Bad Ethics

It is clear that our government's "morality" has slipped away from the high standards of yesteryear. Without even elaborating on the many reasons of why I have this belief, I would like to point out something that we as Americans all should know.

Today (6.25.08) the supreme court ruled that in favor of Exxon Valdez in the sense that punitive damages would be downsized to a mere $550 million instead of the suggested $2.5 billion. Justice Stevens sums up this political mistake in his quote: “In light of Exxon’s decision to permit a lapsed alcoholic to command a supertanker carrying tens of millions of gallons of crude oil though the treacherous waters of Prince William Sound, thereby endangering all of the individuals who depended upon the sound for their livelihoods,” Justice Stevens wrote, “the jury could easily have given expression to its moral condemnation of Exxon’s conduct in the form of this award.”

The question I want to leave you with is this; what kind of country and justice system do we have when we put people in prison for killing endangered species and put people to death for murder, but corporations get away with paying a set price tag for killing hundreds of thousands of birds and marine wildlife? We should think about our environment, the species within the environment, and how the overall effect of the aforementioned, in turn, affects humans and society.