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Keep on topic, don’t get nasty, and make Ethics Alarms proud.
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Ethics Alarms 
It has already come up in class among students how Chick-Fil-A is stopping its funding of anti-LGBTQ groups. Does anyone know if the groups it is funding are actually anti-LGBTQ or just espousing values with which the LGBTQ community disagrees and vise versa?
In my mind, funding an organization actively promoting an anti-LGBTQ human rights agenda under the Constitution is unethical.
On the other hand, if they are funding organizations which simply find their values in conflict with LGBTQ and are willing to defend themselves against those seeking to diminish them without promoting anti-anything policies, this appears ethical.
Chick-fil-a funded groups with religious affiliations, like the Christian Athletes. I don’t believe the intent was ever to be anti-LGBTQ, but rather to support groups aligned with the founder’s religious views.
I think it’s important to note that they aren’t ending their beliefs, they met the financial commitments they made, and are switching their giving to veterans, homelessness, and children’s causes.
The takeaway from the situation is already that harassment and bullying pay off, often quite well.
It doesn’t even really matter what charities they donate to, Chick-Fil-A’s leadership doesn’t toe the line on gay marriage so it must be destroyed. We will start seeing articles about how Chick-Fil-A’s actions are just token responses and that they now have to come out in favor of gay marriage in order to keep the furies off of their backs.
Anything less than a full embrace, acceptance, adoption, promotion, and explicit advocacy of LGBTADNAUSEUM rights is deemed anti-(repeatthatalphabetstring) and must be destroyed. Chick donated to the Salvation Army. The SALVATION ARMY! The horror.
The biggest spin is the pulling back support from the Salvation Army. I’ve read hysterical responses from the Chick-Fil-A supporters who are “never going to eat there again.” From rational sources I’ve read that this has been a plan to consolidate their giving rather than tossing money at a wide variety of charities.
It’s important to remember that Chick-Fil-A is a chicken restaurant owned by Christians. Not a Christian company that happens to serve chicken.
My understanding was Salvation Army (so, keep in mind, anyone who puts a coin in one of those red kettle campaigns around Christmas is “a garbage person” and they have no right to live in our society.
Lets just skip the part where the Salvation Army provides more support to the LGBT community than any other charity worldwide.
There was Fellowship of Christian Athletes — they had some wording in their membership pledge about homosexual activity and marriage being between a man and a woman.
An AFP News Service Headline Blares:
#BREAKING More Than 100,000 Children In Migration-Related US Detention: UN
One small problem.
They discover, to their horror, that the 100K + figure is from 2015, during which time the self-anointed 4th Greatest President EVAH held serve.
Since they can’t pin this on Orange Man Bad!, hey can’t blame President Trump, do they do the right thing and issue a retraction and correction?
Not exactly.
They gutlessly DELETE** it with a BULL$#!T excuse.
Liberal Bias? We don’t have no stinkin’ Liberal Bias!
**HERE
Even then, this story seems cooked. A UN Expert says that in 2015 the US held 103,000 minors. But in 2019, there are reports that the US had detained a record 60,000 minors, although I think that the number detained at one time peaked somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 around last December/January.
So is the 103,000 the cumulative number for 2015? No, 60,000 is apparently an annual record. Is the 103,000 the cumulative number *since* 2015? Maybe, but if it is, I can’t think of a less clear way they could have put it, and if that were the case, the number actually seems low. Or did the UN official pull the number directly out of his ass? Not likely, I’m sure it’s based on something, but for the purposes of getting a clearer view of the real picture, it’s probably the best way to think about it until we know more.
In all fairness Reuters, NPR and Aljazeera reported it as well, with AFP & Reuters being the only ones (thus far?) to pull it.
And the weaselly way it was withdrawn? Sheesh!
“So is the 103,000 the cumulative number for 2015? No, 60,000 is apparently an annual record. Is the 103,000 the cumulative number *since* 2015?”
Forget it HT, it’s the New Math…
Not sure what to think of this, but has anyone heard about South Dakota’s new PSA: Meth. We’re on it.:
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/meth-psa-ad-south-dakota-224537287.html
Clever? Stupid? Both? Incompetent?
Is this analogous to those ads Jack complains about that normalize the F-Word or other profanities?
-Jut
Ridiculously, Painfully incompetent.
I’m of the opinion that America should cease throwing people in jail for non-violent drug crimes, but we shouldn’t encourage use, and we should still educate about them, particularly the ones that it’s painfully obvious have serious, devastating and permanent side effects.
Having an add that say basically the entire state is on Methamphetamine, and don’t look much worse for wear is crazy. What’s the message? Who is it for? What is it supposed to do?
I’ve seen this thrown about for years and every time I come across it I seem to get a different answer for the question; can you please tell me what “non-violent drug crimes” actually are and stating “drug crimes without violence” is just rewording it and doesn’t cut it.
Is it simple possession of some amount less than or equal to a predefined amount of illegal drugs that are specifically for personal use?
What about non-violent crimes that could easily be drug related crimes like burglary, fraud, money laundering, etc…
Honestly, it’s a good question. I make the distinction because people tend to conflate commiting things that are already crimes while under the influence as “drug crimes”, but unless you’re actively beating someone over the head with a brick of cocaine (and maybe even then) I’m not sure that there is such a thing as a violent drug crime. All the examples you listed are crimes in and of themselves, where drugs were peripherally involved. A drug crime, in my opinion, would be things that are only crimes because they involve drugs, I can’t think of a violent action that only becomes a crime when drugs are involved.
So… possession, use, distribution. I’d be willing to talk about the last one.
There was an interesting story Turley put out a while ago where a guy won something like $10,000 in a casino and immediately bought drugs with all of it. Then when the cops caught him, they charged him with possession with intent to sell, because he had a metric fuckton of drugs. His defense, which I think was even successful, was that the drugs were for personal use, and he only had so many because of his windfall.
What gets me here is that were this guy an alcoholic as opposed to a meth addict, not only would he not have faced jail time, he wouldn’t have faced fines or even confiscation. It does not make sense to me to put people like that behind bars.
Thanks for all the clarifications.
Two days ago Jonathan Turley wrote about a speech Barr gave calling it controversial found here: https://jonathanturley.org/2019/11/18/very-dangerous-and-indeed-incendiary-barr-gives-controversial-speech-to-federalist-society/#more-149887
Seeing how I agree with the comments made, I disagree with Turley, but I realize that might be because my own confirmation bias. So I will ask the question: Was it wrong for Barr to make those comments?
“Barr makes factual statements about events well established in public knowledge” is about as nonsensical a criticism as I’ve ever heard. Then again, I heard part of that witness- and crime-bereft impeachment thing on the radio just today, so perhaps that’s me just being hyperbolic.
Confirmation bias requires that you make the call without any objective evidence that is consistent with an estabablished belief.
If you can point to evidence to support a claim then I cannot see it being labeled confirmation bias.
I disagree that Barr’s remarks are inappropriate for the following reasons:
Barr has a depth of understanding of both American history and American jurisprudence. This establishes him as more expert than I.
The issue should be discussed and no one has made similar statements. If Turley has an issue with content he is capable of arguing his points. Suggesting the points should not be uttered by the AG to avoid an appearance of bias then the AG or AAG’ s can never prosecute any any case involving a party in the opposing party for the same reason. This is currently the prime argument against any investigation of Hunter Biden or his father..
It is not implausible to believe Biden threw his hat into the presidential race to innoculate himself against charges of corruption. Biden is the foe of Warren, Sanders and Buttegieg at this moment not Trump yet that is the current rationale for the Resistance to remove Trump.
Where was Turley when Biden made his infamous statements about witholding aid unless a prosecuter was fired.
Barr said:
It is getting more and more hard to see through the miasma. Or, the miasma clutters and pollutes what should be logically clear and sort of usurps logic and the possibility of applying logic.
Seen from the angle of the Progressive Left and that of the “New York Intellectual Establishment” (in its Jewish sense), the advent of Trump is frightening. There is a vocal and a growing faction in America, and in Europe, that is rather unhappy with what they see as Jewish machination. This is a fact. Read the comments section in many different sites and you will find these comments. Again, people do not understand how their world functions, with all its mechanisms that are hidden or shrouded: vast events go on which determine their lives and they have no part in the decisions made. People are in many senses powerless in their world. They are forced to cobble together interpretations.
So, at least on one level, The Resistance is grounded in a will to use whatever power and tools are available to defeat the dangerous threat that Trump poses. But is it Trump? or some factions that ally themselves with Trump? It hardly matters. They long ago labeled their enemy as ‘the deplorables’ and the ignorant galoots of the countryside and the uneducated working class.
So, let’s be realistic: when people are fighting for their lives (and this is how this struggle is actually conceived) it is good and proper — it is ethical in fact — to use any and all power to defeat an enemy that may rise up to do harm.
Trump, and also numerous European right-leaning leaders and movements, indeed represent movements and popular force that could, or will, harm both Left-Progressive interests and also Jewish interests. This is how it is seen, this is how it is presented, rather clearly and directly int he NYTs.
They have now begun to actively and openly bring state power against these bad actors. Take for example the recent events at Syracuse University. Some people receive a ‘racist screed’ and the police and the federal police are brought in. The students ‘cower in terror’ afraid to wander outside. This is how it is being presented. As I said months back: state power will be brought to bear against the ideas and the people who are engaging in wrongthink.
So you’d better stop thinking wrong or . . . you’ll be next.
What is threatened is the Postwar Liberal Order. The entire construct. I do not think this is an exaggeration. The level of critique that is coming out to the surface is really powerful. For example, establishment figures who turn against the mechanisms of America’s ‘forever wars’. When you get that sort of critique, and when pundits on the TeeVee say openly that a given party (the Repubs) have ‘betrayed the American worker’ (Tucker Carlson) I think it is safe to say that things are really getting up in the air.
Everyone seems *up in arms* as the saying goes. But then there is this other strange element, so hard to define: literal mental illness. On the dissident blogs, and the not-so-dissident blogs, that nutty girl from Sweden is analyzed. And indeed she manifests hysteria and hysterical inner conflagration. But then so are many people. And the psychological foment extends everywhere. It is almost impossible to avoid contamination.
The part that I do not understand is the behind-the-scenes power struggles ‘within ‘The Halls of Power’ (to use the term in All the President’s Men). Where do the Nationalists like Bannon et al, identified as dangerous lunatics, fit in to all this? Is it because he read Camp of the Saints? (Le Camp des Saints). What is really going on? And why can no one seem to identify what is going on?
This on NPR website:
Further in the article:
Here you see the sick hyper-left ideology in operation. It has no choice but to attack and take apart any posture that could involve harshness and decisiveness in practical defense of a nation’s integrity or sovereignty. Any defensive posture … is equated with Hitlerism.
The same sickness operates on many on this blog (in my humble view). There is a refusal, at any level, to see things in realistic terms, and so only the idealistic terms are morally acceptable. It is amazing to me. And this is where the notion of Progressive Mental Disorder comes into play: it begins to look like a mental disorder, a profound dis-order within the psyche of people: they cannot see their world accurately and realistically.
The actual truth though is that the ideological constructs that brought us ‘Multi-Culturalism’ are embodied sickness. They are false-doctrines. They are terrifyingly destructive in effect. But they are seen as ‘health and normalcy’.
So, it turns out that it is really quite the opposite of what she says: In order for healing to take place, there has to be a radical pushback against the Progressive Constructs.
So strange … yet so interesting!
From what I read from the various constitutional conservatives like Bannon et al, they are continuing to try and nudge the culture back away from “progressive constructs” as you say. in line with Andrew Breitbart’s principle that “politics is downstream from culture.”
The idea behind Steiber’s notion of “mistaken premises” is akin to the saying “you can’t see it until you believe it,” which leads to all sorts of denial of facts in favor of feelings. And yes, you are right that the inability -in fact the refusal- to see the world as it is constitutes a form of mental illness.
Here is an intereasting article of note.
http://reason.com/2019/11/19/barred-from-participating-in-public-high-school-graduation-for-using-nigger-in-a-tweet/
Don’t they know its the N-word? Time to cancel them.
I’m reading “Accidental Presidents” by Jared Cohen. It’s about the 8 men who became President upon the death of a President (at least two people who asked about the book have immediately jumped in with “Like Gerald Ford?”. Sigh)
In the chapter on Calvin Coolidge, there is a discussion about the “Return to Normalcy” campaign. The author writes, “Harding and Coolidge campaigned on a ‘return to normalcy’, which was basically the 1920s version of what the forty-fifth president, Donald Trump, later branded ‘make American great again'”
Thoughts? I count comments like this in historical works as SPC: Snarky Political Commentary. Is the author trying to connect Trump to the notoriously-corrupt administration of Warren Harding by virtue of campaign slogans?
That would require a knowledge of history.
If so, that’s a dumb analogy and unlikely to persuade anyone. “Return to Normalcy” was very clearly a reference to the Great War. Trump’s slogan is more political than social: Let’s drop all this globalism and European-style socialism crap, and get back to being the unique, strong, unapologetic champions of democracy, Judeo-Christian values and individualism we were founded to be.
Why wouldn’t the book include Ford? The group is “accidental Presidents”—how the VPs became President is irrelevant, or should be.
I want to know exactly what crime this kid committed because what he is described as doing cannot possibly be illegal.
https://www.yahoo.com/gma/teen-charged-hate-crime-posting-slave-sale-ad-200400653–abc-news-topstories.html
I guess it could theoretically be illegal if there were any indication that he was actually trying to sell someone into slavery …
Or it could be fraudulent advertising.
Maybe something in this?: http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/documents/072000050k12-7.1.htm
It appears that in Illinois one can be charged with a separate felony “hate crime” for even a misdemeanor.
And sent to re-education camp, as well “…any order of probation or conditional discharge entered following a conviction or an adjudication of delinquency shall include a condition that the offender enroll in an educational program discouraging hate crimes involving the protected class…”
Or, basically, “Thought Crime!”.
Whoa, where in the Constitution prescribes anyone as a “protected class” . Such a designation is prima facie evidence of an equal protection violation.
This is an interesting turn of events for newcomer to the content wars Apple.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/apple-canceled-banker-premiere-sexual-abuse-claims-real-life-subjects-son-1256695
It’s a constitutional abomination that the concept of “hate crimes” was ever given any consideration. The entire supreme court is at fault for providing it a (permanent?) foothold in the law by saying that expressing “hate” couldn’t be considered a crime, but allowing enhanced penalties if the unapproved thoughts were present during the commission of another act. They should have seen that this would lead to weasel workarounds like the Illinois law. Charge somebody with “harassment” for a tweet, or “disorderly conduct” for a prank, and bang, you can drop a felony on them for their hateful thoughts.