Situationally Ethical

So, my question for ponderment most all of this week has been this: Can you be an honorable man if you sometimes move what is purely ethical aside for expediency when you think something is the right thing to do? It's a toughie.

Right off the bat you think, if I compromise ethics, even a little, then that is wrong. And that seems fair enough. But there is always more to it than that. And the following is a true tale.

There is a man, DD, who I have always admired. He has always been pretty selfless and has always tried to do what was best for people. Only, sometimes trying to do what was best in the long run had to pass through a rule or prohibition that would tend to at best derail, and at worst completely quash the good end result. What do you do? Say, "Sorry, I'd do what I think is best but, heck, my hands are tied." Or do you go for the classic "ends justifies the means" defense. He would normally choose the latter.

Still, I do admire him. I think. I mean, I understand where he is coming from. And sometimes, when he was the boss and I was his right hand man, I was complicit in bypassing the bothersome encumberances known as Navy Regs. They didn't take enough variables into account we reasoned, and everyone came out better for it we decided. I think perhaps, at least in the short run, we were right.

Now I'm retired and he's retired. We both have good, and satisfying jobs. We try to stay in touch and we try to help each other out. And this is what got me to thinking.

DD had a guy, JM, who had worked with him on the ship. When they both got out, my DD started a business and hired him. Then the business failed and they were both out of a job. With a Masters Degree and a pocketful of very useful skills, DD was working again before his previous hat hat hit the hat rack good. JM though, was not as lucky. I was contacted to look his resume over and see if we could use him. I said I'd look, but since I didn't know him, I was vouching for him solely on the word of DD, who I trusted. The resume looked good, including a difficult to attain training designation from the Navy. Based on those two things I pitched him hard and he was hired.

It took some work to get JM to speed, some of his assigned tasks, we found out recently, were not completed, and after about 6 months he took off in chase of more money, leaving us hanging. In fact, I am helping interview people for his position this week.

Over dinner at Olive garden one night, when I was on the road and close enough to wander down near where DD lived, he confided in me that JM needed a job pretty bad. And he knew he was a good guy and a fast learner and that he could be a trainer. He also knew that we wouldn't hire him with no trainer experience, so they put that he did, added in the training designation to catch my eye, and waited for me to try and make it happen. Guess he didn't think think I'd go along if I knew. But everybody wins, right? JM has a job, DD looks good as a guardian angel, and I get help in the office. The ends, justifying the means.

You know, hypocritical though it may be, it kinda stung to get used like that. Not that I had not been party to his situational ethics before. Not that I didn't see the point in what he was trying to do. I understood the situation. I even understood his reasoning and motivation. I just didn't care for feeling pimped out.

I have thought about it a lot, because I tend to mull things over a long time.I do that because I mull in slow motion and the thought will hang around for days, whispering "mull me...mull me." I have decided that, all things being equal, I will more often choose the ethical path than not. But... and this is a mighty big caveat... I can be swayed by a good rationalization to bend the rules. Nothing big, nothng illegal. But a cut corner here, a blind eye there. I cannot claim complete innocence.

Is he my friend? Yeah.Is there a certian amount of tarnish that goes along with that friendship now? Again, yeah. Taking everything into account, is he more honorable than not? I don't know for sure. I'm still pondering it.

**CAUTION** UN-STATUS THE QUO RANT

OK, just what in the hell is going on in our financial sector? Kinda feels like the end of civilization as we know it, don't it? You can all hate me for saying this, but come to me trying to sell additional tax cuts for the wealty and for big business and talking about continued (or further) deregulation of our financial institutions, and I'm likely to go all Hatfield and McCoy on you. I am about fed up to here with giving greedy people the green light to steal and take risks, with no adult leadership whatsoever. It's just plain wrong. It's the little people who got hurt by Enron and other corporate scandals. Not the six-, eight, or ten-figure salaried folks, but the working stiffs. Te rank and file. And now it's the taxpayers who are bailing out Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and AIG. Why don't we confiscate the obscene salaries of these "businessmen" who gutted their corporations and took home hundreds of millions doing it? Take most of that money back and throw it in the kitty too. I took none of the risk, and I'm paying my share. They should own the consequences of their risk, too. I'm just saying. Like the man says, "I don't really get economics. It's like the Dutch language. I'm told it makes sense, but I seriously have my doubts."

***BIG OL' GRIN Shout Out***

Got tickets to John Prine down in Clearwater this Friday. Yeah, buddy!

So I hit him in the head with a sock full of nickles. "Here's some change you can believe in", out

Ramblin' Ed