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Do citizens have a right to bear arms?

The age old question here; My simple response is "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” (U.S. Constitution, 1776).

The required reading this week states “so our choice is not merely to support or oppose gun control, but to decide who can own which guns, under what conditions” (LaFollete, 2007). To that measure I would have to agree. My interpretation only applies to my beliefs in a free country in which I reside. What I mean is, I can understand the perspectives of other people living in other countries who may not believe in gun rights as much as I do. My gun right stance stems from the understanding that no matter what, people are ultimately responsible for defending the United States of America against all enemies, foreign or domestic. If we don’t have guns, how can we ensure that happens? With crooked politicians and liberal peace keeping? I think not! We have to be able to defend a secure what is ours. Now that can apply to any one person or to the country. The rights on man, given to us by our creator God, should not be regulated by man. This country was founded on God loving, gun carrying men. They day we give that right up, we sign our own death warrant.

Now the ethical debate here comes from who should be able or not able to have a gun. Examples include, mentally unstable, felons, and illegal aliens. There isn’t much ethical debate to me in these cases but non the less, the exist. In the last few weeks the President has issued remarks that would ban the gun ownership by people who receive government assistance like social security. The source states “the Obama administration wants to keep people collecting Social Security benefits from owning guns if it is determined they are unable to manage their own affairs” (New, 2015). This is the most outrageous thing I have ever heard. Maybe he should spend more time focusing on fixing the nations real problems instead of attacking gun owners all the time. That is another topic for another time.

Last, I feel as though everyone should have the right to protect themselves and their families. We cannot rely on other people to do things for us. I’ve heard it said that guns kill people. I don’t see cars being blamed when a drunk driver kills someone so how can they blame guns when someone shoots someone else? I think there should be little or no restrictions on a person at all in the way of government assistance and regulation. I feel as though this topic, however long we talk about it, can go on and on for days. I don’t understand how people feel as though guns are the cause of violence or wrong doing. It’s not the gun, it’s the person.

Reference

LaFollette, H. (2007). The practice of ethics. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell

New Obama plan: Ban gun ownership for some Social Security recipients based on “incompetency” - Hot Air. (2015, July 20). Retrieved July 24, 2015.

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How does you organization portray its values?

The company I currently work for has a couple of different ways of portraying its values to different audiences. First, the way employees interpret the values or get insight to them is through the organizations employee manual and through annual, monthly and weekly training. Through those programs and training we are given guidance as to what is expected of us, how we can improve in weak areas and where our projections could take us if we are successful. Secondly, the company does a great job of sharing public information with the general public. Through outreach programs and more recently, the media, they make sure that the public knows what services we provide and how efficient we are at doing that.  In recent years, the control tower contract program has gotten a lot of attention due to the government shutdown and the government budget cuts. That exposure has allowed our company too really showcase how valuable and effective we are for the flying public.

Behaviors portrayed positively by our leader’s…example

Like I mentioned above, our company and the contract company in general has got a lot of attention in the last three years. It is a hard task to get the public to understand the level of service air traffic controllers provide, especially in the private sector. Without the support from our leaders, we would not have got the exposure we did that allowed the public to see our successes. In addition to that, there were some key players in the government that really looked out for us and got the public to understand why funding us and allowing us to keep our jobs is important.

Someone was unethical in the workplace…..example

When I was in the Navy, there was a person I worked with that did some pretty unethical things. It was the policy of the base I was at to not allow younger sailors to journey to far away from the base on weekends/days off. This prevented accountability issues and general issues from arising. One weekend, this person decided to drive from our base to their home town that was about 8 hours away. While they were there, they set their car on fire (tried to make it look like it was stolen and it wasn’t them) and then took a bus back to base. While at work, this person often talked about the situation and how they needed rides, special attention due to the situation, and special consideration for training. They basically made it seem like the world ended and they needed all of the attention. This created huge problems at the base because everyone was trying to accommodate this person and their situation. After a couple of weeks, the local police department from their hometown called and said they had arrested this person and the base was to come and get him. As you can imagine a lot of things went wrong. The only thing this person knew how to do as say that they were in tha Navy and serving their country and so on and on. That is totally unethical and their actions, like the video talked about, started with some minor issues and slid into the illegal realm pretty quick. Needless to say, the person was kicked out of the Navy and banned from air traffic control for life.

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According to the online test this week, I’m not to far off of what Benjamin Franklin’s program outlined. I think that is at least what the results showed. The results state “You're on the right path. Even though you made a few choices that didn't reflect Ben's plan for becoming more virtuous, overall you scored pretty well. Although Franklin gave up on his formal effort to be more virtuous, he devoted much of his life to self-improvement” (Franklin, 2015). The areas they think I should work on include: silence, resolution, and sincerity. As for my thoughts on the areas of improvement I need to work on personally, I chose silence, cleanliness, and sincerity.

I first chose silence, described as “speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling conversation” (B. Franklin, 2015). I feel that I gossip to much, which plays into our class discussion this week also. I want to be able to be the quiet one in the room occasionally. I mostly feel as though I need to come in, control the room, and make sure everyone knows that I’m ready to be involved in anything I can be. I sometimes talk when I should listen and I think that prohibits my learning occasionally. I hate the quiet, it makes me feel uncomfortable.

The second one I chose was cleanliness. That is described as “tolerate no uncleanness in body, clothes, or habitation” (B. Franklin, 2015). I chose this because I am not one who wants to clean very often. I do it out of respect for my family now, when I was single and living alone, it was a lot easier to stay clean. I take this to also mean that we should keep our bodies clean, or in shape. It plays into the idea that we should care about ourselves and our things. I want to associate that to being grateful for what we have and not to waste what we have been blessed with. Currently, I lack in this department. It’ll be something to work on as I move up into management stages.

The last thing I chose was sincerity. It is describes as “use no hurtful deceit. Think innocently and justly; and if you speak, speak accordingly” (B. Franklin, 2015). Like I mentioned earlier, I like to gossip or get into to many details sometimes.  I prefer to have the inside scoop and then share that with everyone. That is a bad thing to do and it sometimes hurts me in the long run. I would like to improve upon staying on topic and only talking when I need to. That includes only sharing information about things or others when I absolutely have to.

It was interesting this week to see how I related to Benjamin Franklin’s virtues. I see some areas of improvement I need to make but I feel like I have a good application of compassion, understanding, and hard work. I find it increasingly difficult to work on my problem areas listed above but if I want to be the best leader I can, I need to try as hard as I can to make sure I try my best. This was a good learning experience and a good tool to use.

References

Franklin, B. (2015, July 10). Retrieved July 10, 2015, from http://www.pbs.org/benfranklin/pop_virtues_list.html

Franklin, Benjamin (2015, July 10). Retrieved July 10, 2015, from http://www.pbs.org/benfranklin/exp_virtue_results.html?a=323234143333

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After reading the article by El Sayed and El Ghazaly (n.d.), discuss your views on the following:

1. Do you feel ethical guidelines make a difference to marketers?

Personally, I think that marketers all make ethical decisions based on their job requirements, just like anyone else. The problem I see is that marketers are responsible for getting people to stay (either in person or on the phone) around and to get them to end up buying the product or service they’re selling. Assuming I was in their shoes, it would be difficult to make ethical decisions because you don’t know what the other person see’s as ethical or not. You are obviously trying to persuade the consumer to purchase the product/service and you want them to continue to purchase so as long as they follow the regulations set by the law and their company, I think they know what decisions to make. After all, they are all people like us although sometimes I think they forget that.

2. How can companies balance the need to win with being ethical?

I think if a company wants to be successful and remain ethical, they have to take the needs and wants of their consumers into account. For example, if a marketer wants to remind you that your subscription is almost up, they can do that through a simple, professional call that doesn’t make the consumer feel invaded or disrespected. Often times, after I may cancel something, the company will not stop following up with me. It’s as if they didn’t hear me the first time. Additionally, they can try and offer the consumer the best deal they have right away. That way on the second or third contact the consumer doesn’t feel like the company tried to take advantage of them the first couple of times. What if the person had agreed to the original terms and they found out later they were offering a better deal? The reading states “they make decisions in an organizational environment that is less ethical than their own values and beliefs. Therefore, marketing practitioners may be faced with conflict in structuring how to think and act ethically toward consuming publics” (Sayed & Ghazaly, 2007). I take that to mean, the marketer doesn’t think like they actually would at home. I think that produces a number of problems for the consumer and the company. The culture at the organization should dictate the ethical behavior of the employees.

3. Is it ethical to track your buying habits or web visits to target you for marketing purposes?

So I could go on and on about this topic but to be short, no. I don’t think that it is appropriate for any company or government to track any person’s habits. Let’s focus on businesses. There is a local store here that always asks what zip code we are from in order to check out. Often times I want to tell them that’s none of their business. What difference does it make, I’m shopping here. What they are doing however is keeping track of where people travel from to shop there. That’s a form of free marketing. Second, there shouldn’t be any reason to track anyone’s purchases. Just because they purchase one thing, one time, does not mean that they should be tracked. I think it is a total unethical behavior that needs to end. It’s to bad that Google and Yahoo use personal email scanning to market to their users and that they make billions of dollars doing it. That needs to end!

4. As a leader, how will you manage the ethical aspects of your marketing efforts?

In my current field we don’t market directly but we do provide a service in which we want the users to return. We try and ensure that return by providing excellent customer service, short delay times, and feedback. As a leader, I will do my best to make sure that everyone uses there best judgment and ethical decision making to handle each situation correctly. Often times, we are able to look back on a situation and see what we could have done better. I would want the people working for, and with me to try and make those choices the first time around. By having a good customer service program and excellent training, I think that we can have sound marketing procedures in place.

Reference

El Sayed, H., & El Ghazaly, I. (n.d.) 2007. Ethics-Based Marketing :: Ethical Articles ::.             Retrieved July 4, 2015.