Ethics

Greetings good citizen, while most of you can feel your eyes glazing over whenever you see the word 'ethics' written in your line of sight, most of us wonder if such a thing actually exists...or is it just the 'sensibilities' of those with a 'weak grip on reality'.

To make life happen, ya gotta crack a few 'eggs'.

If we were to take a poll [a patently bad idea regardless] we'd discover that 'ethics' don't matter so long as YOU aren't being treated 'unethically'.

Start a conversation about 'fairness' and the next thing you know you're screaming about clubbing baby harbor seals to death (so wealthy socialites can have harbor seal collars on their Ermine evening coats, allegedly to keep them 'warm' in the frigid winter.)

Haven't they ever heard of Thinsulate? A rhetorical question to be sure, Thinsulate is for peasants!

Yes good citizen, We live in an 'ethically challenged' world, which explains much when you think about it.

Millions homeless, hundreds of millions unemployed, an epidemic of opioid addiction that is driving suicide rates off the charts of those this, er, 'economic system' can't profitably employ.

Heck, we have an ENTIRE GENERATION that can't get its feet under them thanks to the 'malfeasance' of the greedy few.

Why? [ahem, 'Morning in America' anyone?]

Ethics is as good a place to start as any.

I'll jump on my 'hobby horse' and point to the real problem first despite the fact that many of you find such talk 'disturbing'. Ethics are a 'learned thing' and the STUPID among us aren't too keen on learning.'

While we instinctively know about 'fairness', we are 'taught' [by the self-interested] that this life is filled with 'winners and losers', in order for the successful to prosper, some people HAVE TO LOSE!

Bizarrely, this isn't taught in school or in church, it is something we learn at our electronic babysitter's knee.

So it is we find ourselves living in a society that only pays lip service to the concept of 'ethics'. In case you 'can't remember WHO precisely taught YOU about 'winners and losers' let me give you a hint...the guilty party goes by the unflattering nickname of 'the eye that never blinks'.

While I keep pointing to 'Morning in America' and it's plowing under of long held 'ethical standards' it is a disturbing non-coincidence that the utter collapse of ethics in our society matches the arrival of the 'Age of Television'.

The Barbarians aren't at the gate, the mo'fo's are in the damn living room [and in many cases, the bedroom!]

Weirdo that I am, I don't have a TV in my bedroom. Bedrooms are for sleeping and other, er, activities commonly engaged in by consenting adults. If I want to watch TV I know where to find one.

Now that I'm old enough that I sometimes find myself nodding off in front of the set, it's still not a reason to move one into our sleeping quarters. I fall asleep just fine without one.

But I digress.

Still, if you want to know where the F U attitude comes from, the main reason is usually staring at you with its one unblinking eye...

Of all the laws that got repealed when the posse behind the Reagan Debacle took over, removing the media's 'obligation' to program responsibly is perhaps the most damning.

In one fell swoop we lost the Fifth Estate.

Let those who own the media broadcast as they see fit...now take a good look at what forty years of THAT has produced.

You are, once again, soaking in it. Don't mind the stink, it's supposed to smell like that!

So the next time you find your eyes glazing over when somebody brings up the subject of 'ethics', do yourself a favor and kill your TV!

Thank you for letting me inside your head,

Gegner