Gee, that Steven Tyler mouth is kind of scary, isn’t it?
Well, never fear: all ethical entries about ethics topics are welcome and safe.
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Gee, that Steven Tyler mouth is kind of scary, isn’t it?
Well, never fear: all ethical entries about ethics topics are welcome and safe.
Ethics Alarms 
I first heard the term “banana republic” in a silly argument with my brother when we were both smart, but nowhere near fully educated. I believe he referred to a petty tyrant as a “cheap, two-bit dictator of a banana republic.”
Generally, the expression refers to petty third world dictatorships whose economy revolves around a single product, and who’s Constitution is fairly meaningless if they even have one. If you piss off El supremo you can very quickly find yourself locked in a dirty cell for the rest of your life without much of a trial or any guarantee of due process. It’s the kind of society where as you grow up you may or may not learn the three r’s, but you do learn very quickly to keep your mouth shut lest you antagonize those in power and bad consequences fall on you, often totally out of proportion to whatever it is you might have said.
It’s the kind of place where what belongs to you belongs to El supremo, and what belongs to El supremo belongs to El supremo too, the kind of place where doors get kicked in any time of day or night, and the kind of place where political opponents either get locked up on a permanent basis or disappear in the middle of the night, never to be seen again.
Sometimes they collapse into venality and savagery, like when Saddam Hussein had three meals cooked every day in every one of his palaces, whether he was going to be there or not, and did not hesitate to use rape and acid baths as punishment. Sometimes they become refined versions of totalitarianism where every aspect of society is used for control, like when the final coterie of living dead Soviet leaders before Gorbachev weaponized psychiatry to justify declaring anyone who disagreed with their perfect form of government insane and sending them for treatment at sanitariums which were nothing more than prisons.
If I were to sound the alarm bell that we could be headed in that direction, no doubt a bunch of you folks out there would say I was crazy, that this country could never become like that. I would respond that we already took a few steps in that direction back during the Red scare,. A time when you might find yourself having to answer before the Senate or the House Un-American activities committee because know something you said that you didn’t remember saying or some meeting you barely remembered attending, but someone did, and brought it to the authorities’ attention. What you did might well have been benign, but it didn’t matter, just because you got accused you might find yourself facing financial and personal ruin.
But hey, this can’t happen here, right? We left all that behind almost 70 years ago, right? Are you sure about that? We don’t talk about the bourgeoisie like the Soviets did, but we fling the accusation of “privilege” around with wild abandoned at anyone who seems to be doing better and won’t get on board with the current progressive cant. We don’t lock people up for displaying insufficient loyalty to the party, but now we talk about the FBI looking into parents who insist on having a say in their children’s education as possible racists. Communism was the accusation 70 years ago, racism is the accusation now. Law enforcement up to now at least pretended to be nonpartisan. Now it does the bidding of one party against the other. The military was supposedly above the fray and didn’t get involved in partisan politics. Now it’s highest officer claims he fought his commander-in-chief from the inside. The thought of using law enforcement against a political opponent was at best just bluster. Yes, I know Trump had supporters who yelled “lock her up!” with regard to Hillary, but he never took any steps towards doing it.
The road to tyranny is shorter than you think, and I think we just took an additional step on the road towards it. Can you really trust a government that puts its own people last? Can you really trust law enforcement that applies one set of laws to political insiders and another to everyone else? Can you trust the military whose highest officer admittedly works against his commander in chief? If the answer isn’t no, then I think you have to look inward and ask exactly what principles are you paying allegiance to.
Once again, Steve, you are spot on. Nicely done.
jvb
This is how a Democratic Party propaganda narrative starts and gets promoted by activist parrots of the Democratic Party.
Notice the tried and true “people familiar with the investigation” droning mantra that’s been used so effectively in anti-Republican propaganda narratives since 2016. This is unverified and therefore unethical journalism and CNN thinks they should be parroting it. The sheeple will swallow it hook line and sinker without knowing if it’s true or not.
I’m really getting sick and tired of being sick and tired!
I was struck by this as well. So, the FBI is leaking stuff to the Washington Post. Those wonderful public servants and those dogged reporters.
I have read a few articles that make a good case that the Washington Post exists so the intelligence agencies have a place to leak things.
Why didn’t they just claim Trump had the severed head of an alien space captain stashed in his basement? It would be equally plausible. Sure…Trump stole the nuclear codes and ran off with them, then stashed them in the basement of his golf resort. Totally believable. What a load of bullshit.
The media hasn’t stopped making shit up since the news dropped. Newsweek has the scoop on the story, and this was all the FBI! Reliable sources confirm! Except then Garland came out yesterday and said he signed off on it, so there goes that super reliable information down the porcelain throne.
Now its nuclear info the government just really needs to retrieve the super reliable media says, on authority of their super reliable anonymous sources.
They are flat out making shit up. As usual.
Meanwhile, in reality land, it doesn’t flipping matter WHY the Biden administration is stomping around in their gestapo boots. The important part is the gestapo boots!! If the media can get the people arguing about what Trump supposedly did then they have done their job and distracted the people from the important bit: the government has gone full totalitarian.
Democrat voters, meanwhile, are celebrating the move to full totalitarianism because they are to stupid to notice that totalitarianism never stays focused on only the tribe they hate today, and moves on to hating the chosen ones tomorrow. Who needs to worry about tomorrow when you can get the blood of your enemies running in the streets today! That’s all that matters!
Conservatives are already very busy arguing that they need to do absolutely nothing in response because that would be icky. Might cause problems to equally apply the law to everyone. The left might get mad and we cannot have the chosen ones upset. Let’s throw the concept of equal justice under the law, the rule of law, and the constitution under the bus, and just whine that the democrats are mean. That should teach them a lesson. Everyone knows authoritarianism and totalitarianism are stopped by indignation and bluster. Plus, the voters will likely forget this as soon as the democrats pull some new outrageous stunt, which the would only do as soon as possible due to the lack of consequences, so let’s make sure there are no consequences. In fact, let’s just pardon the entire democrat political elite with permanent, blanket indemnity for any past, present or future crimes in perpetuity so that no one can ever accuse conservatives of anything. That totally makes people want to vote Republican. No looking into any crimes committed by democrats, no prosecuting crimes committed by democrat, let’s take the high road down the path to totalitarianism. Great plan.
Let’s just all forget the entire thing. Nothing to see here. You will eat the bugs in your green, powerless hovels, own nothing and be happy with in a few short years. It’s all going to work out juuust fine.
By the way; yesterday on the ABC evening news they were presenting the narrative that “there’s information that” (or something along those lies, I don’t remember the exact words) that President Trump’s lawyers were preparing a motion to deny the release of the warrant documents as if it was fact and basically implying that there was something in the papers that President Trump didn’t want the American people to see.
Bias can certainly make someone stupid but these people have completely lost their fucking minds…
“suggest the execution of former President Donald Trump”
Really?
https://www.foxnews.com/media/msnbcs-beschloss-former-cia-director-hayden-suggest-trump-executed-having-nuclear-documents
The Trumps are now THE ROSENBERGS! Maybe Jack can give us the low-down on Beschloss as he is a presidential historian.
I was hoping someone would ask! He’s a hack. Jumped the shark a long time ago. He was the one who started that factually false excuse for Hillary that I wrote about the morning after:
The most embarrassing spin of the night came from partisan Presidential historian and CNN contributor Michael Beschloss. Beschloss has disgraced his profession by slowly morphing into a Obama-celebratiing hack while leaving history in the dust, but last night was a new low even for him. As the tide was turning decisively against the Democrats, he came on the screen with a theory that would erase any larger significance of Trump’s shocking victory. He quotes a conversation he had with the President in which, allegedly, Obama expressed doubts about whether he would be succeeded by a Democrat, saying that sometimes voters want that “new car smell.” ( 1. Ew. 2. Typical and telling expression of condescension from Obama.) Beschloss then lectures the CNN viewers, saying that it is “very hard” for any party to win the White House three terms in a row. You see? This is just the normal political cycle! Nothing to see here! It isn’t Hillary’s fault, and certainly not Obama’s! The esteemed historian then noted that it has happened occasionally, as when Reagan was succeeded by the first Bush, and “in 1838, when Andrew Jackson was able to have himself succeeded by Martin Van Buren.”
Wow! Only twice, then?
Funny, I seem to recall that the Republican Party had (let’s see..) 1,2,3,4,5, 6 consecutive terms from 1860 to 1884. Wait…wasn’t there also the McKinley-Teddy-Taft string of four terms with Republican Presidents? Then another three straight from 1920 (Harding), through Coolidge, to Hoover, until FDR won the Presidency in 1932? Of course, then FDR combined with Truman to hold the White House in Democratic hands for five consecutive terms.
Or to put it another way, renowned Presidential historian Michael Beschloss abused his authority and misinformed millions with bogus history, all concocted to alibi for Hillary.
Well, it was late, and he was in mourning.
Since you didn’t bother to include a single word of personal commentary indicating your opinion and I know you aren’t an idiot; so, I’m just going to ask you a very pointed question…
Do you not understand how immoral propaganda like this works?
Don’t try to rationalize what these immoral political hacks are intentionally doing.
Sorry I just keep remembering lock her up chants and finding that I don’t give any fucks if someone suggests Trump is as bad as the Rosenbergs.
Then I remember the hang Mike Pence chants and find I don’t give any fucks if someone points out that espionage cna caryr the death penalty especially when we know he’ll never get it.
Then I remember that yesterday a MAGAt attacking a FBI office with a nail gun and a rifle and all the not very veiled threats of what will happen if Trump is ever arrested and find your protestations very disingenuous.
valkygrrl wrote…
[My bold enhancement]
Interesting.
Why did you find my “protestations very disingenuous”? You haven’t heard ANY of that crap from me and I don’t justify ANY of that crap, so exactly why did you feel the need to link me to that crap?
Then I remember the Bernie Bro who assaulted a baseball game with a rifle and tried to massacre Cnngressmen. We almost went down a really dangerous road once, it’s a terrible idea to go down it again.
I’m remembering lefties blowing up ICE facilities, burning down cities, murdering…what, 17 people or so during the summer of love, taking over chunks of cities and declaring them new countries, burning down police stations and Hillary Clinton setting up a server in her bathroom, sending tons of classified documents to it, and destroying all the evidence when she got caught. We can play whataboutism games all damn day, but Trump never sent the FBI to raid Hillary Clinton’s home, now did he? Trump never weaponized the IRS or FBI against his political opponents. The totalitarian boot stomping is the the purview of the left wing communo-fascist party. They own it, celebrate it, and brag about it. When the country collapses into civil war they might stop finding it so damn funny.
Yep, and Kamala set up bail defense funds for those lovely people.
jvb
They are selectively pro-riot.
Bernie bros certainly suck, no argument there.
The distinction, though, is that the government and its law enforcement agencies didn’t mount a criminal probe against her and raid/search/visit/drop by announced at her home to ask her for the hall closet server or which bleach she used to disinfect the hard drive (I hear tell Clorox is a good germ controller). Additionally, Trump never unleashed the hounds of hell to track her down and arrest her on the spot. He also didn’t unleash law enforcement on Biden and his son for their actions in China and/or Ukraine. Little distinctions, I know, but, hey . . .
jvb
That attack was immoral and unethical, even against an organizartion thart is as unsympathetic as the Chicago Police Department.
But all my history books in public school said the Rosenbergs were innocent and were part of a bigoted witch hunt against Communists and Jews. All my history teachers in schools used them as an example of why Republicans were evil. Why are they bad now?
Yes, this is sarcasm, but also true.
They were guilty as hell in my school’s history books which is convenient as they were guilty as hell in reality.
Here is an article written by my longtime Usenet ally dfrom twelve years ago.
https://groups.google.com/g/soc.culture.israel/c/tbBRSIyWta0/m/qP1IXXadfoYJ
You shoukld also read the replies.
I was afraid my reply to this would be too spicy. In other news, Salmon Rushdie was just stabbed on stage in New York.
Mohammed made several pronouncements granting permission to worship polytheistic gods along with Allah. He later denounced those, claiming they were given to him by Satan, not the Archangel Gabriel, as he thought. Muslim do not like anyone talking about these Satanic verses.
Check out this video.
Would a 5 mph national speed limit save lives?
Or is convenience more important than life?
What we need are 9000 lb electric Hummers. If the woman had been driving one of those, everything would have been better…because global warming.
I can’t drive five.
OK, I will treat this as a serious question. Convenience IS life. If we have a 5 mph speed limit, that is going to limit the range that goods and services can be transported to 100 miles or so from ports, airports, etc. For people with a medical emergency, forget about those specialists and fancy hospitals. You are going to the closest one you can walk to or be carried to. Forget about freedom of movement, you will be stuck where you are. For people on the coasts, it might not be so bad, they would have access to the benefit of >5mph transportation, unlike the people in the interior. If you want to start a Civil War by creating a class of haves and have nots, this isn’t a bad plan. It is like the lockdowns. It was immediately obvious that the cascading effects would just be too far-reaching to justify it.
If you doubt convenience is life, try to find out how much refrigeration extended life expectancy.
To emphasize what Michael R said,
A five mph limit is or an inconvenience to anyone in the Mountain West. East Coast folks forget how far things are out here. The nearest dentist who will see someone under 12 is 100 miles away. My mom drives 300 to see her neurologist for her MS. My town just took the first step in removing our hospital, making it so that there will be a 200 mile stretch along a main road where there is zero medical care available outside clinic doctors appointments, and since the clinic is a hospital clinic, I don’t know what will happen to it. A speed limit of 5mph would be a death sentence to us. 20 hours of non-stop driving for urgent medical care? I was scornful of the woman who complained about three measly hours in a blizzard, given that we routinely do more than that for medical care, blizzard or not. Most of us schedule two days for medical care in the winter, just because we know the driving time will be bad.
What about babies? No more hospital births for you, small Western towns. You are already 100 miles from a place that delivers babies. Now you can only legally drive there covering most of a day. Or birth them at home with no medical help, or in your car. Hope you have someone who can drive you for twenty hours while coaching you through the birthing process. We already have not insignificant problems with that as is.
This proposal is unethical, entirely. It would force most people to be felonious lawbreakers or die.
*more than* an inconvenience. Please excuse my typo in the first sentence.
Whoa.
jvb
Congressional Democrats are passing an ‘Assault Weapons Ban’, stating that they are weapons of war that no civilian needs. However, the IRS apparently needs them as they have bought a lot of them (several thousand) recently and are advertising now for employees who must be willing to use ‘deadly force’. With a 5 million round ammo stockpile currently, is the IRS planning on going to war against the US public literally?
The current job ad
https://www.jobs.irs.gov/resources/job-descriptions/irs-criminal-investigation-special-agent
has been modified from the original
after backlash about the IRA needing people willing to use deadly force.
The most amusing part is the clearly ridiculous suggestion that any low-level government bureaucrat would ever put in 50 hours of work in a week. Surely they meant “month”.
I’ve worked on government contracts and seen exactly how hard-working employees of the Army, Air Force, EPA, and various state agencies are. I suppose it’s possible that the IRS is the one agency that actually makes its employees work to get a paycheck, but that seems far-fetched.
It is actually more terrifying if they are. Imagine if 2000+ M-4 wielding IRS agents are working 50+ hours a week raiding small business owners and the self-employed.
https://groups.google.com/g/Sci.Med.Cardiology/c/GK-Mw5XoOf8/m/9OMU4Zr2BAAJ
Can any federales in the EA commentariat explains this to me:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gaetz-jordan-fbi-workspace-democratic-law-firm
The FBI maintains “secure workspaces” at various law firms??? At Marc Elias’s firm? The firm that hired the Steele dossier? The firm where Sussman worked and the FBI had no idea he was representing the Clinton campaign? That law firm? So defense counsel don’t have to leave their offices to review documents?
Finally. We know why Aunt Nan nearly started World War Three by going to Taiwan. She wanted the taxpayers to underwrite her son’s trip to check on his Taiwan investments and scare up some more deals. I guess her husband was tied up dealing with his DUI. This is the HRC diplomacy model: use your position to take your kids around the world for free. Much like Hunter and Joe flying to China.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/speaker-pelosi-faces-backlash-over-taking-son-to-taiwan/vi-AA10zeOr?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=fc60410ba6514ec5ee621905e403fc10&category=foryou
I guess Republicans are pouncing.
Took a week off and drank beer in a bush, what did I miss? (Seriously, I’m catching up…. And it looks *wild*.)
Apropos of nothing, has anyone checked out Barry’s comic blog lately? Man straight up drew nightmare-inducing salvia trip of a dream he had and posted it said he found it so hilarious he got up to write it down. Someone who knows him needs to hug him and tell him everything is gonna be alright.
Barry is very hug-worthy. I wish he were still hanging out here, but the cognitive dissonance might have killed him.