Step 2

A moral man does not go around looking for opportunities to fall on swords for people. A moral man loves his life. He knows it is right to live it. Any threat to his existence—to his top-tier values—must be answered directly, without reservation. The purpose of a code of ethics is to provide him with a consistent and rational framework for living well.

To manage life’s complexity, to ensure consistent and rational action, to protect that which matters most to me, and because I do not live on a desert island, it is necessary to create a hierarchy of values and:

Step 2: Never sacrifice a higher value for a lower one.

Would I not take a bullet for my own mother? What about mom and dad? Shouldn’t they be on my top shelf?

The answer: They used to be. Mom and dad and all of my brothers and sisters were my top shelf until December 7, 1990 at 9:02am. On that Friday morning I met my son, D, for the first time. There in the delivery room, holding him in my arms, I knew immediately that everybody else I know and love mattered less. I knew that if it ever came right down to a choice between mom’s existence and his, he would win. If it ever came down to a choice between my existence and his, he would win!

To demonstrate just how morally screwed up America’s educators, media leaders, and politicians are, I report now on a story of which I’m sure you are all familiar. The New York Subway Hero Story: First, let me say, the Subway Hero in this story is a “hero” for one reason and one reason only: He lived to talk about it. If he had died jumping down onto those tracks to rescue the stranger having a seizure, his actions would have been most immoral.

I listened carefully to the hero’s story. The oncoming train was some distance away when the man having the seizure fell onto the tracks. The hero left his two young daughters on the tarmac and jumped down onto the tracks to save the stranger. The stranger could do nothing to help himself, and the hero reported that he was unable to lift the man off the tracks to safety. The train was closing in on them. The hero said: I saw the train coming and I had this guy in my arms. I couldn’t lift him, so I held him down in the space in between the parked train and the tracks of the oncoming train. “I made a calculation.” I got on top of him and held him down while the train passed hitting neither of us.

When I heard the hero say “I made a calculation,” I knew why he was alive to tell the story. He did not jump down onto those tracks to die that day. He calculated that the train would pass over them both, harming neither. After making his calculation, had the man concluded that he would be hit and likely killed by the train, his action would have been wholly immoral. He would have died that day, abandoning his two young daughters for life! To save the life of a stranger? He would have sacrificed that which he values most in life, his life and the well-being of his children, for a much lesser value, a stranger.

Had he died, his actions that day would have been completely irrational and immoral. His daughters would be right to hate his memory. But I assure you, had he died, he would have been hailed by the media, by Washington, by the nation as an even bigger hero. Everybody would be praising him for making the “ultimate sacrifice,” for being selfless and Christ-like.

Bunk!

Of course, the Subway Hero wouldn’t know anything about what a hero he is. He’d be dead. His story would shrink off the front page in a couple of days. By the end of the week, 300 million Americans—strangers all—would recall vaguely the events of that day. By the end of the month…utter silence. Nobody even thinking about it anymore. Nobody, that is, but his two abandoned daughters whose futures have been cast to chance.