Month: April 2021

Ethics Dunce: Tucker Carlson

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Fox News host Tucker Carlson reacted to the week’s news about the pause on the Johnson & Johnson Wuhan virus vaccine to suggest to his viewers that the  government may know that they don’t work but are purposely “not telling you that.” During a general rant about vaccines, Fauci and related matters, Carlson concluded,

“Experts say it is not entirely clear when it will be considered okay for people who are fully vaccinated to stop wearing masks.At some point, no one is asking this but everyone should be, what is this about? If vaccines work, why are vaccinated people still banned from living normal lives? Honestly, what’s the answer to that, it doesn’t make any sense at all! If the vaccine is effective, there’s no reason for people who’ve received a vaccine to wear masks or avoid physical contact. So maybe it doesn’t work and they’re simply not telling you that. Well, you’d hate to think that especially if you’ve gotten two shots but what’s the other potential explanation? We can’t think of one.”

Tucker’s not thinking very hard. 1) The vaccines are not 100% effective. 2) New strains may not be prevented by the current vaccines. 3) If doctors could have their way, everyone would wear masks all the time anyway, because doctors don’t care about smiles, faces, and social health. The masks have essentially prevented the seasonal flu this year, so doctors think they are wonderful. “What’s the downside?,” they think. Doctors don’t think masks making life suck is a downside, you see. This is why the government should never put public policy in the hands of doctors.

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Friday Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

Why is the Open Forum so late?

Because I forgot, that’s why.

Now please prove that it didn’t matter…

Feminist Popular Culture Progress Report: Women Weenies Mostly Banished; Now About That Screaming…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

It is remarkable how frequent the “women as helpless weenies” appears in movies and TV shows. A man is engaged in a life-and-death struggle with a criminal, a murderer, a maniac, a wild animal or a monster, and the woman, often a young and healthy woman, just crouches in terror doing nothing more useful than wimpering. I remember this bothered me when I was a child. My mother wasn’t like that; indeed, I’ve never known a woman like that. It’s not just cowardly to be a bystander, it’s stupid. If “her man” loses the fight, what does she think will happen to her?

Over the last several decades of this trope has faded away, and thank goodness for that. It was insulting to women, and to the extent that popular culture influences gender roles in society, the representation of women as helpless damsels who could only wait and pray that their champion prevailed was archaic. The cliche was also boring. One of the better feminist role-models was Marion (Karen Allen) in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” She could throw a punch and knocked out a German (using aircraft wheel blocks) when he was about to shoot Indiana Jones as he fought off a Nazi goon. Now the woman coming to the rescue of an imperiled man is pretty much standard, even very young women, as in the “It” and the Netflix movie, “Enola Holmes.”

Good. It’s about time.

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Attention Democrats: Former President Trump Is Not Your Vaccination Monkey

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

The arrogance and hypocrisy of the rising totalitarians of the Left is staggering.

Chelsea Clinton said yesterday that former President Trump ought do “the right thing” by publicizing photos of himself getting shot up with one of the various vaccines that we keep learning new information about that we were not informed of before we had the vaccines. After all, the one-time “First Daughter” asserts, this would encourage Trump voters, who polls show (if you trust them) are more dubious about Wuhan virus vaccines than the more compliant Americans, to throw aside their doubts and get with the program. Get in line. Follow orders.

First of all, Chelsea Clinton is a B or C list celebrity, and that’s all she is. She has no more legitimate authority than such empty-headed loud-mouths and “social media influencers” as the Kardashians or Alyssa Milano—less, in fact, since Milano actually built a career in show business with her own talent. Clinton is a woman who was lucky in the assignment of parents Fate gave her, and that bit of good fortune should entitle her to as much legitimacy as a critic of President Trump as the goof who won the last Powerball lottery.

I’ve met Chelsea, and she’s nice enough, but so is the elderly man who owns my local 7-11. I don’t see him telling Donald Trump what “the right thing is.”

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The Andrew Yang Affair

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

Andrew Yang, as of this week the front-runner for mayor of New York City, did nothing unethical.

Well, allow me to modify that. Allowing yourself to be placed at the mercy of a stranger while being videoed is political incompetence. And his fake laugh was too convincing.

The video above, since the news media no longer allows the public to hear or read essential aspects of such stories because journalists regard themselves as public censors, is confusing, so here is what transpired.

The whole, unblurred, unbleeped video is on TikTok, and WordPress won’t let me embed TikTok. Someone the candidate to let him take a phone video as another stranger, a smiling and giddy black man, asks Yang whether a man, “while he’s fucking bitches, can he keep his Timbs on?.” — a reference to Timberland boots. Yang’s answer, under the circumstances, is pretty deft: “I think it’s purely up to your partner.”

Then the classy New Yorker asks Yang whether he “choke[s] bitches,” and Yang laughs—convincingly, I must say— and leaves.

Gotcha!

Yang’s polite engagement with the man after he used the word “bitches” and his apparently hardy laughter after the “choke bitches” line made him an inviting target of feminists and his rivals.

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Final Notes On Jackie Robinson Day

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

1. On this day in 1947, April 15, one of America’s many lucky breaks occurred: the perfect individual, with exactly the special qualities of character required for a daunting challenge, was on hand to take on that challenge, and the nation was never the same. The individual was Jackie Robinson, and when he too the field as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers, American society began it’s long post-Civil War climb out of the damning twin curses of segregation and Jim Crow racism.

The Ethics Alarms essay, from 2012, is here.

2. I know, I know: polls. But these two sets of results, both from Rasmussen are interesting, and to me at least, not surprising:

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No, “Chop Suey Fonts” Are Not Racist

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

This dispatch from The Great Stupid raises the question, “How stupid can the Great Stupid get before a critical mass of the public says, “Hey! This stuff is stupid!“? But we will leave that one for another day.

It also raises the question, “How does one correctly regard what CNN says and publishes?” We know now that the network cares not a whit about journalism, nor facts, nor objective analysis, not integrity. So when it comes out with something like this idiocy, complaining about “racist fonts,” what is the ethical response? It’s click-bait, so there is no way to determine whether anyone, even the author, believes what the article says. If the author does believe it, he or she (it’s a she this time) is obviously a victim of the dreaded “political correctness ate my brain” pandemic, so why pay any more attention to what she writes about fonts than if she had ranted on about Republican beetle larvae burrowing into her brain?

Musing about this article, Matt Margolies says, “The question of whether fonts can actually be racist is obviously a sign that true, legitimate racism is so hard to find that we actually have to make everything inherently racist just to have something to complain about.” Well, yes, except that the Left is in the process of re-defining racism to mean “anything said or done in America or by Americans, unless it is said or done by an African American or another Perpetual Victim of Color (PVC).”

Ann Quito, the author, argues that type fonts that attempt to evoke or reference another culture or locale like this…

and, though she doesn’t mention it, this (African)…

..and surely this (Hebrew)…

and if anybody cared about what they thought, this…

Then there’s this one, of course,

and the “Mexican” font:

…smack of racism. To be fair, the article never exactly says the fonts are racist or objectively offensive, though it does have this classic junk: Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Maryland Strips Police Officers Of Substantive Due Process Rights: Oh, THIS Will Work Out Well, Yessiree!”

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Another Steve-O Comment of the Day is on the way, but this one is particularly relevant considering what is unfolding in Minnesota, and not just there. Here, for example, is the state of affairs in Austin, Texas:

After the Austin police budget cut on top of the repeal of the public camping ban, Austin crime and disorder has gotten measurably worse. Austin police are also leaving in droves:

After the Austin city council voted unanimously to defund its police department by about one-third of its budget, in August 2020, many predicted that once the cuts kicked in a flood of officers would leave the force as soon as they could. The new district attorney’s policy of re-investigating police officers for closed cases is also expected to cause officers to resign or retire.

The city council’s cuts officially kicked in and have been in place for a few months.

PJ Media reports exclusively that APD is now suffering a huge surge of officer departures putting it on pace to shatter 2020’s record.

In January 2021, sources tell PJ Media 20 officers retired from APD and eight resigned, for a total of 28 departures.

In February 2021, five officers resigned and six retired, according to multiple sources, for a total of 11 departures.

In March 2021, 24 more officers left APD, with 20 officers retiring. Additionally, three officers resigned and one was terminated.

To put this into perspective, 2019 was the last non-pandemic year and the year before the city council cut APD’s budget. APD averages about 50 retirements or separations in a calendar year, and replaces them with cadets who have graduated from the police academy or officers who join APD from another force.

APD saw 46 officers retire with another 22 resigning in 2019, according to local TV news station KVUE.

2020’s numbers were exacerbated by the George Floyd riots; 78 officers departed or retired from APD from the beginning of those riots to the end of 2020, for a total of 89 separations, according to KVUE.

Official 2021 numbers provided to PJ Media by the Austin Police Retirement System (APRS) break down as follows:

  • Prior to 2020, retirements averaged 50-52 per year over the last 5-6 years
  • Record number of retirements in FY 2020: 97
  • First-quarter 2021 retirements: 45

Add to those 45 retirements the 18 resignations or terminations, for a total of 63 separations in just the first quarter of 2021. If the current pace continues, APD could lose approximately 252 officers — about five times the average number of separations for a year. This will impact public safety across the board, and according to the APRS, can impact retirees’ benefits as well. APRS raised the alarm about the impact the city council’s cuts could have in September of 2020.

March 2021’s retirements hit all over the department, including tactical intelligence, gang crimes, narcotics enforcement, investigations, and the bomb squad, according to a full list provided to PJ Media. Traffic enforcement — both warnings and citations — has declined by more than 60% in the first two months of 2021, a source tells PJ Media.

At the same time, the city council’s cuts have forced the cancellation of police cadet classes. The department is losing experienced officers in droves and is unable to replace them with new officers.

Fewer officers means fewer officers to cover 911 calls, to the point that some 911 calls now result in “NUA”s: No Officer Available…

Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, where it increasingly appears that the prosecution and the judge are willing to discard due process and basic fairness to make certain Derek Chauvin is convicted of murdering George Floyd, Kim Potter, the police officer who shot Daunte Wright in a Minneapolis suburb after appearing to mistake her gun for her Taser was arrested yesterday and charged with manslaughter. The Wrights’ family lawyer, Ben Crump, coincidentally the same lawyer who represented the families of Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown, declared,

“This was no accident. This was an intentional, deliberate, and unlawful use of force. We will keep fighting for justice for Daunte, for his family, and for all marginalized people of color. And we will not stop until there is meaningful policing and justice reform.”

Nice! Crump is accusing Porter of racism and murder, before any investigation and without any evidence that race played any part in the shooting. The fact that the victim resisted arrest, however, was a significant part of the tragedy. The convention Crump and various elected officials and legislators are trying to create would create strict criminal liability for law enforcement officials when black suspects are involved. Why wouldn’t this eventually lead to police officers being passive when confronted with black law breakers? Why would any officer take any measures to stop a fleeing African-American suspect,or foil efforts to resist arrest?

Here is Steve-O-in NJ’s Comment of the Day on the post, Maryland Strips Police Officers Of Substantive Due Process Rights: Oh, THIS Will Work Out Well, Yessiree!

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When Ethical Is Also Smart: The D.C. Statehood Dilemma

/ Jack Marshall / 49 Comments

DC statehood

The introduction of a bill for D.C. statehood seems like a good time to consider this.

The GOP opposition to statehood for the District of Columbia is a genuine example of the kind of voter suppression that the Left is unfairly and dishonestly accusing Republicans of pursuing elsewhere. The proof of this is stunningly simple: Does anyone believe that if Washington, D.C. had an overwhelmingly conservative population that could be counted on to put Republicans in office, the party wouldn’t be insisting that the city should become a state? (Does anyone believe that if this was the case, Democrats would not be opposing their position?)

The District’s largest racial group is black, with whites slightly behind. But Democrats make up more than 75% of the registered voters , while only 6% are registered Republicans. About 95% of all voters can be relied upon to vote Democratic in any election, regardless of the candidates.

Therefore Republicans don’t want the District to be able elect two Senators and a voting House member. This isn’t racial voter suppression: you know that if black voters in the District were reliable Republicans, the alternate universe I posited above would exist. But it is still voter suppression. The fact that U.S.citizens living in the nation’s Capital lack representation in Congress is a national scandal that has persisted too long.

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Morning Ethics Expectoration, 4/15/2021: I’m In A Really Bad Mood (And Ethics Is Just A Part Of It…)

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Let’s see what revoltin’ developments we have accumulated, shall we? But first, some positive news…

1. Bernie Madoff has died in prison. Good. If there was ever a case for using capitol punishment for crimes other than murder and treason, Bernie is it. He was convicted of orchestrating the biggest Ponzi scheme in American history and was serving a 150-year sentence that he managed to escape by dying in prison of natural causes at age 82. He was a stone-cold sociopath who destroyed his family, foundations, charities and lives, all out of greed. On the plus side, his exploits did spawn two excellent dramatic portrayals, one by Robert De Niro and the other by Richard Dreyfuss. I liked Richard’s better, but after his disgusting conduct during the Trump years, Robert is permanently unwelcome to my eyeballs.

So much for the good news…

2. Don’t tell me again how poor Pete Rose deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. Pete was the second Ethics Dunce of them all, way back in 2004, here. Knowing well that baseball had an iron-clad, one strike and you’re out forever rule forbidding players, coaches and managers from betting on games, he did it anyway (as a manager) because, see, he is Pete Rose, and the rules don’t apply to him, but mostly because he’s an idiot. So he got banned from the game and the Hall of Fame despite being the all-time hit leader, ahead of Ty Cobb. He’s a walking, talking ethics corrupter, prompting fans and writers to resort to rationalizations to explain why he should be forgiven.

Now we have this:

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