Blogger Ann Althouse, who doesn’t write an ethics blog but does a good job flagging ethics issues and outrages, had an unusually ethics-centered day of blogging. Here are brief comments from me on four of her posts, which you should read. I had two of these in my queue, and I’m grateful to Ann for saving me some time I desperately need,
Ann notes how, in the Post comments to the article, which has nothing to do with Donald Trump, some people cannot help using the topic to attack the President, as she writes, “Trump Derangement Syndrome, symptom #1: When things aren’t at all about Trump, you visualize violence against him and get off on your vision.”
This is, in a nutshell, what Facebook is like, every day. I could spend all my time writing, “Do you listen to yourself? You’re completely consumed by blind hate of the President of the United States. Get help. You’re embarrassing yourself, and making society divided and ugly. You, and everyone like you. Not him. YOU. “
- “Biden… told donors that he’s heard from 14 heads of state from around the world who’ve voiced concerns to him about Trump. That list included Margaret Thatcher…”“… he said, before correcting what he called a ‘Freudian slip,’ that he was actually referring to current British Prime Minister Theresa May.”
This is why Democrats are deluding themselves if they think poor Joe is a viable candidate. They can’t possibly attack President Trump for being dumb, inattentive, incompetent, old or mentally unfit with Biden making gaffes like this—or worse—almost daily, and he will make them almost daily,
- In this post, Althouse notes the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee poll that asked the Twitteverse, “Do you want more Supreme Court justices like Ruth Bader Ginsburg or do you want more justices like Brett Kavanaugh?” and received a landslide vote against Ginsburg. Althouse is annoyed that the tweet was taken down, writing, “Just get rid the evidence you don’t like. ” Yeah, that’s pretty slimy: if you purport to put out a poll or a survey, you are ethically obligated to report whatever results you get.
The poll itself is inherently unethical anyway. It is asking people to render an opinion that most of them are wildly unqualified to give. Most have never read opinions by either justice, and have the most rudimentary comprehension of their work, mode of judicial analysis, competence or character. Their vote would be the product of bias and ignorance, and yet the committee would use it to bray about what “the public wants.”
Finally, Ann made me happy by complaining in “Ridiculous conversation about me and Trump.” about how a commenter accused her of trying to advance the fortunes of President Trump by pointing out legitimate problems with some of the Democrats seeking the nomination. She used this comment by a reader to suggest what was going on:
“You know that anybody who wants to undermine Trump with Althouse’s readers could easily do so by getting specific in the comments with actual cases of Trump “corruption” and then defending them against objections. But when the anti Trump comments all and I mean ALL amount to either trivialities, or hyperbolic denunciations reeking of kerosene breath, or vague smears that the commenter refuses to back up with facts, then it seems like the trolls here are doing more to support Trump than Althouse is. She is giving you the forum, all of you, and yet you don’t take it on. How can we not draw the conclusion that you guys have nothing? Going on pearl clutching about pee pee tapes for two years, and then showing zero humility when it all turned out to be bullshit is just one thing.”
It’s comforting to know I’m not the only one who has to put up with this.
Ethics Alarms 
Grand canyon
When you’re constantly being told how “woke” it is to hate the president, how is one to virtue signal properly without including some Trump blame in every utterance?
Biden
Heh. Well, he has been consistent throughout time with this sort of boo-boo. I reckon it is mostly already factored in, like so many of Trump’s juvenile propensities.
DCC poll
There’s an old lawyer saying I’m sure you’ll be familiar with, Jack — “Never ask a question unless you know the answer.”
This poll is an example of why. The DCC thought they had a cheap bit of propaganda (who really pays attention to Twitter polls anyway), but it wound up donating to the RNC.
And I don’t think it’s unethical to ask someone who they prefer. They didn’t ask “Who is better qualified” or ask people to render a judgment about who is better for the country and why. It was a simple “beauty contest” question. To me, that’s an ethical nullity.
Trump basher ridiculousness
This is just more evidence, as if we needed it, that Trump has driven Democrats and Leftists actually insane.
Showing the public you are actually insane is never a good look.
”Trump has driven Democrats and Leftists actually insane.”
A short drive for some, not all, and I believe I know how he does IT
That’s It! 🙂
The other day I greeted a co-worker with an entirely normal “good morning.” His response was “it’s not going to be a good morning until Trump is out of here and stops destroying the country.” It kinda says something when people can’t even say good morning without hating on the president. Our own valky was talking about violent revolution not too long ago.
As for Biden, well, he’s good at making mistakes, but it’s a lot easier to deal with mistakes if you have the media running interference for you and hiding, delaying, or spinning them.
That poll was worthless, but if it had gone the other way I’m sure it would have led the news, just like every poll that showed Obama waaaaay out in front of McCain was a red banner headline, and the further out in front the bigger, in 2008.
The last part is almost pure repetition. For two and a half years it’s all just been fuck racism, fuck xenophobia, fuck the red states, fuck the Russians, fuck Trump, all of which are interchangeable, and not much real pointing out of real problems. Now a lot of us on the right and more than a few in the center who weren’t fed up ARE getting fed up. Processing anger and disappointment at the most surprising election since Truman held up that paper in 1948 was one thing. Dealing with the rocky initial stages was one thing. the Russian investigation was one thing. Still yelling and ranting and wanting to smash things and attack people after the Russian investigation turned out to be nothing is just showing inability to think beyond pure hate.
Did this really happen? OMG, that’s a completely new level of crazy.
I have yet to personally experience something that nutso, but then again, I do live in Kentucky where Trump is broadly popular, at least in comparison to the alternative.
I live in a state even redder than Kentucky, but I have experienced it. I know people who are Democrats. I had a Democrat tell me that they NEED to be allowed to kill infants because women don’t have access to free abortions early in their pregnancy. She said this in the presence of a young man whose parents tried to have him aborted and were only stopped by a state law that forbade late-term abortions (a fact she knew). I am considering giving her husband a MAGA hat for father’s day.
This is just a bad person, Michael. We call this bad manners as well, an in MY red state such would be shunned for acting that way.
No one NEEDS to kill infants. Anyone who says otherwise is dead inside.
No, they are a VERY good person. Just ask them. I have to give them credit, at least they are honest.
Indeed it did. Then again, this city is dominated by African-American people, with a hard-left African-American mayor who actually recorded a response to the president’s first State of the Union saying he would not allow the police to become de facto slave catchers. I was one of only two people in my department reasonably awake after the 2016 election and not acting like the sky was falling. The people here have stuffed their heads with hatred of Trump, and the first thing out is always “Trump’s a racist.” One of the secretaries told me the only reason I was a Trump supporter (I wasn’t until the very end of the election, and that was because I had determined Hillary was worse) is that I couldn’t stand to see a black man succeed. Nice to know others can read my mind.
A day doesn’t go by here without lots of anti-Trump muttering, jokes, and idle statements about what people would do to the president if he were there. Frankly it reminds me of high school classmates responding to an anecdote about General Patton saying some pompous thing on the battlefield (he was a master tactician, but a huge ego) by saying they would have kicked his ass then and there, or some other adolescent thing. No you wouldn’t have, you’re 15, and his staff and bodyguards would have dropped you before you got near him. No, you’re not going to beat up the president, the Secret Service would shoot you dead before you got anywhere in his wingspan. Anger never made anyone into a martial artist, bitterness never made anyone into a marksman, and hatred never made anyone bulletproof.
Good grief. That’s tragic.
The pure hate is what will be their destruction.
Either they act on it, and get the consequences, or they do not act on it, and it eats them from the inside.
I don’t know, slick. What happens if they DO win in 2020? If that happens, I’m afraid the whole kit and caboodle falls apart.
That would be when they act on it, dd. If and when they do, that is when we have our little Civil War.
I suspect we will get the whole Chinese Social Credit System they are so fond of. No bank account, no driver’s license, no mortgage, no job, and no education if you a Republican.
In addition, with the eager cooperation of the federal courts, we will see:
No 1st amendment for ‘hate speech’
No 2nd amendment at all
No 4rth amendment for Nazis
No 5th, 6th, 7th, or 8th amendments for Republicans (who are all alt-right nationalist racists), whites, and men accused by women
The 10th amendment has already been abolished (so no need for anything there)
The 11th amendment will no longer bind illegal aliens
The 14th amendment has already been abolished in Democrat-controlled areas, this will cover the entire US
No 15th amendment for whites unless they are a ‘disenfranchised minority’ due to sexual identity
No 19th amendment for men (see Title IX)
Most of these changes already have been the status quo on state college campuses across the country for decades. Democrat rule will take the college campus nationwide. Look at that list. That is why I say leftists aren’t liberals.