ethics

They came, one by one, emerging from unseen offices and workspaces, making their way quietly along the back streets and alleyways of the American enclave known variously as Oz or Wonderland or Washington DC. They were the gray, boring, unimposing men and women who inhabit the capital city of the most powerful empire on earth, barely noticed and effectively forgotten. They were known only by their titles: PenPusher, PaperShuffler, Agencycrat and LowLevel CivilServant. But they were also the friction-reducing life-prolonging anti-wear multi-viscosity grease that makes the millstone of government grind. They were, in short, the most powerful people on the planet.

As one might expect in today's virulently aggressive politically correct culture, a movement is afoot to rewrite history, which includes "amending the plaques, statues, and memorials of historical figures to reflect their racist sentiments." (Christian Science Monitor). One movement afoot is to footnote a bust of Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney as a racist because he wrote the majority opinion in the Dred Scott case ... For another example, some South Carolinians want to tack a plaque on the base of the big bronze statue of Reconstruction-era Governor and US Senator Ben Tillman who, according to the Charleston City Paper, had a hand in rewriting the state constitution that "disenfranchised blacks and established the segregation laws which stood for 70 years" and, incidentally, advocated lynching Negroes."