Month: June 2021

Oh, No! I’m INDOCTRINATED!!!

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Hypnotist

Propaganda works; that one of the main reasons that having a national news media that does little else in its “reporting” is so dangerous and destructive. Naturally, planting slanted, shades, manipulated and biased versions of facts and reality in the minds of trusting citizens (not to mention children) works best on trusting, badly educated, pliant and gullible minds, especially those inclined toward conformity. Thanks primarily to my habitually skeptical and iconoclastic father, I am anything but inclined toward conformity, and I’m proud of that, though it has caused me much pain and inconvenience over the course of my life. That proclivity also kept me from wasting money and brain cells on pot, led me to cross student picket lines when the SDS tried to shut down my college classes, and is the reason why I cannot be embarrassed by old photos of me with hair to my shoulders, wearing pink-tinted John Lennon spectacles and a tie-dyed shirt and flashing the peace sign. There isn’t one. It’s also the reason I used my law degree to get a job running a health care organization and to become an ethicist.

So you can imagine my horror to discover that the relentless pounding on the news media, along with other segments of the culture, on the bonkers, deceptive and unethical concept that any activity that doesn’t end up neatly aligned with racial and ethnic demographics must be considered an example of systemic racism or bias is seeping into my consciousness despite my determined resistance to it. First, I read a feature in yesterday’s New York Times Business Section under “Personal Finance” in which the Times published a set of college application essays “on money and life.” Let’s ignore for the purposes of this post the fact that all five of the essays featured were endorsing the mandated woke agenda: a condemnation of unwanted sexual attention in public, a lament about the need to conserve money, a celebration of a stay-at-home mother who rejected the role, an ode to day care, and a swipe at a lack of caring in America and the fact that “sometimes the color of my skin speaks before I can.” They were all extremely, suspiciously, even, well written and interesting. But I was immediately distracted by the weird demographics. Four out of the five were women. Only one of the five wasn’t “of color.” Surely, this distribution was intentional. What did it indicate? A bias by the Times against whites and men? I found myself checking on the identity of the Times reporter, Ron Lieber. Yup, he’s white and Jewish. Did he feel he had to tilt his article way from men and white lest he be accused of sexism and not being sufficiently “antiracist?”

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Comment Of The Day: “Ethics Heroes: The US Conference of Catholic Bishops”

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

I have a few notes to clarify as I present Sarah B’s excellent Comment of the Day.

1. I should have been clear that the reason I judge the US Conference of Bishops as “Ethics Heroes” is that they are remaining true to their Church’s role as a moral authority, and not engaging in politics or utilitarian trade-offs.

2. I do not want t get into debates over morality—this is an ethics site— or Catholic Church politics. However, denying that the Pope, and therefore the Vatican, is political is impossible. The Vatican is an independent state. The Pope is the head of state. By definition, his (or is it “His”?) words are political, like the statements of all heads of state. And like all heads of state, the Pope is responsible for the political impact of what he says.

3. From the COTD below: “This debate deals with the trouble of how to get sinners to deal with the consequences of their sin without driving them away from the church and the path to heaven.” If the Church believes that life begins at conception, and it says it does, then posing abortion as a utilitarian ethics conflict has one huge and irresolvable problem. Every year, there are an estimated 40-50 million abortions, or approximately 125,000 abortions per day. The Catholic Church says that those are all premeditated murders by definition. That’s the equivalent of eight Holocausts every year. If the Church believes that, then the choice of whether to strongly condemn those who enable, support and facilitate murders of the innocent—again, that is the Church’s position, not necessarily mine—or to “drive them away from the Church” should be pretty damn easy.

4. The Catholic Church is the wealthiest organization in the world, with estimated assets of more than 30 billion dollars. It pays no taxes. How does one fairly describe the head of an organization with 30 billion dollars who lectures against the evils of greed and capitalism, and emphasizes the moral duty to share property and wealth with the poor?

Here is Sarah B.’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Heroes: The US Conference of Catholic Bishops”:

Pope Francis is not a communist. He even condemns socialism (as does the entire Catholic Church) as a grave evil. (As a note, I do not personally care much for the Pope, but will defend at least this for him.)

As for why he would “shade important Catholic doctrine”, Pope Francis is the latest personification of one side of an age old debate in the Catholic Church, doctrine vs pastoral response. This debate deals with the trouble of how to get sinners to deal with the consequences of their sin without driving them away from the church and the path to heaven. I firmly fall on the doctrinaire side of the debate, so my explanation will certainly be biased, no matter how fair I try to make this explanation, but I will try my best. On one hand, if you are too harsh on sinners, you drive them away from the faith. On the other, if you are too lenient, you risk diminishing the realization of the evil they have done, and bringing scandal (definition below) upon the church. Permitting people to receive the Eucharist after having committed grave matter is, in most minds, far too lenient. However, if we look back to history, there was a time when penances for sin were so extreme, most people refused to get baptized until their deathbed to avoid such penances. When one considers that the Catholic Church believes in both justice AND mercy for any action, it also compounds the issue.

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Satire Ethics: Carrying A Joke Too Far

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Unethical!

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s Australian wing applied to be formally recognized as anon-profit charitable entity, but was rejected on the grounds that the purported religion is nothing more than a “hoax.” Ya think? This is the deliberately ridiculous parody religion devised to mock all organized religions and those who believe in them. Pastafarians, as “believers” call themselves, have extended a gag web post ridiculing the logic of every other religion to the point of diminishing returns. Its “heaven” has a Stripper Factory and a Beer Volcano; its argument for the existence of the deity with noodely appendages involves the world distribution of pirates. Very funny. Now stop wasting everyone’s time. Ethics Alarms discussed two abuses of process by Pastafarians here and here, but as with the career of Jimmy Kimmel and the persistence of tofu, I assumed that this joke would have run its course by now. Sadly, no.

Adelaide, Australia’s Tanya Watkins is a self-described “captain” of the church (like on a pirate ship, see) , has made repeated attempts to have the “church” be granted incorporated association status. After her latest attempt was scoffed at by the Corporate Affairs Commission, Watkins sought a review by the South Australian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (SACAT), claiming the movement was formed for a “religious, educational, charitable or benevolent purpose”, thereby meeting the criteria of South Australia’s Associations Incorporation Act.

Hilarious! She should be fined.

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Ethics Heroes: The US Conference of Catholic Bishops

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Bishops

It is unusual to call an organization’s decision to follow its own rules heroic, but I have low expectations of the Roman Catholic Church. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops voted 168-55 to draft a document on “Eucharistic coherence,” because the Church has been anything but coherent regarding the status of allegedly devout Catholics who support abortion.

Catholics are forbidden from participating in the ritual of the Eucharist if they are in a state of sin. Abortion is considered a very serious sin in the Catholic Church, which holds that life begins at conception. Thus a public figure, indeed an elected official, indeed a President, who openly supports abortion cannot take holy communion, because he is endorsing and enabling a serious sin. This isn’t hard. The much publicized “controversy” over the Bishops’ decision to follow their own Church’s ancient rules ( and those of the New Testament: “Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.” — 1 Corinthians 11:27-30 ) resembles the current controversy in baseball over the MLB decision to enforce the hundred-year-old rule against pitchers doctoring the ball.

I know, everything reminds me of baseball, which has played a much greater role in my life than religion. But this is the same situation at its essence. The Catholic Church ducked, weaved and looked the other way while many U.S. politicians professed their belief in Catholicism as they openly and directly contradicted and actively undermined the Church’s core beliefs. They sought to have the benefit of appealing to the religious while simultaneously advocating a practice that their own Church condemns.

The New York Times—my wife keeps asking me why we pay 80 bucks a month for this shameless propaganda device, and I am running out of reasons—says that the Bishops’ vote is a “move to target a president, who regularly attends Mass and has spent a lifetime steeped in Christian rituals and practices, is striking coming from leaders of the president’s own faith, particularly after many conservative Catholics turned a blind eye to the sexual improprieties of former President Donald J. Trump because they supported his political agenda.”

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Insomnia Ethics Obsessions, 6/19/2021: Bad Art, Bad Employee, Bad Children’s Book, And Other Bad Stuff

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Sleeping disorder or insomnia concept

I’m starting this post at 4:11 am. Is the infuriating Red Sox loss because an umpire called an obvious ball four a strike responsible? Is it the Facebook friend’s fatuous post about how opposing the teaching of systemic racism is systemic racism? Or is it the picante sauce and Tostidos at 11:30? I may never know.

1. When ethics alarms don’t ring in Shanghai...The OCT Contemporary Art Terminal (OCAT), a Shanghai museum advertised artist Song Ta’s artwork with the Chinese title “Campus Flower” and English title “Uglier and Uglier”featuring a collection of still images and videos completed in 2013. Ta recorded women passing by him, then he rated them and numbered them according to how beautiful (or not) he thought they were, showing them in a seven-hour video from prettiest to ugliest.

For some reason, the women included without their consent and others with a shred of decency had a problem with this. After furious criticism, the museum announced that it would immediately remove the artwork, saying,

“After receiving criticism, we re-evaluated the content of this artwork and the artist’s explanation, we found it disrespected women, and the way it was shot has copyright infringement issues. As a museum that supports diversity, we will take this as a warning, improve our services and treat everyone with empathy.”

Sure. If the individuals running the museum remain in charge, I wouldn’t hold out much hope that the management would be able to recognize an unethical exhibit if it contained neon signs flashing UNETHICAL.

2. Here’s a fanatic’s reaction to the passage of “Juneteenth” as a national holiday! Let’s play “When did the writer lose all credibility?” It was here: “Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas reintroduced his Saving American History Act, which would ban federal funding to schools that have New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic, “The 1619 Project,” on their curricula. Like his fellow Republicans, Cotton is about as concerned with saving American history as GOP-led state legislatures passing voter suppression laws are interested in protecting election integrity.” Citing winning a Pulitzer Prize is a dishonest appeal to a discredited authority, and calling the thoroughly debunked and discredited 1619 Project epic, or even history, is proof or an opinion writer whose opinions aren’t worth considering.

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Res Ipsa Loquitur: “State Election Board Report –November 13, 2020 Unabridged Notes Detailing Everything Witnessed Nov 2-Nov 7, 2020”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Report

Tell me again how there is no reason to doubt the integrity of the 2020 Presidential election, and how President Trump’s claims that the election was “stolen” are baseless, and how any skeptic who states that the vote totals may have been manipulated is “lying.”

A private report from a contractor hired by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to monitor the Atlanta-area election process” was released yesterday by Just the News.

The report chronicles seven days of problems, unexplained behavior, and ominous irregularities.

Constructed like a minute-by-minute diary, contractor Carter Jones cited double-counting of votes, insecure storage of ballots, possible violations of voter privacy, the mysterious removal of election materials at a vote collection warehouse, and the suspicious movement of “too many” ballots on Election Day.

“This seems like a massive chain of custody problem,” Jones warned in the memo delivered by his firm Seven Hill Strategies to Raffensperger’s office shortly after the election. (Why we are only seeing it now is a topic for investigation all its own.) That obervation occured at 4:00 p.m. on Election Day, as Jones observed absentee ballots arriving at the county’s central absentee scanning center at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena “in rolling bins 2k at a time.” “It is my understanding is that the ballots are supposed to be moved in numbered, sealed boxes to protect them,” he wrote. They weren’t. He also observes, “Too many ballots coming in for secure black ballot boxes,” he observed.

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Further Reflections On “Juneteenth”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Guest Post by Michael West

My summary observations of something that is more complex than most people make it out to be:

The Fourth of July must always be the preeminent holiday in the American “liturgy”. Even for the slaves whose lives were spent in a state of legalized kidnapping, it was their Independence Day also even while they didn’t enjoy the reality of it. Yet I understand some arguments, such as those who perpetuate Frederick Douglass’s observations on Independence Day. But frankly, anyone espousing that attitude *still* are anti-American.

BUT, it should surely be acknowledged that even while Independence Day was for ALL Americans (even those who in reality didn’t enjoy its blessings), there were those who in reality didn’t enjoy its blessings. And an end to their legalized kidnapping, finally realizing the values of the Declaration, SHOULD be celebrated.

Now, whether that celebration ought to be “Juneteenth”, or the ratification of the 13th Amendment (January 31, 1865), or the Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863), or the defeat of the Confederacy, I don’t know. Still, it is appropriate for the U.S. to honor such a momentous event that all Americans should be grateful for.

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A Hanlon’s Razor Conundrum: The Case Of The Missing Cheerleader

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

cheerleader left out

This one made me want to cry.

Fourteen-year-old Morgyn Arnold grew up in Layton, Utah cheering for her six older siblings at sporting events, and worked hard to become an official cheerleader, like her father and sister before her.

Morgyn has Down syndrome, so being on the Shoreline Junior High School cheerleading squad as the team manager means more to her than being part of a cheer team does to most cheerleaders, giving her pride and a sense of achievement while providing the opportunity to make new friends. She also learned all of the dance moves so she could cheer in front of the home team crowd.

It is understandable, then, that she was, according to her family, heartbroken when the school’s yearbook came out a few weeks ago and Morgyn was not in the team picture or listed as part of the squad. What isn’t understandable is how this could happen. The school apologized and claimed it was a “mistake.” Morgyn’s sister Jordan Poole believes the cruel snub was intentional.

So do I.

Two pictures were taken, one including Morgyn, on the left, and the other excluding her. Why would there be two pictures, unless someone thought that they might choose to use the photo with only the conventionally pretty girls in it? Team mate Maddie Campbell, 15, said she did not remember whether the photographer or the team’s adviser asked Morgyn to sit out of some of the team’s photos, and does not recall hearing any explanation for the action. She says she thought it was a weird request at the time.

Well, now she knows why they did it. Sure enough, the photo without Morgyn was used in yearbooks and school social media accounts.

Hence the Hanlon’s Razor controversy. Hanlon’s Razor states that one should never assume malice when stupidity can explain conduct. But who is that stupid? And who could be that malicious?

Davis School District community relations supervisor Shauna Lund told The New York Times that the incident was “under investigation” and the school planned to work with the family to “make sure this doesn’t happen again.” Oh, I think it’s fair to say that they won’t leave out Morgyn’s photo again. THAT would really be stupid.

Then Lund mouthed the mandatory wokisms. “We also want to apologize to those who were impacted outside of that family who feel that something was done to not be inclusive. We want the student to feel like she is included in the community. We want to apologize for that mistake,” said Lund. The family doesn’t “feel” something was done: their daughter was excluded from the yearbook, which is not “inclusive” by definition.

Morgyn’s father, Jeff Arnold, is almost as bad as Lund. He said that instead of placing the blame on the school, he wanted to use the situation to raise awareness of the importance of “thoughtful inclusion and compassion.” “If we can find ways so that doesn’t happen to anyone else, that’s just what we want,” Mr Arnold said. “That’s all that matters, because we can’t go back and put it in the yearbook.”

No, but you can sue the school for negligent infliction of emotional distress. You know how to ensure this doesn’t happen to anyone else? Make it hurt. Don’t let these administrators get off with cheap pieties. Make it hurt enough that the little monsters who conspired to shun the Down Symdrome girl are made to regret their cruelty, and that the sleepy faculty advisor who let this happen under his or her watch is soon searching the online want ads

Poll says her sister has already forgiven everyone involved. Of course she has. Down Syndrome kids are usually instinctively kind and generous. One of their differences is that they seem to be imbued with a natural sweetness, and intrinsic ethical instincts. So, naturally, her school mates decided to rip her heart out.

Shoreline Junior High is fortunate that I am not Morgyn’s father, and if my wife Grace were her mother, the staff would have to hide out in Monument Valley. Trust me.

Post Script: Our professional journalists at work: In four sources, I found Morgyn’s name spelled Morgyn, Morgan, and Morgin, with multiple spellings appearing in the one article.

Reflections On “Juneteenth”

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Juneteenth

Guest Post by A.M. Golden

[Well THAT was fast! This morning’s Open Forum generated not one but two guest post-worthy comments regarding the newly created “Juneteenth” national holiday. I had intended to post on it yesterday; for once I’m pleased that life got in the way. This is the first; the second will appear shortly, and who knows? There may be more!–JM]

So let’s talk about Juneteenth, shall we?

A blatant attempt to pander to the African-American community. A federal holiday that only a small group of people actually celebrate. I’m still trying to figure out if I can go to the post office tomorrow.

I’ve also read one article already by a person of color who admits to feeling uncomfortable with the thought of white people celebrating this holiday.

So, no, this won’t be divisive, will it?

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In Iowa, An Unattributed Shout Of “Let Him Hang” Becomes A National Race Incident…

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

I missed this story; luckily a reader, whom I am not certain whether he wants his name posted, didn’t. He sent it to me, writing in part, “So the catcher [Yes, it’s a baseball story] clapped and the word hang was heard. Both could be explained by the way teams talk to each other to cheer the team on. But it’s presented as if a MAJOR racial incident occurred. A half page article in a major news publication designed to stir animosity.”

That’s exactly what happened, though it wasn’t just the news media, it was all triggered by a mixed-race high school baseball player’s mother who has been conditioned to see racism whether it is in evidence or not. This is another success of the progressive racial outrage project.

Here is what happened, courtesy of the Des Moines Register yesterday. I’m going to interject my analysis as we go along to save time:

“Norwalk Warriors baseball player Ryan Wood was up to bat with three balls and two strikes in a doubleheader against Dallas Center-Grimes on Friday as his mother, Lisa Wood, watched from a seat in the stands. Wood said the DCG pitcher threw a ball into the opposite batter box, “practically in the dirt,” and Ryan, who recently graduated from Norwalk, went to walk to first base. He was halfway there when the umpire called a strike.”

Comment: Typical parent: Ryan’s mom was well up the third base line, but she was certain that she saw the pitch better than the umpire, who was behind the plate and inches away. Baseball players are coached to sometime try to steal a ball four call by starting to walk to first base. Once in a blue moon, it works.

“While Ryan, who is of mixed race, walked back to the plate, Lisa Wood said that DCG’s catcher clapped in her son’s face. “My son strikes out and the catcher yells at him ‘Go sit down,’ …And then somebody — whether it was the catcher or another in the dugout … somebody said, ‘Let him hang.’” Wood said the racial jeer was so loud that all of the parents near the outfield heard it, adding that she was “so shocked” that she turned to her 14-yearold daughter, who was sitting next to her in the stands to confirm what she’d heard.”

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