Month: July 2022

Ethics Quiz: Grandstanding Or Justice?

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Weird.

A team searching a Mississippi courthouse basement for evidence about the infamous lynching of black teenager Emmett Till in 1955 stumbled upon the unserved arrest warrant charging Carolyn Bryant Donham— identified as “Mrs. Roy Bryant” on the document—with the 14-year-old boy’s abduction. Donham was the young woman who falsely claimed that Till had whistled at her and grabbed her, causing a mob of white men to murder him. The warrant was never served, apparently because the Jim Crow-era Mississippi sheriff didn’t feel a mother with two children should be prosecuted. Now Till’s family wants Donham, 88, arrested and tried...almost 70 years after the crime.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz on this Independence Day weekend is…

Would it be ethical to do this? 

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Dictionary Of The Great Stupid: Our Leftist Institutions Of Learning Think Controlling Speech Is The Secret To A Better Society

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Campus Reform, a conservative site with the depressing job of tracing the ethics rot in our educational institutions, has covered some truly nauseating examples of colleges and universities (or influential figures in them) encouraging  censorship and language manipulation as legitimate methods of indoctrination, or, as they call it, “education.”

Here are some highlights:

Not “inclusive” enough….

You know why. Now there will be a “Spirit of Pitt” award to avoid acknowledging the existence of genders.

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Pre-Independence Day Ethics Warm-Up, July 3, 2022: What Might Have Been [Broken Link Fixed]

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Typically, Ethics Alarms has highlighted July 3 with reflections on the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, for which the 3rd was the dramatic last and decisive day. I know it must be hard to believe, but I do get tired of writing the same things over and over again, an occupational hazard of being an ethicist during a mass ethics breakdown in our democracy and among the increasingly corrupt people we have put in power to protect it. I still can’t ignore Pickett’s futile charge and Custer’s charge as well, so I direct you to last year’s post on both events and their ethics implications.

However, this year I am introducing the July 3 warm-up with another crucial anniversary, one that may have had even more impact on the history of the United States, its prospects and its values than Gettysburg. July 2, 1776 is when the Continental Congress finally agreed to take the leap and forge a new nation (John Adams thought the 2nd would be the day we celebrated) and July 4, 1776 was the date the document was signed. But in-between those more noted dates the Continental Congress began debating and editing Jefferson’s draft Declaration, eventually making 86 edits that cut the length by about a fourth. 

Because the Declaration of Independence is the mission statement of America, framing and sometimes compelling what followed, especially the Constitution, the editing decisions of July 3, 1776 affected our laws and culture in many ways that are unimaginable after more than 200 years. You can read the original here. It is this deleted paragraph, however, that most inspires reflections on what might have been (and what might not):

“He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.”

Now on to the present day’s ethics concerns...

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New York’s New Gun Law To Counter The SCOTUS Bruen Ruling Is Unconstitutional, The State’s Democrats Know It, And They Don’t Care

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Conclusion: this is not a political party (nor are is progressivism an Ideology) that supports or respects democracy or the Rule of Law.

In the process of passing a restrictive law that bans legally-licensed guns in “many public settings such as subways and buses, parks, hospitals, stadiums and day cares…[and] Times Square Guns as well as on private property “unless the property owner indicates that he or she expressly allows them,” New York legislators included this language in the law:

THE APPLICANT SHALL MEET IN PERSON WITH THE LICENSING OFFICER FOR AN INTERVIEW AND SHALL, IN ADDITION TO ANY OTHER INFORMATION OR FORMS REQUIRED BY THE LICENSE APPLICATION SUBMIT TO THE LICENSING OFFICER THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION: (I) NAMES AND CONTACT INFORMATION FOR THE APPLICANT’S CURRENT SPOUSE, OR DOMESTIC PARTNER, ANY OTHER ADULTS RESIDING IN THE APPLICANT’S HOME, INCLUDING ANY ADULT CHILDREN OF THE APPLICANT, AND WHETHER OR NOT THERE ARE MINORS RESIDING, FULL TIME OR PART TIME, IN THE APPLICANT’S HOME; (II) NAMES AND CONTACT INFORMATION OF NO LESS THAN FOUR CHARACTER REFERENCES WHO CAN ATTEST TO THE APPLICANT’S GOOD MORAL CHARACTER AND THAT SUCH APPLICANT HAS NOT ENGAGED IN ANY ACTS, OR MADE ANY STATEMENTS THAT SUGGEST THEY ARE LIKELY TO ENGAGE IN CONDUCT THAT WOULD RESULT IN HARM TO THEMSELVES OR OTHERS; (III) CERTIFICATION OF COMPLETION OF THE TRAINING REQUIRED IN SUBDIVISION NINETEEN OF THIS SECTION; (IV) A LIST OF FORMER AND CURRENT SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS OF THE APPLICANT FROM THE PAST THREE YEARS TO CONFIRM THE INFORMATION REGARDING THE APPLICANTS CHARACTER AND CONDUCT AS REQUIRED IN SUBPARAGRAPH (II) OF THIS PARAGRAPH; AND (V) SUCH OTHER INFORMATION REQUIRED BY THE LICENSING OFFICER THAT IS REASONABLY NECESSARY AND RELATED TO THE REVIEW OF THE LICENSING APPLICATION.

What the hell is “good moral character”? Is any Constitutional right dependent on “good moral character”? The answer is no, because first, citizens have certain guaranteed rights regardless of their character, second, the right to bear arms is one of those rights, and third, opinions on what constitutes good moral character is subjective. For example, I think elected legislators in the United States who deliberately pass unconstitutional laws have terrible character. Could voting or freedom of speech be made contingent on a government agent’s judgment of a citizen’s character? No—it’s not even a valid question. No. Obviously no.

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Ethics Quiz: The Secret Service Defies Orders!

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

As soon as I saw the headline to Prof. Turley’s latest post on his blog, “Res Ipsa Loquitur” I knew we had an ethics quiz: “Presidential Protection or Abduction: Why Secret Service Wrong for all the Right Reasons on Jan. 6.”

Turley’s article was prompted by one aspect of the Jan. 6 Commission testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson that President Trump ordered his official SUV to take him to the U.S. Capitol to be on hand with his supporters as they rallied (it turned out to be a “mostly peaceful” rally) against what Trump had told them was the stolen 2020 election. According to the witness, that she was told that T his Secret Service security team refused, causing the President to become furious.

Turley’s take, in brief:

…the Secret Service is trained to take immediate action to protect a president. On the other hand, it cannot effectively control the presidency by controlling a president like a modern Praetorian Guard. In the end, if this account is true, the security team was likely wrong in refusing the order of the President to be taken to Capitol Hill….Trump intended to do exactly what he promised and ordered the Secret Service to take him to the Capitol. But Tony Ornato, White House deputy chief of staff for operations, and Bobby Engel, who headed Trump’s security detail, reportedly refused.

…If true, the security team’s motivation certainly was commendable. It probably prevented Jan. 6 from getting much, much worse…what was the authority of the security team to refuse a direct order from a sitting president to go to Congress?

…The Secret Service has always assumed discretion in seizing a president to protect him from immediate harm [but there was no immediate harm threatened]…Trump reportedly decided he wanted to lead the protests to the Capitol and didn’t care about the security uncertainties — and he actually had a right to do so. Presidents can elect to put themselves in harm’s way… The Secret Service has no authority to put a president into effective custody against his will… In Trump’s case, he reportedly said he did not want to go back to the White House but was taken there anyway.

…This act of disobedience may have saved the country from an even greater crisis…

In the end, the security team was correct on the merits but probably wrong on the law. This was not an unlawful order, and a president must be able to control his own travel. In other words, the agents were wrong for all the right reasons.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is: Continue reading →

From The “Res Ipsa Loquitur” (“The Thing Speaks For Itself”) Files

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

In addition, this is also signature significance.

What kind of political party in America over its long history, other than the American Communist Party, would think it would be appropriate to post such a thing, even once? What kind of political party would have such Bizarro World American values that it would think, even for a second, that its members and potential recruits would appreciate such a sentiment? What kind of political party would hire someone, even one employee—I don’t care if he or she is a teenager—who would lack the ethics alarms to know such an announcement would be a national insult?

As I’ve mentioned before, one supplementary benefit of the Dobbs decision is that it has caused a lot of activists, politicians, celebrities and organizations to show the world just how ruthless, corrupted and vicious they are.

The tweet was deleted.

Too late!

More Evidence (As If More Were Needed) Of Dead Ethics Alarms In California

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Five years ago, California passed a law blocking most taxpayer-funded travel to states “deemed” to have passed laws that discriminate against LGBTQ people. The key word is “deemed.” Assembly Bill 1887 was a response to a North Carolina law that required people to use public bathrooms based on the sex shown on their birth certificate. That’s not discrimination. That’s “a legitimate approach to a difficult issue that a powerful voting bloc in California has strong feelings about.” Twelve states landed on California’s first boycott list, and then, on June 28th, the 52nd anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, gay Attorney General Rob Bonta (above) announced that he was adding Florida and four other states to its official travel ban list, claiming that they passed “anti-LGBTQ” laws that are “directly targeting transgender youth.”

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Oh Yeah, This Should Be Worth A BLM Riot…

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Eight police officers in Akron, Ohio, fired nearly 100 bullets into Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old black man after they attempted to pull the car he was driving over shortly after midnight. Walker hit the accelerator resulting in a high-speed chase. Then Walker attempted  to flee on foot and, according to police, fired a gun.   weapon.

According to the Akron Police Department Facebook page, “actions by the suspect caused the officers to perceive he posed a deadly threat to them. In response to this threat, officers discharged their firearms, striking the suspect.”

He died shortly thereafter. Continue reading →

End Of Week Ethics Wrap-Up, July 1, 2022: Freakouts, Freakouts Everywhere….[Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Prelude: Why is the President of the United States attacking the Supreme Court in Madrid? His comments about a judicial body deliberating on the Constitution is not only wildly inappropriate for a President speaking abroad, his words were either calculated to make ignorant Americans even more ignorant about what the Court is, or show that he doesn’t understand himself (or no longer does). Biden called the Dobbs decision “outrageous behavior.” A SCOTUS ruling isn’t “behavior”; even Dred Scott wasn’t “behavior.” These are scholarly judicial analyses. Then he accused the Court of being “the one thing that has been destabilizing” to the nation. The Supreme Court? Upholding the Constitution is maintaining the foundation of the democracy: how is that destabilizing? Holding political show trials to try to find something that the previous President can be jailed for is destabilizing. Threatening parents who challenge indoctrinating school boards is destabilizing. Not enforcing U.S. laws at the border is destabilizing. Attacking the Supreme Court is destabilizing.

Then Biden said that Dobbs was “essentially challenging the right to privacy.” No it wasn’t, but let’s reflect back on an earlier incoherent and dim-witted statement Biden made about abortion after the Alito opinion leaked:

“I mean, so the idea that we’re going to make a judgment that is going to say no one can make a judgment to choose to abort a child based upon a decision by the Supreme Courts, I think goes way overboard.

Of course, the decision didn’t say, in May or now, that “no one can make a judgement to have an abortion.” I think Biden was and is shooting off his mouth without reading the opinion. But never mind that: he said “abort a child.” Not only does he approve of abortion, but regards it as killing a child, and must think that “privacy” includes virtual infanticide. Oh, I know, he doesn’t know what he thinks: he used to claim that there was no right to abortion. But if he’s that muddled on the issue, and he is, what business does he have impugning the decision of SCOTUS justices wrestling with difficult topic—in Spain—at all?

1. Oh, why not? Here are some more Dobbs freakouts:

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