The character continuum

As I was studying ethics recently I came upon the Character Continuum.  I thought it was an interesting portrayal of ethical behavior.  The Character Continuum (CC) was displayed in an obscure professional publication.  No source was attributed to it and I couldn’t find one on the internet.  If you are reading this and have any more information, please leave it in a comment.

I think I stack up pretty well in the ethical category.  My virtuousness seems to be targeted to certain others with whom I am familiar and whom I feel worthy of my time and treasure.  Societal virtuousness seems like a large undertaking for me.  I am happy to have made a difference in the lives of several others.

In contemplating the CC it occurred to me that many conservatives like myself measure themselves well in the ethical category.  Liberals seem to think that they are in the virtuous category.  Their output of virtuosity is generally rather minimal.  This is because they are generally just regular folks, not one of those evil 1 percenters.  So their main display of virtuousness is in railing against all businesses and favoring accomplishing their virtuous goals by confiscating the property of others.  Being emotional, liberals cannot do enough to make it difficult for businesses to operate.  They burden them with regulations where the benefits of the regulations are far outweighed by their costs.  Then they promote confiscatory taxes which in combination with the oppressive regulations suppress increases in hiring.  This results in more candidates for their liberal virtuousness.  Their endgame is tragic.

The liberal emotionalism also tends to make them think that all conservatives are unethical and that’s putting it mildly.  When in my experience few are unethical.  See that’s the thing about business owners and managers – when they act in an unethical manner their customers eventually find out about it.  Trust is lost and business is taken elsewhere.

But let me say this about unethical characters of either political ilk:  If they break the law they should be punished.  From what I can see there is far too much stroking a check as a fine and far too little prison time for the lawbreakers.