Month: January 2022

Ethics Shadows At Dusk, 1/25/2022: The Meming Of The President

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

I hate political memes as a rule, and thus was awash with self-loathing when the one above, which somehow I had never seen before, made me laugh out loud in light of yesterday’s Steve Doocy incident. I hate political memes for the same reason I don’t like political cartoons: they are almost always over-simplified, and aim for bias, stereotyping and emotion rather than making valid points. Trump was memed and made a caricature of himself as unfairly as any President, extending all the way to the “Trump Baby” balloon. It is healthy for a nation to be able to joke about its leaders, but relentlessly diminishing them is self-destructive. I think the public would have united behind Obama in a crisis; we saw the public unite behind Bush, even with the unusually denigrating ridicule he was subjected to. The nation, led by a permanently hostile media, would not have united behind Trump in a crisis, and I doubt that it would unite now behind Biden. Eventually, the mockery affects the office itself.

This week I saw this sticker on a gas pump for the first time (in Northern Virginia).

In addition to its obvious failures on all fronts, this Presidency is dying a death of a thousand cuts.

Therefore I was surprised to see the latest Gallup poll findings that 60% of American surveyed regard Biden as “intelligent,” the same percentage that find him “likable.” I guess relative: do they find him as or more intelligent than they are? I suppose that’s possible, maybe even accurate. Or is it just the old line, “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you President?” in action? I’ve seen a lot of Presidents, and I know the other ones pretty well. I’ve never seen a President who seemed as clearly intellectually deficient as Biden is now; he’s obviously been suffering from some kind of age-related cognitive decline for years, and he was never that bright to begin with. It was inexcusably unethical for any family, party or Biden himself to allow someone with his mental issues to be installed in the most difficult job in the country. At this point, is Biden the least intelligent President we have ever had? I’d say it’s a good bet, as frightening as that is to accept. The bottom group in my estimation would include Joe, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Warren Harding, Harry Truman, and Gerald Ford. None were probably below average, although I wonder about Harding and today’s version of Biden.

The only saving grace is that the correlation between great Presidents (or great leaders in general) and superior intelligence is strikingly weak.

1. And speaking of “Old Viginny,” a state tax on plastic bags went into effect this month. It’s 5 cents to get a plastic bag to carry your purchases, easily a 500% mark-up over the retail cost of each bag. This was another legacy of mercifully retired Gov. Northam (D) who turned into a salivating far-Left ideologue to save himself from the woke mob when photos of him surfaced either in blackface or in KKK garb—it was hard to tell which. The tax is more useless climate change virtue-signaling, regressive, and just the perfect thing to inflict on Virginians when food and drug prices are skyrocketing (the bill was passed before “I did that!” stickers were a twinkle in Republican eyes.)

In addition, the arrival of the new tax was badly publicized, and most stores didn’t bother to warn their customers. Nor do most of them have alternatives on hand. CVS, of course, which is run by fools and incompetents, just sprung the charge on people: I watched one elderly woman with about a dozen items look helplessly as the clerk asked, “Do you want a bag for these?”

We have a lot of plastic bags hoarded for Spuds-droppings and other uses: my wife said that we should bring a bunch to the CVS and hand them out. And that’s what we will do!

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“President? What President?”

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

Over the last week it has become clear to me that the nation’s #1 Democratic Party propaganda organ, the New York Times, is trying out a new strategy to mitigate the damage being inflicted on the party’s prospects by the daily botches of the Biden Presidency. I was struck on Sunday that the Times print edition, following a dreadful week for Biden including his bumbling press conference and the continuing fallout from his “Bull Connor” speech in Georgia that was roundly condemned by member of both parties, included no stories about Biden’s performance at all.

There was alleged good news for Biden—Omicron was “easing.” This was in the far right, above the fold column that during the Trump years was almost always some kind of attack on President Trump. There was a story about Russia’s nefarious plans regarding Ukraine (but no mention that Biden had virtually invited him to attack, as long as it was incremental) and China’s offensive Olympics (which Biden refused to boycott); there was the obligatory story about the Jan. 6 “insurrection,” and, at the bottom, a story headlined.” Did the Stimulus Fuel Inflation Rates? A Growing Policy Debate.” This one at least mentioned the President, once. None of the others did.

Today, President Biden’s name doesn’t appear even once on the front page of I don’t have the resources to check, but I doubt there was ever a day during the whole four years of the Trump administration when Trump’s name was not on the front page, usually in a negative headline. I doubt this has happened very often since World War II; maybe never.

To be fair, nothing happened yesterday that would reflect badly on…no wait. There was.

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Streaming Ethics Reflections

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

There is a lot of fodder for ethics analysis, consideration, enlightenment and confusion out there on the streaming platforms. For example,

  • “Ozark” has returned for it’s 4th season and presumably its last, with a half-season with a cliff-hanger. The sordid tale about an accountant (Jason Bateman) who runs for his life to the Ozarks as an involuntary  money-launderer for a drug cartel, in the process corrupting his easily corrupted wife (Laua Linney, who learns fast) and his previously innocent children, who make the Soprano kids seem like naifs, could be used to illustrate so many rationalizations, it’s mind-boggling. One persistent theme is the Ruddigore Fallacy, as the Byrds (not the rock band) constantly plan to do enough good through various schemes to make up for all the crimes they have committed and the people they’ve gotten killed.

Another persistent theme is perhaps the most perplexing and abused of the ethical values, loyalty. Continue reading →

The News About Pope Benedict And The Catholic Church Sexual Abuse Scandal: Not A Quiz, Just A Question…

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

What rationalization will be employed to excuse this?

The German law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl has concluded its detailed investigation and report on sexual abuse in Germany’s Munich diocese between 1945-2019. Among its revelations is that the now-retired previous Pope, the former Joseph Ratzinger, was responsible for enabling four cases of sexual abuse by priests in the 1970s and 1980s when he was an archbishop. The report was commissioned by the archdiocese to investigate sexual abuse.  Continue reading →

A Smoothie Incident In Connecticut

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

After the now viral video above made the rounds, James Iannazzo, 48, was arrested and charged with a hate crime following the outburst at Robeks in Fairfield, Conn. over the weekend. The Fairfield Police Department said that Iannazzo returned to the store after a smoothie he purchased caused his son, who is allergic to peanuts, to be rushed to the hospital from his home. Iannazzo apparently ordered the smoothie without peanut butter, but did not explain to employees that his son had an allergy.

The New York Post says he called a staff member a “fucking immigrant.” The Times says he called her an “immigrant loser.”

After the Merrill Lynch office where Iannazzo works was swamped in furious emails, he was fired from his job as an analyst. A spokesman for Bank of America, the parent company of Merrill Lynch, told the New York Times in an email,

“Our company does not tolerate behavior of this kind. We immediately investigated and have taken action. This individual is no longer employed at our firm.”

“When faced with a dire situation for his son, Mr. Iannazzo’s parental instinct kicked in and he acted out of anger and fear,” the father’s lawyer said. “He is not a racist individual and deeply regrets his statements and actions during a moment of extreme emotional stress.”

There are many troubling aspects to the matter.

Ethics Observations:

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Not Just An Unethical Statement, But An Unbelievable One: The New York Times

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

There’s nothing quite like starting the day with a head explosion.

A New York Times story today about the start of Sarah Palin’s libel suit against the New York Times—Conflict of interest? What conflict of interest?—contained this astounding statement:

The Times has denied those allegations, rebutting the notions that it would ever knowingly print something false…

The thrust of the Times objective, unbiased analysis of the lawsuit against the Times is that “Ms. Palin’s evidence is weak,” but she might win anyway, thus creating one more danger to democracy by weakening freedom of the press.

The evidence is weak? The Supreme Court decision in The New York Times Company v. Sullivan held that for public officials to prove defamation, they had to show not only that a news story was false and harmed their reputation, but that the story resulted from “actual malice,” involving printing a claim or allegation with “reckless disregard for the truth” or knowing it was false. Palin is suing because a Times editorial in 2017 stated that when Rep. Gabriel Giffords was shot by a lunatic in 2011, the crime had “clear[ly]“ been incited by a map circulated by  Palin’s political action committee showing 20 congressional districts that Republicans were hoping to win, including the one held by Giffords, labeled by stylized cross hairs. Continue reading →

Monday Ethics Warm-Up, 1/24/2022: Kickboxing In Margaritaville Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3HBcgxOWAQ

Today’s themes: masks, dumb quotes, incompetent leadership, and The Great Stupid.…

1. Jen Psaki on a roll…In the annals of “Imagine if President Trump did X that the news media is accepting from Biden,” or IIPTDXTTNMIAFB for short, the routinely absurd comments of White House paid liar Jen Psaki should qualify for inclusion. After all, the mainstream news media pounced on all manner of silly, offensive, off-the-cuff statements by the likes of Kellyanne Conway and other Trump surrogates, but leave it to the conservative pundits and wags to criticize equally idiotic or dishonest statements when they come from Psaki. The latest example: on “The View”—to be fair, it is understandable that anything said on “The View” would be ignored—Psaki advised frustrated Democrats,

“This is very frustrating, it is infuriating, that some people in the Senate, including the entire Republican caucus, won’t support peoples’ fundamental rights. It is also frustrating that when we talk about voter protections, just something that everybody should have the right to, some people are putting process ahead of that fundamental protection.So we have got to keep at it, including changing the rules to make sure there is a path forward to move voting rights legislation on a federal level. My advice to everyone out there who’s frustrated, sad, angry, pissed off, feel those emotions, go to a kickboxing class, have a margarita, do whatever you need to do this weekend, and then wake up on Monday and keep fighting.”

For a White House that purports to represent a coalition of the poor, downtrodden, and systemically oppressed to advise its core to turn to such privileged upper-middle class delights as mid-day margaritas and kick-boxing classes—paid for with all those pandemic aid checks no doubt—eloquently spoke to just how phony the current regime is. If a Trump spokesperson said something that dumb, Stephen Colbert would live off it for a week. But the first part was really worse. There are no endangered “rights” protected in the Democratic voting bill. There is no right to voting before election day, or not voting in person, or having third parties harvest ballots from people too lazy to deliver ballots themselves, or to vote without photo identification. These aren’t “fundamental rights’ by any definition. This kind of rhetoric had been a lie for years, and the news media allows it to continue unchallenged.

There is an implied, if not fundamental right being threatened by the bill, however. That would be the right to have confidence that there is integrity in voting system, and that there are not gaping holes, deliberately left unplugged, that can and will be exploited to steal elections if possible.

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Ah-HA! The Zoom Trial Slap-Down I’ve Been Expecting…

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

What took so long?

Add one more bit of disruption to order, law and society inflicted by Wuhan Virus Weenie-ism.

The Missouri Supreme Court, in a January 11 decision, held that defendant Rodney Smith’s Sixth Amendment right to confrontation with witnesses against him was violated by two-way live video testimony about DNA evidence.

Of course it was. I’ve been wondering about this since the beginning of the pandemic lock downs. The witness who testified via video against Smith was a police lab employee. He testified that Smith’s DNA matched what was found on the 16-year-old girl who had accused him of sexual assault. The teenager recanted, making the lab employee’s testimony key to Smith’s conviction for statutory rape. Also key: Smith’s lawyer objected on the record to the Zoom testimony. Other defense attorneys have not been so protective of their clients’ right: I view not objecting as justifying an ineffective assistance of counsel appeal.

The Missouri court distinguished a U.S. Supreme Court case, Maryland v. Craig,that allowed one-way video testimony by child-abuse victims who would be traumatized if they could see the defendant. In Smith’s case, it held, the witness “was neither a victim nor a child,” and the trial court had made no finding that he was unavailable. Moreover, the admission of his testimony was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, so the conviction must be reversed.

The guessing is that this issue will ultimately have to be decided by SCOTUS.

Two appellate courts outside of Missouri courts have reached dueling decisions on video testimony The Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled that two-way live video testimony did not violate a defendant’s rights, but you know, Minnesota. The Kentucky Court of Appeals, in contrast, upheld a decision denying a prosecutor’s request to allow a witness to testify remotely because of Wuhan virus phobia. “General concerns about the spread of the virus do not justify abridging a defendant’s right to in-person confrontation,” the court said.

The Pandemic Post I Never Wrote

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

[This post is dedicated to Michael Ejercito.]

For months, veteran prolific Ethics Alarms commenter Michael Ejercito peppered the blog with various versions of the same question: “When are you going to finish “The Pandemic Creates a Classic and Difficult Ethics Conflict…”? He was referring to this post, which went up way back in May of 2020. The rest of the title was “…But The Resolution Is Clear.” It was designated as Part I, with a Part II supposedly coming soon that would explain what that resolution was and why. It never arrived.

Stalling, I posted a Prelude to Part II. It was so long and covered so much territory that I doubt anyone read it all the way to the end (except Michael). It didn’t inspire a single comment. Here’s a precis...

No, I am not satisfied with the current draft of Part II, but I trust it’s obvious what the resolution referred to is. The lock-down has to end, and before vaccines, cures, or adequate medicine are available….It is quite striking: the arguments for continuing the lockdown indefinitely are almost entirely authored by progressives, and are without exception characterized by bad logic, emotionalism, manipulated facts, biased analysis, fearmongering, and suspect motives. The majority of the arguments for opening up the economy soon are markedly more logical, unemotional, and based on sound statistics and analysis…

It is not “plausible” that the pandemic will continue forever; pandemics don’t. And indeed, if they did, it would be an irrefutable reason to open up now. Freedom has always had a price…

…As I discussed in Part I, health experts focus almost exclusively on health. Health is not the only priority involved in the policy trade-offs involving the lockdown. The health experts don’t care about the other issues—literally, they don’t care—because it isn’t their job to care about the economy, or unemployment, or ruined careers and diminished quality of life. They should care about increased suicides during depressions, and inadequate preventative health care, and the deaths those and other consequences of the lockdown will cause, [or]…the U.S. having a catastrophic expansion of its national debt… !

…Right: nobody knows how it will play out. We do know, however, how it will play out if we lock down the economy much longer, never mind until there’s a vaccine…On this 75th Anniversary of V-E Day, it shouldn’t be hard to understand that lost lives can be acceptable when the most rational, responsible policies involve unavoidable risk.

But “Part II,” when it arrived six months later, still didn’t deliver the promised resolution. Except for the (again, long) introduction, in fact, it was a dud, but a dud that illustrated the problem with the topic. I wrote about the non-media coverage of a Johns Hopkins study that seemed to indicate that the despite the daily lists of pandemic deaths, the total deaths had not varied significantly from the previous year. As it turned out, the study was flawed, and its conclusions were not supported, though the Ethics Alarms indictment of the bias and partisan agenda indicated by the news media’s lack of coverage still applies.

So what was going to be Part II was then going to be Part III, and again stalling, I wrote a prelude to that as well. This one was mercifully short, and endorsed a statement by then President Trump as the Ethics Quote of the Century. He had said via Twitter in October, “Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life.” The post concluded,

“President Trump is among the Americans I would view most unlikely to utter an ethical statement, much less a great one, but this was a great statement, essential, inspirational, and right. I assume this is sufficient notice of what the conclusion of Part III will be.”

But there was no Part III, much to Michael’s disappointment and annoyance.

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Unethical Tweet Of The Month: The ACLU

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I think it is fair to conclude at this point (if it was not already obvious) that the American Civil Liberties Union has abandoned its original mission of being a neutral and non-partisan guardian of individual rights to being one more activist political tool of the Left. Its hostility toward transparency for school curricula marks a 180 decree turnaround for the ACLU, which has traditionally  argued for government transparency in all its activities, including public school education.

One more time, the corrupting influence here is race and “social justice,” which increasingly are regarded as taking priority over all else. Enacting the racial agenda of Black Lives Matters and its allies (like the Democratic Party) now justifies tactics and activities that the ACLU once opposed consistently. Government indoctrination is no longer an offense to freedom of speech and thought, apparently. The ends justify the means.

Once upon a time, Nevada’s ACLU fought fought for transparency when The Silver State’s schools were establishing their sex education lesson plans. Staci Pratt, Legal Director of the ACLU of Nevada, said at the time, “The days of back door decision making are over. Compliance with the open meetings law is meant to secure the opportunity of parents, students, and community members to have a meaningful impact on the development of policy. We are all well served when decisions on the appointment of sex education advisory committee members is subject to public scrutiny, rather than the result of the presentation of a narrow range of interests.”  The ACLU of Kentucky used records requests to uncover curriculum plans in all of Kentucky’s 173 school districts, seeking to find evidence of religious instruction:

The ACLU-KY sent requests to all of Kentucky’s 173 school districts seeking policies and curriculum for “Bible Literacy” courses.  While most districts are not offering these courses, the ACLU-KY found many of the courses that are being offered do not fall within constitutional strictures, which require any use of religious text in the classroom to be secular, objective, nondevotional, and must not promote any specific religious view.

The investigation uncovered public school teachers using the Bible to impart religious life lessons (Barren, McCracken, and Letcher Counties), use of online Sunday School lessons and worksheets for course source material and assignments (Letcher and Wayne Counties), and rote memorization of Biblical text (McCracken County) — practices which fall far short of academic and objective study of the Bible and its historical context or literary value.

But that was baaad indoctrination, you see. Teaching Critical Race Theory-ish interpretations of American history that tar whites as intrinsically racist, blacks as handicapped by intransigent systemic racism, and, as a special bonus, that a person is whatever gender they decide to be are all good indoctrination, and if overly conservative, contrarian or controlling parents are inclined to interfere, well, the ACLU holds that schools are justified in making sure the Neanderthals don’t find out what’s being taught. Continue reading →