In the recent Washington University Singles tournament an interesting situation came up in which I had to make an ethical decision. The gist of it is something like this: at some point there was a tossup on the tau meson, which Nathan and Steve Watchorn negged. It being a dead duck, and me not sure of the answer, I buzzed in and said "ka-on". I was asked to repeat it, which I did, and I was given credit for the tossup. I was somewhat confused when the moderator then confirmed, "We can accept that; it's also called the tau meson". Now, I don't know that much about physics, but this seemed a little fishy; so I waited until there was a pause in the reading, and I brought it to the attanetion of all in the room that I believed I had been given credit for an incorrect response, and I asked it to be removed from my score. This elicited some surprise in the room, as I had 95 points then (5 more points would have enabled me to finish second in that heat, so I was essentially one tossup away from clinching second place in the preliminary standings), and I had essentially "gotten away with it". It was only my conscience which could not allow me to take credit for earning points which I had not deserved and possiby place higher than I merited that compelled me to disavow my own answer (and in so doing, I fell to 85 points; Watchorn already had eighty, so I opened the door for him to beat me out). Many people doubtless find the whole idea of that county re-voting ludicrous. Yet I know I could not live with myself if I got elected president by a margin of less than 800 votes, which represents five percent of the ballots "thrown out" in Florida (which means that if one in twenty of those who had two holes punched had meant to vote for Gore, the state would be his right now). Even Pat Buchanan, the beneficiary of the confusion, feels regret that he may have gotten votes not meant for him. I did not vote for Bush, but I would hope that any man or woman who wanted to be President in this country could respect it enough to make sure the people really did elect him fairly.
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