Tag: United States

The Ethics Sage Addresses Youthful Cybercrime – Hacking and Online Bullying

On By southwerkIn Opinion

Cyber ethics education – Ethics Sage

I feel strongly that cyber ethics education is a must. Students tend to react more positively to discussing right and wrong behavior when they are personally invested. After all, it is difficult to discuss with youngsters the ethics of some Congressional representative; they can’t relate; they have no frame of reference. However, using computers to steal information or bully others is front and center in their consciousness.

Dr. Marvin Berkowitz of St. Louis University conducted an analysis of the behavioral development factors that must be considered in searching for an optimal age range for instruction of cyber ethics. Dr. Berkowitz concluded that the 9-12 ages was a “very reasonable” age to target for a first time strategy of cyber ethics instruction. Several factors led to this conclusion. This age range is considered a “gateway” age and has been used by other groups to begin message delivery; e.g. substance abuse and sex education. Absent hard data on the age at which children actually begin to go on line, we can generally assume that by age 13 children have routine access to the Internet. The 9-12 ages is also the point in development where children begin to understand abstract values, for example, privacy rights, and can begin to evaluate the consequences of their actions. It is important to be able to think abstractly, particularly when working in a medium that is routinely described as “virtual.”

Cyber ethics education – Ethics Sage

 

I also feel strongly about this issue. Ethics training should begin in the schools as early as possible and the article is absolutely correct. Dealing with real current issues is completely superior to hypothetical scenarios.What is happening in your life now is almost always more important and more relevant then what might happen. Hacking and cyberbullying, also referred to as cybercrime, are gateway crimes. I believe they can lead to more serious crimes because they make unethical behavior more acceptable and more routine.

I believe that we strengthen our ethics and moral stance by our choices in our life experiences. You can choose to limit television viewing to programs that have strong themes of morality and justice. You can choose motions pictures based on whether or not the film conveys messages of kindness and healing as opposed to wanton killing and theft. You can choose to surround yourself with art, culture and literature choosing to become a fuller and better human being instead of relying on consumerism to make you content in the narrow sense.

Ethics is not just a class in college. It is a lifetime pursuit of the what Greeks called the “good life.” The earlier we begin ethical training and the more relevant it is, the better to begin that internal conversation that builds judgment and wisdom.

There is no doubt in my mind that this society at this time in history needs more judgment and wisdom. We are in the midst of an ethics crisis. The great financial institutions of this country have engaged in trickery and deceit on a massive scaled as well as engaging in the most reckless kind of speculation with other peoples’ money.

Concentrated around Washington and its environs, is a relatively small number of opinion leaders known as “very serious people” or the Washington Elite or the “villagers.” They believe that standardized tests solve educational problems, that cutting the benefits that feed the helpless and keep the elderly out of poverty have to be cut in a time of economic recession and high unemployment. They seem to have no idea how the great mass of Americans live and little curiosity about them. We live in the richest nation on earth and we are unable to maintain our infrastructure or feed the poor. This is immoral. Exalting greed is immoral. Evading taxes by moving money overseas is immoral and unpatriotic. Making corporations already profitable even richer by tax breaks is immoral.

We should start moral education early and if we do so, we see real effects with a little luck in our lifetimes. It is obvious that there has been failures in the moral teaching delivered to this generation.

Let us build a new consensus that “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it”

James Pilant

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Liar and Slanderer, Joe Kernen

On By southwerkIn Opinion

CNBC Host Joe Kernen: Paul Krugman Is A Communist

“They quoted Paul Krugman and this other idiot, Dean Baker, who’s some guy, I don’t even know who he is, he always writes for The Huffington Post. Basically co-communists in a lot of different economic circles,” Kernen said on Monday. “You know, fact-checkers need fact-checking now. They’re so full of crap. These fact-checkers lie more than the people that they’re fact-checking.”

CNBC Host Joe Kernen: Paul Krugman Is A Communist

Kernan takes CNBC to a new low with his Joe McCarthy antics. I read both Krugman and Baker every day. Their fact checking is solid and even more solid is their status as American Capitalists and patriots. This vicious windbag needs firing. Where would a network find a person like Joe Kernen and believe these kinds of thoughts provide “significant” commentary? They more resemble the rantings of beer soaked bar patron muttering at the television.

It’s the same old thing. When the facts are with you, you cite the facts, when the facts are against you, you pound the table.

This is table pounding, and pathetic table pounding at that.

James Pilant

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Govloop Hits 60,000 Members – You should join!

On By southwerkIn Editorial

Wow – this week we hit a new milestone as Santiago Hernandez of Department of Justice in Corpus Christi, Texas became the 60,000th member on GovLoop. All I can say is – that’s awesome. You rock!

It’s amazing to see what was just a simple idea to share ideas in government has turned into the largest knowledge network for government with members across the U.S. and across the globe.
Govloop is a social network for public employees, federal, state and local. If you fall into that group (for instance, like me, faculty at a state institution) maybe you should consider joining. I like the network and I am rooting for its greater success.
We live in an age where electronic networking is becoming more and more important.
Build your connections. Build your influence. Build a better life.
James Pilant
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Felix Salmon Makes a Key Observation

On By southwerkIn Politics

Barack Obama and the limitations of probabilistic decision making | Felix Salmon

For Obama, if a decision doesn’t work out, he’s OK with that, since he reckons there’s a statistical certainty that a good third of his decisions will fail to work out. And he takes solace in the idea that so long as the process of arriving at the decision was a good one, by which he means that it was properly technocratic and probabilistic, then he did the best that he could have done.

But that kind of decision-making framework leaves very little room for ideals — for actually putting into practice the kind of vision you have for America. By making decisions on a case-by-case basis, you can end up missing out on building something bigger and much more coherent. In 2008, America voted for a man who was truly excellent at staring into the distance, a man looking at the big picture, and at a centuries-long legacy. Instead, hampered by the financial crisis and by a dysfunctional Congress, they got a man who spends his days weighing success probabilities: a tactician, rather than a strategist.

Barack Obama and the limitations of probabilistic decision making | Felix Salmon

“Little room for ideals:” Exactly, the President lacks the desire to fight on moral or ethical grounds but governs based on some kind of intellectual calculus, a bloodless exercise in which losses are measured in much the same way as a  a lost chess game.

Mr. Salmon hit on something I have long suspected, and I very much wish both he and I were wrong but we are not. The President lives in a world devoid of ethical calculus. He lives by the probability of the possible. We voted for a new direction for American democracy, a different vision, but we got a President who cannot envision a different reality – only manipulate the current one.

James Pilant

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Is the Justice Department Gutless?

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics3 Comments
How do we make sense of this? Goldman Sachs emails call their own investments “junk” and “crap,” and Goldman Sachs salespeople refer to clients as “muppets” and “elephants.” Yet the Justice Department says there is not enough evidence to bring a case on behalf of Goldman Sachs investors who lost vast sums of money.Seal of the United States Department of Justice

Seal of the United States Department of Justice (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Goldman Sachs prosecution fails: Why can’t the Justice Department fight Wall Steet?

Now that that’s out of the way, I can say what we are all thinking: Really? Are you kidding me? Wall Street continues to get away scot-free? The Justice Department prosecutes Roger Clemens for perjury—spends countless resources, hours, and energy worrying about steroids in baseball—yet seems incapable of making cases against the big Wall Street firms that engineered the greatest lies, frauds, and scams in our economic history. I am as outraged, disappointed, and furious as you are. Have they no backbone, shame, or sense of what justice is all about? It does nothing for my already waning faith in this Justice Department.

Goldman Sachs prosecution fails: Why can’t the Justice Department fight Wall Steet?

Apparently the great “vampire squid,” is immune to prosecution. In their e-mails they virtually admitted they were committing fraud. What does the Justice Department need in the way of evidence to prosecute? It seems to me if you are well connected enough and big enough, an infinite amount of evidence would still not be enough.

This is another example of America’s two tiered justice system – one for regular citizens and another for the privileged. There is a certain irony in the phrase, land of the free. It seems that some are apparently more free than others.

Business Ethics – Did that play any role here? You bet it did. By systematically breaking the rules, abusing it customers and blatantly lying, Goldman Sachs made billions of dollars. It is a pure lesson in why the phrase, business ethics, often evokes sneers or knowing giggles. I’ve seen and heard them.This is a lesson in negative business ethics, the other side of teaching what is right, teaching to do what is wrong.

We are systematically educating our young to be financial criminals, to reject the values of the righteous and embrace less than the moral minimum.

Our society has an opportunity here to create a society fit for no one but the predators.

Is that where you want to live?

James Pilant

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Ethics Bob Comments on the Penn State Sanctions and College Football

On By southwerkIn Opinion

I really enjoyed Ethics Bob’s concluding paragraph which I include below. Of course, for the real flavor of the article, you need to read it all and the link is just below the quoted section.

James Pilant

Penn State: do the sanctions punish the innocent? « Ethics Bob

What’s being taken away from the Penn State students is an illusion—the illusion that the quality of their college years depends on football championships. College years are a time for shedding childish illusions. Perhaps the innocent students aren’t being punished at all: they’re learning what’s important in the world. That’s a big part of what they are going to college for.

Penn State: do the sanctions punish the innocent? « Ethics Bob

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Americablog’s Author Suffers Health Care Loss

On By southwerkIn Politics

US Politics | AMERICAblog News: ObamaCare: A personal note

Without Obamacare 99% of the country is just one lost job, one medical emergency away from bankruptcy. And one frequently follows from the other.

Without insurance our family medical bill is in excess of $60,000 a year. That is a very large chunk of change even if you are a borderline 1%-er. It means that I have to continue to work just to keep our family health insurance. And not any job, it has to be a job with health care benefits.

US Politics | AMERICAblog News: ObamaCare: A personal note

I am in a similar position. My wife and I have separated and when our divorce goes through I will lose the health insurance I get from her job. Thus, I need to start looking for a job with health care benefits. I live in a nation where living without health care is considered by some to be a privilege. Great.

James Pilant

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Looking for Alternatives after the Wisconsin Vote

On By southwerkIn Politics

Political Animal – Could Climate Hawks Replace Labor?

The big discussion today is the long, seemingly unstoppable death of the labor movement. We seem to be faced with an insurmountable concentration of influence in corporations and the very wealthy. Plutocrats use their influence to swing elections, and then use the power there obtained to further eviscerate countervailing interest groups, so they can strip even more of the country’s wealth into their own pockets. Rinse and repeat. Ordinary middle class non-unionized workers seem to resent public sector unions and covet their benefits, instead of realizing that their lives could be easier if they were so organized. (I also think it’s important to recognize that public unions played no small part in their own downfall through greed and overreach.)

In any case, it seems unlikely that labor is going to rise from the dead. It took the Great Depression to break the power of the plutocratic elite last time around, and with this financial crisis elites have managed to keep the system from completely collapsing, though only just.

Political Animal – Could Climate Hawks Replace Labor?

The attacks on labor unions over the past decades has proven successful in public opinion, in law and in the courts. If progressive politics is to survive, one method would be to find new allies and new terrain to fight on. This isn’t a bad idea but environmentalists are currently under the same kinds of attacks that have impaired labor unions. An alternative media is necessary to put out progressive ideas but more important we need a new generation of progressive thought and investment in think tanks and other organizations to develop long terms plans for the decades. Planning needs to be long term to be effective.

James Pilant

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The United States and The Imprisonment Rate by William Denton

On By southwerkIn Opinion

It is my privilege to present my colleague, William Denton. Some days ago he showed me this article and I was very impressed. He has very kindly offered to share it with my readers. It is my pleasure to present the work of our guest columnist, William Denton.

James Pilant

The United States and The imprisonment Rate

By:  William Denton

America is known throughout the world as a place of freedom, where anyone has the chance to do and become whatever their heart desires also referred to as “The American Dream.”  America is considered home to approximately 5 percent of the world’s population, although America is known for its many attributes and liberties it holds 23 percent of the world’s prison population making the United States the highest prison populated country in the world, (“Wikipedia, 2012).  Our prison rate along with our continuous dilemma of overcrowding prisons can be attributed to our enacted draconian laws that make any chance of success to reduce our prison rate and subsequently alleviating our over-crowded prisons impossible.  In a 2009 statistical study 754 per 100,000 American Citizens are incarcerated.  In the previous year, “a report released in February 2008, indicates that more than 1 in 100 adults in the United States are in prison,” (“Wikipedia, 2012).

Each U.S. state is responsible for the United States ranking 1st in the world for its high incarceration rate.  However, when examined individually each state incarceration rate can vary from 854 per 100,000 to 151 per 100,000 citizens, (“Wikipedia,” 2012).  The infamous three strike laws and the mandatory minimum sentencing have caused the explosive increase in the incarceration rate nationwide, leaving each to implement methods if any, to alleviate the growing issue of their overcrowded prisons.  Some will argue that a state with a higher incarceration rate compared to a state with a lower incarceration rate is due to the state that has the highest and lowest crime rate.  Although that can be an arguable point it still doesn’t explain why for example Louisiana incarceration rate is 854 per 100,000 citizens and other states have incarceration rates anywhere from 151-300 per 100,000 citizens, (“Wikipedia,” 2012).  Another aspect that is irrelevant into claiming why one state has a higher incarceration rate than another is because of the state’s population which is going to subsequently have a higher crime rate.  We know that Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate, but ranks 25th for population, while New York ranks 3rd for highest population and is ranked 37th for incarceration rate at 307 per 100,000 citizens, (“Wikipedia,” 2012).  The population of a state and crime can be determining factors of a states incarceration rate, however, other factors that have remarkable results in having low incarceration rates are the states who have sufficient “parole and probation programs; diversion programs, increasing good-time programs for people incarcerated, and sentencing reforms for non-violent offenders,” (Morris, 2009).  Without any implementations to reduce the incarceration rate states will continue to have these unnecessary draconian numbers.

The United States compared to Russia who holds 2nd place for incarceration rates, followed by South Africa ranked 3rd and Europe who ranked 4th is still substantially higher than the runners up.  Russia who has a 611 per 100,000 people incarceration rate compared to the United States is a 134 per 100,000 differences.  That difference alone is substantially higher than that of many other nations worldwide.  The state of Louisiana who again has an 854 per 100,000 incarceration rate is higher than our nation’s current imprisonment rate and every other nation worldwide, (“Wikipedia, 2012).  Although there are multifarious reasons along with speculations of why America has the highest incarceration rate, two factors are true today.  Reason one being that American citizens are “being locked up from writing bad checks to using drugs that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries,” (Liptak, 2008).  The second reason being the American Citizen is “kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners of other nations,” (Liptak, 2008).

In my opinion only, I think American Law has gotten to the point of everything being political correct and that anyone who commits a crime has to be punished no matter what the crime is.  These draconian drugs laws are really the culprits that are responsible for the major increase in our prison population and overcrowding.  The majority of inmates incarcerated today are for non-violent drug offenses that initially when these laws were enacted during the “War on Drugs” campaign where to mainly target the producers and distributors of the drug trade not the additive customers that are being sentenced today.  As a result of these laws still in effect, although the violent crime rate is decreasing in the country, prison population is still increasing.  I think that is how we stand above all other nations in the incarceration rate because of our drug laws, mandatory minimum sentencing, and three-strike laws.  As I mentioned above, writing bad checks to drug offenses are rarely imprisonment punishments in other countries, and our country has longer prison sentences that contribute overcrowded prisons.  We are punishing for offenses that probably could be resolved through other forms of punishment that does not have to do with imprisonment just like other countries.

I am completely against our statics involving our imprisonment rate and the number of incarcerated inmates we currently have.  There are a couple states that have a higher imprisonment rate than actual countries throughout the world.  These statics need to be pounded into someone’s head and take a hint of what reformalities we need to reduce these harsh rates.  These enacted three-strike rules and mandatory minimum sentences, and all other harshly related drug laws need to change.  They are ruining lives, in lieu of helping people and destroying families for what?  Nothing.  Drugs are an addictive substance that people need help to reform, so putting these non-violent offenders in overcrowded prisons is not going to rectify the problem, but going to make it worse.  I feel like we are wasting our money for no positive gains when it comes to incarcerating offenders for drug offenses and other minor crimes that can be solved in another form of punishment.  Are American laws are in desperate need for reform.

 

REFERENCES

 

Liptak, A.  (2008). U.S. prison population dwarfs that of other nations.  Retrieved March 18, 2012, from

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht23prison.12253738.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

Morris, T.  (2009). Louisianan’s Incarceration rate is No. 1 in nation.  Retrieve March 17, 2012, from

 

http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/03/louisianas_incarceration_rate.html

 

Wikipedia.  (2012). Incarceration rates worldwide.  Retrieved March 16, 2012, From

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Incarceration_rates_worldwide.gif

 

Wikipedia. (2012). List of U.S. States and Territories by population.  Retrieved March 14, 2012, from

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population

 

Wikipedia. (2012). List of U.S. States by incarceration rate.  Retrieved March 14, 2012, from

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_incarceration_rate

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System Rigged Against Small Investor.

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

Facebook IPO: Retail Investors Lose Out While Wall Street Clients Make Profits

In case a reminder was needed, the fallout from the Facebook IPO illustrates that Wall Street appears to be designed to serve the well-connected at the expense of ordinary people.

Ordinary investors may have lost as much as $630 million collectively from the plunge in Facebook’s stock following its public debut, Bloomberg reports. These are the same people who used hundreds or even thousands of dollars of their prized savings to bet on the stock only to have its value drop to way below its opening price of $38 per share.

Facebook IPO: Retail Investors Lose Out While Wall Street Clients Make Profits

Is it moral or ethical to have a rule system which allows the large institutional investors to thrive while penalizing the small investors? Does this encourage responsible investment and make Americans better people?

I think not.

This kind of thing drives people away from investment and it should. That the game is rigged is obvious to the most casual observer. It takes an enormous amount of advertising and badly written text books to get people to buy stock.

Now let’s differentiate here. I heartily approve of investment, that is, buying stock in a company to collect regular dividends and over time have the value of the company go up. That is investment. It carries some risk but it is not the kind of risk carried by those that believe they can buy and sell stock hour by hour, day by day, and make a profit thereby. That is speculation and speculation is inherently risky.

But not all speculators are equal. Let Facebook be a warning to all small investors. Whether you win or lose, investment banks will win.

This is wrong.

It damages faith in the system because the system doesn’t deserve it. If people don’t believe in the basic fairness of society than they will begin to act in ways that are detrimental to that society.

More simply, if playing by the rules doesn’t work, they’ll try something else.

Justice and fairness are for everybody and when they are denied we all suffer.

We should always have in the back of our minds the basic concept of fairness in our dealings. That is how you build a just and fair society.

You punish the wicked and protect the innocent. Is it hard to understand that rule?

James Pilant

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