Like Baltimore removing its politically incorrect statues, here I am in the dead of night trying to catch up with the Ethics Alarms Comments of the Day.
By the way, of all the statues taken down and under attack, the one I can most sympathize with is that of Chief Justice Roger Taney. There is only one reason anyone remembers Taney, and only one thing a statute to him can symbolize: the Dred Scott decision, which he authored. Since it is, by acclamation, the single most disastrous Supreme Court decision in the nation’s history, having a statue of Taney standing in front of the Maryland state house is difficult to defend.
Taney is something of a tragic figure. The rest of his judicial career was distinguished, but that is a bit like saying that the rest of that performance of “Our American Cousin” was terrific. He actually thought the Dred Scott decision would avert a civil war by settling the slavery question once and for all. He was not an evil man, just a horribly misguided one.
There is a street named after Taney in Alexandria. Every time I pass the sign, I think, “This is weird.” Who defends the Dred Scott case? Who has defended it in the last 150 years?
But I digress.
Tippy Scales is an undercover journalist, registering his period disgust at the ethical collapse of his profession here because it is not safe to do so elsewhere. He filed this Comment of the Day two days ago, on the post, Morning Ethics Warm-Up: 8/23/17
(I’ve linked to the topics and posts he has referred to within his post.)
Let’s review the past few days…
ESPN lunacy. Check.
Kindergarten transgender lesson plan. Check.
White protester holding a sign that says “I love my Muslim neighbor” sucker-punching a black Trump supporter. Check.
And here’s one that will be near and dear to our webmaster’s heart: More Snopes bullshit. Check.
Take a gander at how Snopes spins this ESPN/Robert Lee thing. They build a strawman and punch it down:
“ESPN Fired Announcer Robert Lee Because His Name Sounds Like the Confederate General’s?
ESPN did not ‘fire’ sportscaster Robert Lee because his name offends liberals, but they did opt to reassign him from calling a U Va. game after three deaths occurred during protests in Charlottesville.”
What horse shit. They couldn’t stand having to confirm something that went against their worldview, so they invented a reason to avoid it. I don’t know anyone who thinks Lee was fired.
That would be like them saying: “Was Abe Lincoln really stabbed? No, he wasn’t stabbed. But was killed by a bullet to the head. So, no, he wasn’t stabbed.”
_________________________
I’m back for one tiny comment. What “three deaths”? I know of one death, and can’t find any reference to others.
That article is terrible even by Snopes standards.
Ethics Alarms 
2 additional deaths from a reported helicopter crash observing the demonstration in question:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/virginia-state-troopers-killed-in-helicopter-crash-monitoring-charlottesville-clash/2017/08/13/56649702-803d-11e7-b359-15a3617c767b_story.html?tid=hybrid_collaborative_1_na-amp&utm_term=.eac82819f054
Apparently the crash occurred in 2010, but the helicopter was involved in covering the demonstrations. I don’t even know how the confusion arose:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2017/08/15/helicopter-involved-in-charlottesville-crash-was-involved-in-previous-incident/
Oops. See. I’m even confused. The fatal crash was the more recent incident, the helicopter was involved in another crash in 2010.
The goal is to make it look like the ‘alt right’ protest in Charlottesville was bloodier than the one death and multiple injuries that occurred as a result of inter-protest fighting.
than the one death and multiple injuries that occurred as a result of inter-protest fighting.
Why are you spinning to defend a white supremacist terrorist?
The death and multiple injuries occurred because a white supremacist terrorist decided to run over people with his car.
I’m not sure you understand what “spinning” means Chris.
There was one death and multiple injuries caused by the alt-right in the inter-protest fighting. This is fact, and it is literally what I said.
Care to backtrack now or keeping digging deeper?
texagg04 wroite, “There was one death… in the inter-protest fighting.”
I disagree.
There was no inter-protest fighting where that woman was killed. In my opinion, the death was outside of the inter-protest fighting and caused by a lone-wolf intentional terrorist act but was not a direct part of the violent demonstrations.
No, he only just left the inter-protest fighting, got into his car and saw a protest.
I think you are ascribing too much clarity of vision to the emotion-soaked driver.
We have benefits of drones and hind sight…he had tunnel vision.
texagg04 wrote, “I think you are ascribing too much clarity of vision to the emotion-soaked driver.”
Do you honestly think that terrorists driving vehicles into crowds of people in an effort to kill, maim, and terrorize people have this “clarity of vision” you speak of or are they all driven by emotions?
Come on Tex, terrorist crimes of opportunity performed by “emotion-soaked drivers” driving their vehicles into crowds of people are still terrorist acts whether they are emotion driven or planned – the act itself is terrorism.
Whatcha wanna bet there will be some kind of insanity defense for this domestic terrorist.
In my gut, I knew this was the direction you were heading. Suit yourself.
I don’t think it matters one iota to my original point I made refuting Chris’ attempt to call my analysis spin. It doesn’t matter a single bit whether or not you classify this as “lone wolf terrorism” or “larger group violence”…it happened in the event of and as a result of the inter-protest fighting.
Feel free to characterize the individual conduct as you will. It’s not an argument I’m too worried about.
It doesn’t change the characterization that Chris was wrong in his claim.
I am surprised how quickly Fields has been branded a domestic terrorist in the absence of any investigation or evidence outside of the act itself. he may well have been, but unless it is shown that 1) he planned the attack and 2) it was not the result of sudden rage based on a real or perceived provocation from the counter-demonstrators, I think the charge will be tough to prove.
It appears that Fields has a long record of rage incidents. If he arrived to protest, became infuriated and grabbed the nearest weapon—his car—that is not necessarily terrorism, and it is not the fault of the protest itself.
Yes, I wasn’t going to call out the use of the term terrorist as spin itself. I thought it was self-indicting enough in a post making the accusation of spin.
We disagree.
I don’t think it’s a stretch/spin at all to brand Fields as a lone-wolf domestic terrorist; however, it would be a huge stretch and easily be identified as spin if people imply or brand all the protesters that were there to protest tearing down statues “terrorists” because of the actions of this one person. In today’s world vehicles driven into crowds of people IS is a terror weapon of choice, Fields knew this, and he chose to act this way anyway, his goal was death and terror! Just because Fields is not a self proclaimed part of ISIS, or some other internationally branded terrorist organization, doesn’t make his actions less terror producing.
I’d be saying the exact same thing if it have been an ‘antifa’ protester that did this.
Chris’ tone does lead one to think that he’s implying that all the protesters are terrorists, I choose not to associate the actions of this lone wolf with the group as a whole.
Hm. I actually agree with you, Zoltar, and I did not mean to imply that every alt-right protester there was a terrorist. I do hold them partially responsible for this, as I find their views inherently violent; if the driver had been a member of antifa, I would have also held every member of antifa responsible, as antifa is an inherently violent group.
There was one death and multiple injuries caused by the alt-right in the inter-protest fighting. This is fact, and it is literally what I said.
This is, of course, a lie; you did not blame the alt-right in your initial comment (in fact, you put the term alt-right in quotation marks for some reason) and your statement was clearly designed to cast equal blame on both sides. But you seem to have realized that, which explains why you are now making a more rational statement, even if you’re pretending it’s the same as the statement you originally made.
Chris, your own relationship with honesty shakier than Baghdad Bob’s, so I’m not too worried about your accusations of “lying”. I’m not bothering with your own rabbit hole here where you are now spinning in a desperate attempt at a gotcha.
You’ve got nothing but avoidance of accountability and the worst case of hyper-partisan blinders.
I’ll engage you when you can do better than this.
Shove off.
Chris,
Careful Chris, you’re starting to look quite hypocritical by applying some kind of moral judgement on others that you allow yourself to do all the time.
The point is, though, that the deaths in the crash had nothing to do with the nature of the protests, nor did the demonstrations cause the crash. The woman killed by Fields was a casualty of the violent demonstrations. What Snopes did is like saying that a fatality from a traffic helicopter cash is a traffic accident.
Jack wrote, “The woman killed by Fields was a casualty of the violent demonstrations.”
Was she a “casualty of the violent demonstrations”, I think that will be and argument in court but I’m not sure it’s completely accurate. The woman killed by Fields was a casualty of a lone-wolf intentional terrorist act but in my opinion was not a direct part of the violent demonstrations. I’m not sure I explained that very well, but I’m sure you get where I’m coming from.
A side note; it’s nothing but luck that there weren’t a lot more deaths and injuries; if those two vehicles had not been there to impede Fields he would have plowed into a big mob of people.
“The woman killed by Fields was a casualty of a lone-wolf intentional terrorist act but in my opinion was not a direct part of the violent demonstrations.” (bolds mine)
Thanks to the ever-erudite SanFranNan, we now know we can’t yell wolf in a crowded theater.
If I recall correctly, there is a sizable statue of Chief Justice Roger Taney in the Supreme Court Building in Washington D.C. prominently on display. I guess we may have an bit of an awkward situation.
I don’t think so. An institution can and should honor its leaders, good and not so good. Any SCOTUS decision can backfire. Warren was in the majority approving the Japanese internment. If every Chief gets a statue, every Chief gets a statue. That means that the office is being honored, not the individual members.
The three deaths are the protester who was killed and two state troopers whose helicopter crashed. The only relation of the latter to the events in C’ville is that they were part of the trooper contingent observing the events.
And thus Snopes was intentionally misinforming its readers, implying that THREE deaths justified the precautionary removal of Lee, as if the controversy had anything to do with the troopers’ deaths. They were coincidental to the protests and passions, not caused by them.
Snopes is beneath contempt.
That is too logical. We are not seeing much logic with this matter. The “tear it down” folks will probably not accept logic anyway.
As an aside, I suspect part of the motivation behind the monument controversy has less to do with honest concerns about the racist symbolism of the statues but is more about the November 6, 2018 Mid-Term Election. The idea is to keep people agitated, angry and motivated to vote blue in the Mid-Term. Any controversy can work. This is just convenient even if it seems to make little sense.
Earlier this year, and before the statue controversy really got going, Mayor Mike Signer of Charlottesville VA proudly declared something to the effect that Charlottesville would be the “capital of resistance” to President Donald Trump. I may be a bit cynical, but this makes me think that maybe some political operatives… Signer et al… actually wanted to make a splash just to keep people politically agitated.
This is about electioneering.
Democrats traditionally have depressed turn out during mid-terms. I wonder why, culturally, they have such a high notion that the Presidency, is the singularly most important branch?
Additionally, of 34 Senate Seats up for grabs, 25 are Democrats or Democrat-leaning. Of those 25, only 12 are considered absolutely safe for the Democrat. So, with something like 13 seats “flippable” the Dems need as much turn out as possible – especially given their waning trust. (Yes, I know Trump’s and Republicans approval is tanked…but then again, in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king, right?)
Of course, Dems shouldn’t panic, I don’t think. Republicans are doing a bang up job demonstrating they have lied about conservatism for 8 years and demonstrating, despite having the 3 components of government necessary to enact policy, they aren’t going to enact policy.
“By the way, of all the statues taken down and under attack, the one I can most sympathize with is that of Chief Justice Roger Taney.”
Which is sad/funny, because that statue is the one that destroys the false narrative that the purification will end with the “traitors” who fought against the US.
Also, notice who wrote the Robert Lee article? Lakapria.
As the slippery slope to Jefferson, Washington, Madison and Jackson gets slipperier still….
So when Civil War Part Deux: The Battle of the Statues is over…
how will we decide to place the monuments amidst the monuments???
Here General So-and-so fought at the Battle of the Monuments of the Battle of Gettysburg…
Here General Whats-his-name led the victorious charge at the Battle of the Statues of the Battle of Chancellorsville.
Here General That-guy made his last stand defending the Battle of the Statues of the Battle of Vicksburg.
And in 1000 years archaeologists will conclude that a strange guilt-laden self-destructive people once occupied these lands…
Watch them go after Custer, Sheridan and Sherman, who were crucial to defeating the South, as in “slavery”, but then oppressed the Native Americans.
Probably should remove statues of Lincoln for his harsh suppression of an indian uprising during the Civil War…
Lets not get started with Lincoln. There are some statements from him that make him look like a Grand Wizard of the KKK.
Remember Rusty, Lincoln was a man of his times, he was raised within a cultural context and we can look past some of the other things he said, because of that context. The Southerners were just evil racist warmonger traitors slave owner white men who should have known better.
Canada is having a similar argument now:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/john-a-macdonald-etfo-schools-analysis-aaron-wherry-1.4260366
But yes, as with most SJW crusades, there will never be enough enemies to fight, because instead of combating *real* *contemporary* evils, SJWs go after feel-good quick results targets drenched in exploitable emotion.
Shame James Thurber’s not around. He was made to capture The Battle of the Statues.
Amid debate over Confederate monuments, Texas A&M will not remove Sul Ross statue
But now it’s only One Flag six times Over Texas in Arlington.
I would drive to College Station in a Hurricane to defend Sully… I got engaged to my wife within spitting distance of that statue.
It was the landmark at which I told her to meet me… to ‘surprise’ her with a ring (being female, and thus much more savvy than the male of the species, knew already but was gracious enough to act surprised. The real surprises were on her when she moved in with me after taking my name, heh heh heh)
Thank you for the “Comment of the Day” honor! 🙂
The off-the-chain BS has been flying so fast and furious, I feel sorry for you as you try to keep up with it all. I would like to add another to my list:
The ACLU apologizing for posting a photo of a blonde toddler, because they agreed with leftist loons that posting the photo equated to promoting white supremacy.
The last few days have been the worst I’ve ever seen for utter craziness. You have Reuters and CNN calling antifa “peace activists.” A video has surfaced showing a white anti-Trump demonstrator after the Phoenix rally sucker-punching a black Trump supporter who is clearly seen on the video as the non-aggressor. The white guy who cold-cocked the black guy was carrying a sign that said “I love my Muslim neighbor.” You can’t make this shit up.
Yup, saw that, and it’s worth a full post.
And it’s up!