Jeffrey Epstein had powerful friends who protected him again and again. Only after many years was he tried and sentenced to prison.

And now the question remains, should we publicize the names of those who received favors from him, namely young women and rides on his plane.

Historically I must tell you the names in these types of scandals never seem to get disclosed. I have read of cases of famous womens’ diaries, bordello madams customer lists and many other such scandals. The names never make it out.

Many years ago, one of my instructors was an old law officer in the State of Oklahoma. He told me lots of stories. Before election days, they’d raid the brothels to appease the Baptist voters. He laughed about finding all kinds of city and state officials in those raids — but their names didn’t get disclosed either.

But time has passed and perhaps things are changing. We as a nation have been talking about victim’s rights for quite some time with very variable results. (I have been more than a little disappointed.)

It is only just and honorable that we pay attention to the women abused in this case. The fact that powerful men and women participated in their abuse makes their memories, their testimony, all the more important.

And it is not happening. We get the occasional minor story but when are we going to get a major network interviewing fifteen survivors in a group and putting those interviews on television. Maybe I’m an amateur when it comes to broadcasting but isn’t that what television news was designed to do?

Where’s the print media? Are those who victimized these women so powerful that fear and cowardice grips the entertainment industry, the news networks and the great mass of journalists?

I have to wonder.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/epstein-victims-growing-political-threat-040042411.html

(Quoted directly from the article linked to above.)The women whom Jeffrey Epstein abused demand to be heard.

And their voices — long suppressed, but now emerging powerfully and with courage — could further fuel the maelstrom around President Donald Trump and aides who dig the scandal deeper each time they try to end it.

These are women who’ve been let down for years, at multiple levels, by a government that was supposed to keep them safe. Their families are victims, too, since abuse sows trauma through generations. (End quote.)

The main fact before us is simple, very simple. We may not have the lists of those who participated in the abuse but we can always just ask the women abused.

Why don’t we do it?

James Alan Pilant

Scott Bakula May Return In New Star Trek Series

On By southwerkIn Editorial

I watched all four seasons of Star Trek: Enterprise. I very much enjoyed it. And as a writer in business ethics, I could not fail to observe the intensely moral approach the show took to major idea like Fascism and tolerance for other races. It showed a society moving away from a capitalist outlook to a standard of individual achievement, a planet where wars were no long fought between the different nations where technology had brought all humans to a high standard of living.

A very optimistic show, you might say, a show that embodied the very American concept of progress, tolerance and justice continuing on the march, a concept very much in doubt as this time.

Should Bakula return, I have no doubt the new series will make me proud as an advocate of ethics and morality. And should it return I will do a moral analysis on episodes that draw my interest.

By http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Enterprise_(NX-01), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15537017 (Borrowed from my friends at Wikipedia with my thanks!)

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/articles/20-years-star-trek-enterprise-220304144.html

(Quoted directly from the article listed above.) The premise for this potential show originates from the Enterprise episode “A Mirror Darkly Part II,” where the evil Mirror Universe read information about his Prime Universe counterpart found in the database of the USS Defiant, a Prime Universe ship previously seen the Original Series episode “The Tholian Web” that had been sent back in time. There was a graphic showing that Archer entered the political life after retiring as an admiral in Starfleet and eventually achieved his presidential position in the Federation, which founded six years after the main events of Enterprise, as seen in the controversial series finale. Well, it turns out it was Michael Sussman himself who came up with this piece of trivia. (End Quote.)

I hope Scott Bakula returns and that the new show is a big hit. We need more like it.

James Alan Pilant

The Economic Blackout, August 9th

On By southwerkIn Capitalism

I’m participating. I will not buy anything today as requested by the organizers!

https://www.newsweek.com/nationwide-boycott-economic-blackout-august-9-2109560

(Quoted from the article linked to above.) Multiple boycotts of major corporations have taken place this year, many of which have been led by Schwarz and The People’s Union USA. These have been driven by backlash against certain companies amending or scaling back their commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, but also a wider groundswell of anti-corporate sentiment.(End quote.)

It is vital that we show the government and corporate leadership that individuals matter and our anger and dis-satisfaction are manifesting more and more over time.

Let’s show them that consumers matter.

James Alan Pilant

Who Exactly is a “Patriot Donor?”

On By southwerkIn corruption

Picture above By David Maiolo – Own work, CC BY-SA (Borrowed from my friends at Wikipedia with profound thanks!)

We are engulfed in a tsunami of White House lies and misinformation. Not only that but the White House itself, an American institution is being remade apparently in imitation of the President’s resort in Florida. Language is important. Let us discuss where and how the term, patriot donor, appears.

Take a look at this news article from the online magazine, Salon.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-sending-dark-signal-white-103011111.html

(Quoted from the article linked to above.)That was the premise of a White House announcement last week claiming that the president “and other patriot donors” would be financing the full, approximately $200 million cost of a gaudy, gold-tinged pseudo-classical addition to his current residence in Washington, DC. With renderings that look an awful lot like a wing at Mar-a-Lago, the so-called White House Ballroom would be a 90,000-square-foot party venue located where the “small, heavily changed, and reconstructed East Wing currently sits,” suggesting that historical preservation is not top of mind. (End quote.)

Patriot donor? Just what is patriotic about giving the President money so he can create a Mar-A-Lagos on the Potomac in place or in addition to the current White House? It seems more like an opportunity to curry favor or gain favorable access to the current administration to me. Am I too cynical or is any level of cynicism up to the rapacious greed of our current “leadership?”

Patriotism in my definition does not involve coughing up enormous sums of money for the President’s pet project, the desecration of the American White House.

Patriotism is doing your duty as am American citizen, something being redefined here in a crude and dollar tinged way.

It is unethical to claim that patriotism motivates a donation to the current administration. It is unethical to use the White House in many ways, the peoples’ house, as an excuse once again to flatter and ingratiate money givers into a system of influence peddling.

And finally, it is wrong to cheapen the word, patriotism, which is so important when discussing the real virtues of America, shared sacrifice, moral values and a history of progress.

James Alan Pilant

Shot Dead for Making Money

On By southwerkIn International

https://www.moretoherstory.com/stories/he-couldnt-take-it-anymore-father-shoots-daughter-dead-for-outearning-him

(Quoted directly from the article above.) “[Her father] had been upset for a while as he was being taunted by locals over his daughter’s income,” the Station House Officer Inspector Vinod Kumar told The Indian Express. “He was troubled by their remarks; they would keep saying the house is running on her money, and he is too dependent on that. He had asked [Radhika] several times to stop working at the academy, but she refused. He couldn’t take it anymore.” (End quote.)

That men and women should be able to work and earn money is not a difficult statement to find support for. But male resentment and stupidity are very common. And so we have murder because a father could not deal with his daughter’s success.

A tragedy of masculine standards and judgment. Internationally and domestically, men proclaim their power over women not out of strength or compassion but from envy and hatred as well as a constant desire for power and control

James Alan Pilant

Lies and Many More Lies

On By southwerkIn corruption

Business ethics are based on a bedrock of facts and reason, as true as we can make it perception of reality. But the leader of the current regime issues a constant stream of lies and misinformation and this is a constant danger to a common understanding of what is factual and what is not.

Let’s start with this story from The Daily Beast.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fbi-reveals-trump-crime-wave-164848654.html

(Quoted directly from the article linked to above) New FBI data contradicts President Donald Trump’s often-repeated claim that crime is surging in the U.S. and Democrats are to blame. Violent crime went down 4.5 percent in 2024, while property crime dropped 8.1 percent, according to the freshly released report. The trend was apparent across the board—every single one of the FBI’s reporting violent crime categories showed a significant drop: murder (-14.9 percent), rape (-5.2 percent), robbery (-8.9 percent), and aggravated assault (-3 percent). (End of quote.)

It is a fact that crime has been dropping in the United States for last forty years from its statistical high in the 1960’s. That fact and the data behind it does not exist in the President’s mind or the Right Wing media machine. Cities and blue states are portrayed as sinkholes of moral depravity while red states are bastions of tranquility. And factually?? I live in Oklahoma which is ranked 21st in intentional murder while New York is ranked 35th. It is more dangerous at night on the streets of Oklahoma than it is in New York.

But the lies benefit the President and his twisted view of the United States as battered hell hole he has come to save.

How about this story from The Maddow Blog?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/maddow-blog-u-economy-cools-150520471.html

(Quoted directly from the article linked to above)The question I haven’t heard him answer is why, exactly, he came to this conclusion. This went largely unasked because the answer was so obvious: Trump had some baseless assumptions about what the numbers should’ve been, based on what he perceives as the greatness of his economic agenda. And since job growth continues to fall far short, common sense (or at least a Trumpified version of common sense) led him to conclude that officials in his own Labor Department must be conspiring against him. Indeed, over the weekend, as part of the larger gaslighting campaign, the president insisted online that he’s responsible for “creating the greatest economy, where prices and Inflation have come way down,” despite the economy being demonstrably and quantifiably worse than when he took office, and neither prices nor inflation have “come way down.” (End of Quote.)

The economy is doing badly based on objective information, that is, the truth. However, the President believes and states the contrary based purely on how he feels the numbers should be and his historical reliance on his narrative of himself as a genius afflicted by constant conspiracies.

Now can anyone, anywhere explain to me how he is going to make intelligent and effective decisions on the American economy when he simply does not have a grasp of economic information? And what’s more he just makes stuff up. In Business, making up your own “facts” is not a formula for success. And it never will be.

How about this from Huffpost:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/cnn-data-chief-shuts-down-071445353.html

(Quoted from article.) Trump — in an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box” host Joe Kernen — urged viewers to watch “Harry Emden” on CNN, declaring that the data analyst “went crazy over how well” he was doing.

The president claimed his approval rating was at 71% and, among Republicans, bragged that the figure is around 94 to 95%.

It’s unclear where Trump was getting such figures, which seemingly don’t mirror reality and were swiftly fact-checked by Kernen on CNBC.

Enten quickly dismissed the president’s remarks on his numbers.

“You know, I give him a fair shake. I don’t give him a positive spin,” Enten told CNN’s John Berman. (End of quote.)

Here are the real numbers of approval and disapproval, in case you want to compare.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-approval-rating-right-now-heres-what-latest-presidential-poll-numbers-show/ar-AA1K6Ogm?ocid=BingNewsSerp

(direct quote) RealClear Polling which encompasses the average of different 14 different pollsters, including all those mentioned above, shows Trump’s overall favorability today at 45.9% that approve and 51.4% that disapprove. These numbers are nearing his lowest rating this term, when it reached a 52.4% disapproval rating and 45.1% favorable approval rating in late April. (End of quote.)

How does someone get such numbers where are publicized widely and constantly so wrong. I think his mind filters out facts and knowledge so that thoughts and opinions can give him good feelings about his performance and his image. One of the worst things about this is that he might learn and improve if he had to deal with reality but since he is unable to cope with facts, he is sentenced to his life of mediocrity.

Let me close this brief look into the President’s lies with a comment from Maggie Haberman possibly the greatest expert on our current “leader.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/maggie-haberman-flags-1-way-071911535.html

(Quoted from the article above.) New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman argued Tuesday that Donald Trump has somehow “convinced himself,” without evidence, that the July jobs report was manipulated for political reasons. (End of quote.)

This is truly terrible. It is not just that he lies. Is is that he believes the lies.

What kind of leader lies in such huge quantities of lies that it has been described as a fire hose of lies and then believes his own nonsense.

I’ll let you wrestle with the consequences although I may observe that facts and reality have an thoroughly dangerous habit of manifesting themselves over time.

James Alan Pilant

It is Here.

On By southwerkIn business ethics

We live in a profoundly unethical time under a profoundly unethical federal government which is in the process of becoming a totalitarian regime.

We are much of the way there and Rachel Maddow is telling us in the article listed below that a key part of the structure of that regime is already in place.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/rachel-maddow-warns-americans-1-134807335.html

(Directly quoted from the article above.) She then put it even more bluntly: “We have a consolidating dictatorship in our country.” While the MSNBC host went on to acknowledge that this might sound “melodramatic,” Maddow noted the U.S. now seems to have its own “secret police,” which is commonplace across dictatorships, in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency under Trump. “A massive, anonymous, unbadged — literally masked — totally unaccountable internal police force that apparently has infinite funding but no identifiable leadership,” said Maddow. “And they act in ways designed to instill maximum fear and use maximum force.” (End of quote.)

I agree with her on this point. And we should all be concerned.

But why am I, a writer on business ethics, taking up this subject. Isn’t it just politics?

I wish it were but as the regime spirals into more and more open criminality, it is having a dramatic effect on the economy. When I say criminality, I am talking about thinly discussed bribes and charges for access and many other illegal acts.

It may be soon that speaking as I am may carry civil or criminal penalties and I have noticed that many moral people have gone silent as they see the political apparatus being constructed. No doubt they consider silence better than risk but honor is more important than life itself and it is vital to live as human beings standing tall than to crawl like a worm before a hideously deformed government.

Business ethics relies on reason, logic and evidence. These are all becoming scarce commodities under the trash talk of our current regime.

So, I write about our political downfall and current crisis.

It is only right that I do so.

James Alan Pilant

The Legendary Oceangate

On By southwerkIn business ethics

In the annals of Business Ethics, Oceangate is likely to be part of the curriculum for next one hundred years.

The disastrous implosion of a carbon fiber submersible has all the elements of melodrama as well as a long, long list of issues found in business ethics.

We can start with Hubris, an epic and fatal grandiosity seldom equaled and generally when equaled only in fiction. Then we have lies, exaggerations and misleading claims. Then we have untested materials, unproven procedures and an almost comical lack of money to do things right.

And a truly epic number of documentaries not to mention public hearings where the testimony was often fascinating, challenging and sometimes hard to believe.

In the last few days, the Coast Guard released its final report. I link to a news article on that subject below.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/coast-guard-releases-final-report-121424630.html

(Quoted directly from the article above.) Rush, the co-founder of OceanGate, was among those killed in the June 2023 implosion. Had he survived, the Coast Guard’s investigative team would have recommended manslaughter charges to the DOJ, the report said.

“This marine casualty and the loss of five lives was preventable,” Jason Neubauer, Titan MBI chair, said in a statement about the report’s release. “The two-year investigation has identified multiple contributing factors that led to this tragedy, providing valuable lessons learned to prevent a future occurrence. There is a need for stronger oversight and clear options for operators who are exploring new concepts outside of the existing regulatory framework.” (End of Quote.)

Indeed, manslaughter charges would have been appropriate. That he fooled others was not forgivable, that he fooled himself, merely ironic.

James Alan Pilant

The President and the Nobel Prize

On By southwerkIn business ethics

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/maddow-blog-white-house-lobbying-164641914.html

(From the Link above) Donald Trump’s desperate and yearslong desire for a Nobel prize is well documented. In fact, after his defeat in 2020, the Republican president released a weird, campaign-style video that suggested he’d already received a Nobel prize. But as pitiful as this has become, Trump isn’t lobbying by himself. Congressional Republicans have tried to please the president by nominating Trump for a Nobel prize, and foreign leaders eager to curry favor with the American leader have done the same thing.(End of quote.)

That the current leader of the United States is often delusional is readily apparent. He also craves praise and validation. His North Korean style cabinet meetings where his lickspittles thank him for his leadership and praise him to the skies are unprecedented in American history.

And he loves prizes and awards. His “amazing” string of club victories at his golf clubs are legendary. There is whole book about his golfing and what it says about him:

I have ordered a copy of the book for myself and it might be wise for you to do the same thing.

Returning to the subject of the Nobel Prize, I find it hard to believe that he would ever get one. If he did get one, how much value would any future Noble Prize have? Its value would be little more than a stuffed animal won at a carnival if that.

Newsweek Magazine commissioned a piece on Nobel Prize winners’ thoughts on the President’s chances. It’s a good piece of reporting. The hardest hitting and most acid drenched comments were those of William Nordhaus who won a Noble prize in 2018 in Economics. I have quoted him below.

https://www.newsweek.com/nobel-prize-winners-react-trump-economics-2107563

(Quoted directly from the link above.)“The way I understand Trump’s ‘successes’ is this: The United States has over the decades built up an enormous reservoir of soft and hard power as well as good will around most of the world—a vast amount of social capital,” said Nordhaus, who won the award in 2018 “for integrating climate change into long-run macroeconomic analysis.”

“Trump has drawn upon that social capital and is using it like a spendthrift teenager to achieve virtually nothing of value and to destroy many critical parts of the global institutional infrastructure,” Nordhaus said.(End of quote.)

There is some useful business ethics observations can be made here. Certainly competing for a prize for the best workplace, most effective innovation and many other things have led to positive good. But this is just another attempted reinforcement for a personality that craves attention and can never be filled. He is empty inside now and he will be empty inside no matter what awards and prizes he gets.

That’s just the way it is and his desperate need for it is more than a little unsettling.

James Alan Pilant