Good Morning!
It’s 4:40 am. I can’t get to sleep because I’m nauseous and my stomach’s upset, probably because of Fox’s miserable coverage of the baseball All-Star game as if it was a slow day on the boardwalk. At points when the game would normally be suspenseful, the awful Joe Buck was having inane conversations about facial hair and other trivia with players in the field. Such utter disrespect for the sport it was covering in what is supposed to be a showcase!
1. Speaking of the All-Star game...Milwaukee Brewers reliever Josh Hader, who has been a break-out relief pitching star this season, gave up four hits and a three-run homer, his worst performance of the year, on his biggest stage to date, the All-Star game in Washington, D.C. That was the least of his rotten day, however. Earlier in the evening, some sleuth dived into Hader’s Twitter history and found some high school tweets with racist, anti-gay and sexist words and sentiments in them. The dirt was slurped up by reporters while the game was going on, and they confronted Hader immediately after the game, which Hader’s team, the National League All-Stars, lost by two runs, or one less than he had given up.
To his credit, Hader didn’t deny that he had written the tweets. “No excuses. I was dumb and stupid,”he said. He was 17-year-old when he published them.
Let’s say that again: he was 17. This shouldn’t be news, and it shouldn’t have been reported. Yet some are speculating that Major League Baseball will fine or otherwise punish Hader, and worse, that they should. If they try, I hope the players’ union makes them sorry. Hader was legally a minor; he hadn’t been drafted by a MLB team yet when those tweets were made, and MLB didn’t even have a social media policy then. If Hader is punished, it will be one more example of craven organizational misconduct and abuse in response to, or fear of, the speech police and the political correctness mob.
2. Per se negligent homicide. In another situation in which I reject the “he’s been punished enough” defense, six-year-old Makayla S. Bowling was shot in the head and killed by her father last week when his gun accidentally discharged while he was cleaning it. He didn’t know the gun was loaded. He did know his daughter was within shooting range, however. The authorities won’t prosecute unless they find evidence of foul play, but there is already sufficient evidence of fatal negligence. He should be charged with manslaughter.
3. Plan N! Some Democrats and journalists who have real jobs and don’t live in a padded room really are saying in public that Donald Trump should be impeached for what he said in a press conference in Helsinki. Astounding. Astounding, and unethical, because a lot of Americans—you know, like the ones on Facebook who are passing around a meme showing Obama with the legend “Share if he’s your favorite President!” (Why not just a label that says “I have never read an American history book”?)—are so ignorant about law, politics, diplomacy, and just about everything else, that they can be convinced by ravings.
If you are keeping track, and it is hard, be sure to add Plan N (Calling comments at a press conference treason) to the list of “resistance” impeachment and removal plots. Oh, heck, I need to update the list anyway:
The Impeachment And Coup Plans, Updated.
Plan A: Reverse the election by hijacking the Electoral College.[Status: FAILED and DEAD, until it rises again in 2020]
Plan B: Pre-emptive impeachment. [Status: FAILED and DEAD]
Plan C : The Emoluments Clause. [Status: Resurrected! ]
Plan D: “Collusion with Russia” [Status: Still twitching]
Plan E : ”Trump is mentally ill so this should trigger the 25th Amendment.” [Status:Ridiculous, but it will be back.]
Plan F: The Maxine Waters Plan, which is to just impeach the President as soon as Democrats control both Houses, because they can. [Status: Hope springs eternal!]
Plan G : “The President obstructed justice by firing incompetent subordinates, and that’s impeachable.” [Status: LAME, but ONGOING]
Plan H: “Tweeting stupid stuff is impeachable” [Status: ONGOING]
Plan I: “Let’s relentlessly harass him and insult him and obstruct his efforts to do his job so he snaps and does something really impeachable.” [Status: ONGOING]
Plan J : Force Trump’s resignation based on alleged sexual misconduct that predated his candidacy. .[Status: FAILED and DEAD]
Plan K: Election law violations in pay-offs of old sex-partners [Status: ONGOING]
Plan L: The perjury trap: get Trump to testify under oath, then prove something he said was a lie. [Status: To be determined.]
Plan M: Guilt by association. Prove close associates or family members violated laws. [Status: Ongoing.]
Plan N: Claim that Trump’s comments at his press conference with Putin were “treasonous.”
I could, and probably should, write a lot more about the latest freakout, which now supersedes the freakout of last week, which was that a completely standard-issue, qualified conservative judge was poised to turn the United States into a dystopian dictatorship if he was confirmed to sit on the Supreme Court. What was the Hysteria-of-the-Week before the Kavanaugh appointment? I can’t even remember. Oh, right: “putting children in cages.”
Each one of these is proclaimed with increasingly hyperbolic and apocalyptic rhetoric and with escalating urgency unmoored to proportion or reality. (Politico: “Putin’s Attack on the U.S. Is Our Pearl Harbor”) How will “the resistance” react to the third or fourth freakouts in the queue, for we now they are coming? I picture them howling, falling on all fours and running amuck, biting pedestrians, while MSNBC, the Times editorial board, George Will, Charles Blow, John McCain and Nancy Pelosi call for an armed uprising and the guillotine.
I wish I were kidding.
4. Back to Josh Hader...After I wrote item #1, I once again tried to get some sleep. I kind of succeeded, and then awoke to NBC Sports baseball blogger, former lawyer Craig Calcaterra, who I swear was once even as rational as you or I, arguing that the pitcher had an obligation to “apologize and make amends … to explain and atone … to tell us how — apart from getting caught being obnoxious — he became a different person and what that really means.”
This is the world view that the American Left is increasingly embracing, and it ought to scare the hell out of everyone. Once someone like Hader is under suspicion of thinking non-conforming thoughts—based on his tweets when he was 17!—he must be brought to heel, and prove that he is only capable of Good Think as an adult, or suffer the dire consequences. This kind totalitarian attitude is now infesting our sports reporting. As with the social justice bullying that I recently wrote about here and here, those who are subjected to such civil rights-strangling pressure have a societal obligation to be strong, courageous, not to roll over, and to fight. I know this is difficult for celebrities, performers and athletes like Hader, who have a lot to lose, but nonetheless, this is one of their most important responsibilities to society as role models. If they don’t fight these efforts to dominate them and dictate conformity in speech and belief, then they have joined the forces of censorship and oppression.
Unfortunately, the ignorant, confused and ethically-muddled dominate these matters. I just heard two of the usual ex-ballplayer/sportswriter teams that make the Sirius MLB channel scream-inducing talk about the Hader situation, and they agreed that if MLB doesn’t DO something to punish Hader, “it will be like they are condoning his tweets.” Well, heck, let’s examine every word, joke, social media post and conversation every athlete and public figure engaged in when they were teenagers, no matter how many years or decades ago it make have been, judge them by today’s hyper-censorious standards, pretend they were members of the professions they now are when they engaged in such taboo utterances, and denounce, shame and shun them, because otherwise we’ll be symbolically endorsing their juvenile slurs!
These two dolts also echoed one of Calcaterra’s more dishonest and unfair arguments, that the fact that Hader didn’t delete those old tweets shows that he probably still feels the same way. We have seen Harvard scholars, lawyers, Presidents, journalists, CEOs and others fall into career-wrecking social media gaffes, but because a twenty-something baseball pitcher didn’t think to erase tweets he made in high school, it proves that he is a racist. This is the level of fairness and thought NBC accepts from its law degree-holding baseball blogger.
I just know I am going to be writing more about the persecution of Josh Hader, so I’ll stop for now. I will say to any athlete, performer, or other public figure who wants to do their duty and fight the Left Wing Conformity mob, I am ready to help you make the case why your attackers are not only wrong but a menace to democracy, and will do so pro bono.
UPDATE: Hader has apparently been ordered to attend ‘sensitivity training,” aka “re-education sessions,” and to “participate in the league’s diversity and inclusion initiatives” because of tweets he made to his friends when he was in high school. A statement from Brewers GM David Stearns says that the team expects Hader to continue “taking full responsibility for the consequences of his actions.” There were no consequences of “his actions.” There were consequences of a gratuitous effort to embarrass Hader, the Brewers and baseball by dredging up social media posts that are, should be and would be completely irrelevant to Hader today.
I don’t blame the pitcher for wanting to do whatever he can to get this behind him, but I wish he would have taken a stronger and defiant stand.
Ethics Alarms 
#2 I agree!
Why?
What possible good would it do?
Have you ever cleaned a gun? To do it right requires taking the damned thing apart! There is literally NO WAY to NOT know it was loaded. Add to that, the Basic Tenet of gun ownership is “Treat every gun as if it was loaded!” CHARGE HIM!
Ditto!
He was clearly negligent and someone died, he should be charged.
What do you think should be done and why?
My first inclination is to do nothing.
No theory of punishment suggests punishment would be appropriate. If the loss of your child isn’t specific deterrence enough, than I doubt a visit to jail would be. As for general deterrence, I have significant doubts that anyone will be generally deterred, as this is such a fact specific case. I don’t think there was any malice in his actions (without knowing more), so I don’t see how retribution is served by punishment. Finally, I’m not sure there’s anything is required to rehabilitate him, but further facts could certainly make me change my mind.
And again, I don’t see how charging him will do any good, other than, I guess, make us feel better. Buy why is how we feel even in the equation?
Finally, there is no question he’s guilty, letter of the law. The question is whether knowing he’s guilty, should the prosecutor nevertheless exercise discretion and choose not to charge him. On balance, without knowing more, I would say “yes”. In this particular case, there seems a value in mercy.
So if it had been his child’s playmate, would your opinion change?
Another one that’s never cleaned a gun.
Mr. Dragin,
I have cleaned a gun before (albeit not a handgun). I lived in the country growing up. The fact that you are obsessively focused on this fact suggests you may have misunderstood the argument here. You may wish to reread my last comment.
Mr. Zoltar,
Yes, in the latter case the theories of punsihment point to punishment being appropriate. Specific deterrence is necessary to show the perpetrator that such carelessness will not be tolerated. General deterrence also suggests punishment is appropriate, as jail time may be necessary to deter such careless actors from putting others at risk. General deterrence only pointed against punishment last time because jail can’t be more of a deterrent than losing one’s child. Retribution also points more towards punishment, as the perpetrator would have received no punishment (except perhaps a guility consience) in the latter scenario. I’m not sure rehabiliation points towards punishment either way, assuming in both instances it was truly what it appears to be: an accident caused by gross stupidity.
Of course, all of the above is really just using the theories of punishment to say “he’s been punished enough.” That is the argument you and Jack reject, to which I say “Why?”. I personally do think he’s been punished enough. The real ethically appropriate question here, I think, is “What good would it do?” And as far as I can see, it would do no good whatsoever.
Of course, I remain open to the possibility I overlooked something.
Finally, it should be noted that if I did something agressively stupid and it killed my child, I’d be happy to go to jail. It might provide me some protection from my wife.
valentine0486 wrote, “an accident caused by gross stupidity.”
In my opinion, that is exactly where your thinking is in error. It was a death caused by gross negligence.
I did.
Please read this comment and the follow up replies.
Mr. Zoltar,
Now, I’ve got to tell you to listen better. I previously stated that there is no question that this is, letter of the law, a death caused by gross negligence. i.e. negligent manslaughter. Such a death can be described in that way, and in the way I described it: an accident caused by gross stupidity.
Such is not the question, and has been assumed by both parties from the beginning.
The question is only about prosecutorial discretion.
With all due respect, did you read what I linked to?
If you want a real scummy side to the persecution of Hader, look no further than Shannon Sharpe slamming Lorenzo Cain for his comments – which were quite reasonable.
As an aside, who do you think knows Hader better, Cain, or the mob?
Doesn’t matter. He has to grovel.
Reminds me of the Pax Dickinson saga:
https://reason.com/archives/2015/07/09/the-social-media-shaming-of-pax-dickinso
Would be better if the ones who stood their ground on social media were the more mainstream/famous/upstanding citizens and not the obnoxious loudmouths. Then again, what good is a free speech culture if it only allows acceptable opinions?
Jack, you will run out of single alphabet letters before these 4 years are up. What’s you plan beyond Z? The world awaits.
If these idiots don’t stop with the incitement lots of people are going to get hurt and / or die. Pathetic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Beyond_Zebra!
https://unicode-table.com/en/
Just what I need!
Whoa.
jvb
Beyond Z, some of the names seem especially appropriate: Um, Humpf, Fuddle, Glikk, Nuh, Yekk.
With exceptional foresight, yesterday, on a FB page featuring a large Treason! Impeach! poster, I commented “Plan N?”
Got no response.
There are Greek letters favored by the scientific community and then the Eastern European languages like Cyrillic made up dozens of letters…I mean they have backwards R’s and stuff.
The vast majority of comments on MLB Trade Rumors and the Yahoo hit piece were supportive of Hader. Seems like a good portion of his Tweets may have been “borrowed” from song lyrics. Not sure if it was Sinatra or Bennett? Anyways, this is the old retroactive punishment going back to when he was 17. I once stole a candy bar when I was nine – there it is! If they had social media around when I was 17 I’d be on death row and not sent to sensitivity class. I guess MLB will soon hire Inspector Javert. Let me add to my histrionics.
This Hader thing seems like the usual power grab by the intersectional elite who want not only Hader but the rest of us to stay in line & conform to their supposed righteousness. The Misery Merchants as author Tammy Bruce calls them, seeks to get us to believe Hader is something he’s likely not. By using him as a scapegoat this display attempts to make us all question if deep down the stupid stuff many of us say as teens makes us unconscious Confederate slavers.
Hader now has to be treated as a one-dimensional villain who must be punished into repentance and must atone by doing things like deleting posts and proving he’s not a secret member of the Proud Boys. The unhinged Left will likely say that with Hader it’s not about thought control (which it is) but “giving people what they want.” They’ll say the fans want an apology or MLB itself or some gullible black dude who cried when he heard the terrible tweets. Whatever the excuse, many of us aren’t gonna buy it and I sincerely hope Hader doesn’t bow down to the golden calf of social justice insanity. I don’t believe Hader is a bigot and if he were I could care less. This issue in the end isn’t about bigotry. It’s about controlling ideas.
Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns; why should we let them have ideas?” -Josef Stalin
Mrs. Q,
I agree with you but I think Hader will issue some idiotic statement about how shameful he was all those years ago, and those retweets do not reflect who he is, all the while bending over to appease the grievance community. He will apologize, do some serious searching, thank the Grievance Industry for showing him the folly of his ways, and make a considerably large donation to the pet causes of the day. Therefore, freedom and liberty will die a little bit more.
jvb
I agree…but I think change on this is coming sooner or later when these events happen. People are getting really sick of this stuff
I would agree. I am reminded of Boss Tweed’s response to a question about his graft (not that the situations are in any way similar) “What if I did? What are you going to do about it?” Again, non-similar circumstances but I’d love to see a multi-million dollar sports figure in Hader’s shoes say “I was 17…so what if I said those things, being young and stupid? What are you going to do about it?” Sadly, it won’t happen, because management, which should stand behind its players, is spineless…and won’t.
“I agree…but I think change on this is coming sooner or later when these events happen. People are getting really sick of this stuff”
John Maynard Keynes once said of the markets that they can stay irrational for a much longer time than you can stay solvent. I hope you are right, but I fear that we will be enduring this for quite a long time since those that engage this way gain quite a lot of personal satisfaction from it.
People People have a lot less patience when emotions are continually rung out… bet this happens sooner rather than later, from adrenaline depletion if nothing else.
1 & 2 brought back a high school memory from very long ago – two kids riding bikes back from a dump where they had been shooting bottles and cans with .22 caliber rifles. The kid in the front bike is accidentally shot and killed by the kid on the 2nd bike, a wrestling teammate of mine. Both about 15, 16 years old, cousins. Apparently, a truly freakish accident. But, gross negligence, riding a bike with a loaded rifle. But, just a kid. But, old enough to use a rifle, and therefore obliged to know how to use it safely.
I’m all for punishment of adults who own or are responsible for weapons and then, negligently or through intent, let them get into the hands of someone who misuses them. Was there parental training in this case? Was it sufficient?
I’m less sure about holding kids responsible. As a coach of a high school rifle marksmanship team for 20 years, I know that strict training and dictatorial supervision work, at least while the kids are under supervision. But, does that carry over when the supervision is no longer there?
Also, I used to know, but no longer know, at what age someone becomes an adult.
Plan D just got some fresh meat with the indictment of Maria Butina. Now people on Facebook are saying that the NRA, GOP, and Evangelicals are all Russian assets!
Sorry to go off on a tangent, but I have often wondered how frequently had I, or any of you, ever heard the word ‘evangelicals’ before the election? I know next to nothing about them, but I can safely say I’ve seen the word more since 2016 than I had ever to date in my lifetime. Boogeyman much? The left (as usual) couldn’t be more obvious. They tend to beat people over the head far too much and for far too long on any one point, and evidently don’t realize that they are not convincing people so much as showing their hand .
Evangelicals were widely discussed as a base of support for George W. Bush, and they’ve played a big role in Republican and national politics since the Reagan administration. I don’t think the coverage of evangelicals is anything new.
It’s possible that I have forgotten.
They also caused the Pulse nightclub shooting.
And if you go back far enough, they burned down Rome.
#1 My takeaway from the All Star game was the (IMHO) epic imbecility of engaging Rockies outfielder Charlie Blackmon in a fireside chat while the game was going on.
Part of the dialogue continued, if briefly, even after the ball had been pitched. Is this something new, or has it been going on for a while?
If sports programmers are/were looking for good box office, they could have gotten that, and FAR more, by attempting to chit-chat with Bobby Knight during a Hoosiers game at Assembly Hall.
THAT would’ve been MUST SEE T.V.!
They did it last year, for the first time. It is horrible.
I tuned in just as they were talking to Blackmon, at least Joe Buck was. No wait, I tuned in when they were speaking to the Indians’ short stop. I was surprised, to say the least. But I have to say, I was relieved to find out Charlie Blackmon is just your average run of the mill jock. (Funny line even: “I’m not superstitious, I’m just a littlestitious”). I had come to assume he was a mentally ill street person who, surprisingly and against all odds, could hit major league pitching. He looks awful. All these bad beards and terrible non haircuts are an embarrassment to the game. I think all of baseball should adopt the Yankees’ grooming policy. And I wear a beard. Baseball players should look like baseball players. Not street people or leprechauns.
ps, The game looked as if the home run derby was continued for a second night.
I agree with your comments re Hader. Except it continues to irritate when you treat this as ‘left’ (v. right). This has nothing to do with ‘socialism’. The traditional ‘left’ of ‘care and share’, is being poisoned by association with this dreadful intolerance. Just as the ‘right’ is being poisoned by jingoism. True ‘lefties’ should distance themselves ….. fast.
It’s not a fair fight, Andrew. The right doesn’t have academia and the media carrying its water.
I would agree, except that tribes cluster their approved beliefs, following the crowd rather than thinking out each situation and problem individually. Cognitive dissonance is big here: if the group you identify with supports something, then it becomes “good.” There’s no logical reason why the same people should support income redistribution, abolishing capital punishment, affirmative action, gay marriage, open borders and abortion on demand, except that they cluster together without people thinking very hard about them.
Hillary Clinton was member of the Young Republicans when she was in high school. Isn’t anyone going to destroy her for that?
”Isn’t anyone going to destroy her for that?”
She’s self-destructing all on her own, requiring no help from anyone else.
It is an interesting phenomenon, isn’t it? She’s the obverse of Bill Clinton. She steps in it and then proceeds to dance in it. Bill could just skate away. It must drive him nuts. But I’m still betting she’s going to run in 2020. It’s going to be Bernie vs. HRC, The Rematch. And Trump will win the popular vote this time.
Second try to post…
I am still expecting the Demo party to demo to the world (and self-demo – suddenly, for no reason at all, I am really into using “demo” in diverse forms tonight) that democracy can be saved from TRUMP in 2020 by a two-woman ticket consisting of Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama.
But, I will confess that I will be unsurprised, if the demo that the Demos expect to vote for Demos will be most pleased and unified by a 2020 presidential election ticket that features two of the more proven socialists, such as Liz Warren and Kamala Harris – or, even, an all-white-male ticket, like, say, Joe Biden for POTUS and running mate Bernie Sanders, because that way, if the Demos lose, all blame will go against white guys.
But no: the Demos are going to play a youth card. SOMEbody HAS to run at the top of the ticket who is so-not-TRUMP’s-age. So Kamala Harris, or that latest NY congresslady-to-be (the Latina), or even Senator Beto O’Rourke of Texas (if he beats Ted Cruz) will be Obamafied into Instant World Leader Eligibility. That is, if Michelle doesn’t run with Oprah.
I can’t help suspecting any of those Dems will get creamed by Trump.
”It’s going to be Bernie vs. HRC, The Rematch.”
From the ashes of despair, Hope springs eternal!
I’ll bet that’s a town HRC hated to visit.
I was wondering who’d nail that one.
Color me unsurprised…
In the classic first season of “24,” President Palmer’s own cabinet tries to pull a plan E on him.
the only examples of per se negligent homicide that I am aware of are fatal motor vehicle collisions where the at-fault driver was drunk.
What is the Indiana case law concerning negligent discharges of firearms resulting in death?
…combined with child endangerment resulting in death…
So what is the relevant case law?
The #1 responsibility of an individual when getting ready to clean a firearm is to make a visual physical inspection of the firearm to make positively sure that the firearm is unloaded until that physical check is complete the firearm must be considered loaded, not doing that is negligent and when that negligence causes a death because the firearm was discharged, that’s manslaughter.
Negligence: failure to use reasonable care, resulting in damage or injury to another.
Manslaughter: the crime of killing a human being without malice aforethought, or otherwise in circumstances not amounting to murder.
Those definitions don’t change just because the death due to the negligence was the child of the negligent person; the negligence was obviously there and the death was obviously the direct result of that negligence. This is a classic case of the crime manslaughter as the direct result of negligence.
The crime was committed, once the individual is convicted of the crime the court has the discretion of how to punish the individual for that crime.
Nothing you say here is wrong, but your final paragraph seems to omit prosecutorial discretion. It’s not the prosecutor’s obligation to pursue prosecution of every possible case and just let the court decide, the prosecutor also has the ability to determine when a case is better left untried.
Luke G wrote, “Nothing you say here is wrong, but your final paragraph seems to omit prosecutorial discretion. It’s not the prosecutor’s obligation to pursue prosecution of every possible case and just let the court decide, the prosecutor also has the ability to determine when a case is better left untried.”
In my humble opinion; to not prosecute an easily provable case of negligent manslaughter, especially when it comes to firearm negligence, is a very bad idea and sets a bad precedence which will enable others to ignore such cases.
Under Indiana law, are all negligent acts resulting in death considered the crime of negligent homicide or manslaughter?
1. Until this bites the SJWs in the ass, it will continue. NO ONE can withstand this level of scrutiny. This also will result in more of Trump, as people realize the true face of the left.
2. Pre existing condition: Mr. Bowling was already an idiot before picking up the gun. I smell a rat: wonder if this was a negligent discharge covered up by a cleaning kit, dragged out after the fact?
3. The Democrats continue to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory… see you in November.