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Month: August 2022
When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring (And You’re Incompetent And Stupid Too)
The Lawrence County Republican Party in Montgomery, Alabama wanted to post a GOP elephant graphic on its Facebook page, and settled on the charming one above, on which the white spaces between the pachyderm’s legs double as hooded hooded Klansmen.
Naturally, Democrats pounced, as they had every right to do and should be expected to do. “Shame on the Lawrence County Republican Party for this disgusting image,” Alabama House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels posted on Twitter.
“I would like to offer a deep and sincere apology for a picture that temporarily appeared on this page last night. A Google search picture of a GOP elephant was used and later found to have hidden images that do not represent the views or beliefs of the Lawrence County Republican Party,” Shannon Terry wrote in a Facebook post apologizing for the use of the image. “As chairman I take full responsibility for the error,” Terry added.
“Nice Little Church You Got Here…Too Bad If Something Were To Happen To It!”
Power abusers only put evidence of their nature on public display when they are absolutely certain that no one can or will hold them accountable. That certainly is the case with New York State Attorney General Letitia James, but then this has been the pattern with all of the (inevitably) Democrats in her office since the days of Eliot Spitzer and before. Her latest example of unethical use of her office, however, is especially ominous.
The pro-Trump Reawaken America Tour has been criss-crossing the U.S. for more than a year, and because speakers currently include former General Michael Flynn, a Trump ally, the Left has been trying to interfere with the event whenever possible. An online petition intimidated the owner of the Rochester’s Main Street Armory cancel its hosting of the event, so the Cornerstone Church in the tiny town of Batavia, NY. took over hosting duties. Borrowing heavily from the anti-speech petition (for talking about some topics are the equivalent of violence, you know), James sent a threatening letter to tour organizer Clay Clark and Flynn, along with the church itself.
Its objective: chill a legal gathering’s free speech rights by intimidation.
And THIS Is Why I Do Not Trust “Philosophers”: Sam Harris, Ethics Villain
lf you are not familiar with Sam Harris, who has gained a fair amount of visibility (hear-ability?) as a result of his podcast, you might want to listen to the first 35 minute or so of the interview with him above, but the important part comes afterwards. As soon as your hear that, assuming you’re not Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff or George Conway, you will realize that you wasted your time, because the man is not worth taking seriously.
He is completely, thoroughly, through-and-through ruined by the hatred of Donald Trump, and so biased that his reasoning cannot be relied upon for anything. It doesn’t matter that he’s a neuroscientist, New York Times best-selling author, a genuine philosopher, and credentialed public intellectual. He’s useless. He’s a fraud. Trustworthy people simply don’t hold such opinions—not only hold them, but eagerly broadcast them. It’s a signature significance orgy!
The interview is outright scary, and should make people seek psychiatric attention when they sense they are nearing the point that Harris has, tragically, reached. Harris is honest and clear-eyed enough to recognize the (still running) 2016 Post Election Ethics Train Wreck for what it is [“Taking down the New York Post’s [laptop article]? That’s a Left-wing conspiracy to deny the presidency to Donald Trump. Absolutely it was. But I think it was warranted.”] but not ethical enough to realize that as an authority and scholar lesser mortals rely upon for enlightenment, he has an obligation not to sink into mob mentality just because he is surrounded by peers and friends who are consumed with unthinking fear, anger and hate.
After expressing his approval of Liz Cheney’s announced determination to use any means necessary to prevent Donald Trump from running for President, Harris is asked “You’re content with a conspiracy to prevent somebody being democratically elected President?” He responds with a flaming rationalization stew (and a terrible analogy) that belongs in the “Bias makes you stupid” Hall of Fame: “If there was an asteroid hurtling toward earth and we got in a room together with all of our friends and had a conversation of what we could do to deflect its course, is that a conspiracy?”
Ah! See, if Trump is the same as an extinction-threatening asteroid, so “Ethics is a luxury we can’t afford,” “It can’t make things any worse,” “It’s for a good cause,” “These are not ordinary times” and more rationalizations all apply. But Trump is just a politician and a human being, and even our politicized scientists cannot declare him an extinction event. Nor is planning a conspiracy: there are no laws declaring that blocking the path of an asteroid is wrongful. When someone as intelligent as Harris once was hears something that stupid leaping from his mouth, he must be able to recognize it, or something is seriously amiss.
One Dog Night Ethics Warm-Up, 8/18/2022: I’m Dreaming Of Reusable Toilet Paper…
Spuds is feeling needy, or something, and though he usually sleeps on the sofa in the breakfast room, he decided to creep up to our bedroom and slam himself against me. Even though I’m exhausted after a three-hour legal ethics seminar last evening, I just can’t get to sleep, and don’t want to kick him out: something’s troubling him. So here I am in the office…
Because of all the prep yesterday for that seminar, which was not only brand new but also covered a lot of complicated issues, I missed an ethics milestone that Ethics Alarms cannot ignore. I started my first ethics website, The Ethics Scoreboard, in disgust at the ethically ignorant and inert commentary by the news media regarding Bill Clinton and the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Something must have been lurking in my brain, because I alluded to Clinton’s practiced deceit in last might’s program, describing a lawyer’s technical excuse for unethical conduct as “Clintonian.”
On August 17, 1998, President Clinton becames the first sitting president to testify as the subject of a grand-jury investigation. His testimony came after a four-year investigation into Clinton and his wife Hillary’s alleged involvement in several scandals. One could argue with some fairness that Clinton was the first President targeted with a long prosecutorial fishing expedition by partisan foes determined “get him” one way or another.
The independent prosecutor, Kenneth Starr, uncovered an affair between Clinton and a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky, as well as evidence that it had been covered up by a coordinated effort. Clinton famously denied that he “had sex with that woman,”, which prompted Starr to charge the him with perjury and obstruction of justice. After his August 17 testimony, Clinton addressed the nation on live television. He admitted to an “inappropriate relationship” with Lewinsky—it was, in fact, sexual harassment under the terms defined by Clinton’s own feminist supporters— but insisted that he had given “legally accurate” answers in his testimony. Later the President claimed that while he had not been “helpful” to the grand jury, he hadn’t lied.
Balderdash.
1 How can supporters of the Democratic Party look at themselves in the mirror? CNN correspondent John Harwood, as openly partisan a reporter as one can find, admitted this week that the “Inflation Reduction Act” title to the massive tax and spending bill just signed into law by President Biden was a “marketing device” designed to gull Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) into supporting the bill. “No, it doesn’t live up to its name,” Harwood said on CNN’s “New Day.” “Let’s be real: They called it the Inflation Reduction Act as a marketing device, in part to lock down the vote of Joe Manchin or to reassure Joe Manchin that they were focused on his issue.” “It is going to have a negligible effect on inflation,” Harwood said, now, after the trick had worked. “If it does anything, it might reduce inflation a tiny, tiny bit, but that’s not what it’s about.”
Ethics Observations On Those “Six Drastic Plans” The Washington Post Says Trump Has For The Country
Wow. Yeah, this Washington Post article isn’t biased or anything. Here’s how Isaac Arnsdorf, a Post “national political reporter,” starts, after warning readers that something strange and sinister is afoot:
There has never been a potential candidate like Trump: a defeated former president whose followers attacked the Capitol, who still insists he never lost, and who openly pledges revenge on those he views as having wronged him.
Imagine: the Post employs this guy as a reporter, and he doesn’t even try to hide his extreme bias. “Trump’s supporters” didn’t attack the Capitol, a couple hundred of his most deranged whackos went inside and trashed the place. Would the post allow a reporter to write, “Democrats rioted across the country demanding that police departments be defunded”?
Unethical Quote Of The Month: Liz Cheney [Supplemented]
“I will do whatever it takes to make sure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office.”
—Rep. Liz Cheney (NeverTrump-MT) in her head-exploding, self-glorifying, beyond satire concessions speech after being crushed in the GOP state primary.
And there you have it: candor and saying the secret part out loud, though the anti-democratic motives of the “the resistance”/Democrats/ mainstream media cabal (the “Axis of Unethical Conduct”)is hardly a secret at this point, and was stated on Ethics Alarms, beginning, oh, nearly six years ago.
This is a woman (a Republican official who is aping Democratic Party talking points) who claims to be trying to save democracy by interfering with democratic processes and institutions. Does “anything it takes” set off an ethics alarm? If you’re Trump Deranged, it probably doesn’t. Cheney’s mad logic is that Donald Trump is an exception to the laws, rules and principles of democracy: he doesn’t get the benefit of them because he’s bad….mostly because he’s not in lock-step with the entrenched elite political class like the Bidens, Cheneys, Bushes and Clintons, and also a bit because he’s an unmannerly boor. Another crazed Trump hater, the Washington Post’s self-parodying Jennifer Rubin, writes in today’s Post that “Taking the Fifth should disqualify a politician from taking office.” Continue reading
Ethics Nightcap, 8/16/2022: Bias, Ignorance, Contrived Ignorance, And Just Plain Dumb
To no one’s surprise, Rep.Liz Cheney lost her primary in Wyoming. Good: she deserved it. She is a “bias makes you stupid”—also ridiculous—case study. Nothing is more ridiculous than someone who repeatedly behaves in an undemocratic manner and then claims that she is fighting for democracy.
In many ways, her fall, though so, so deserved, is an ethics tragedy. She’s smart and serious, but placed her family loyalty above her duties to her state, the public, the House and the nation, and all because she hates Donald Trump for personal reasons. He dared to insult her father and the Bushes, repeatedly and nastily, by declaring their Iraq War a “disaster,” though it certainly was. Cheney has been full NeverTrump ever since, but even that bias isn’t justification for voting for two contrived and hyper-partisan impeachments, especially the second one, which went forward to the Senate without evidence, inquiry or due process supporting it. Then Cheney facilitated the January 6 witch hunt, which was so obviously a Democratic “Get Trump!” exercise that Nancy Pelosi didn’t allow the traditional and sensible party balance that investigative House committees have always had before.
You can tell if someone is Trump Deranged if they express admiration for Liz Cheney. Here is a Republican who joined with Democrats in a their effort to use unethical means to hold power. That Democrats asked their party members in Wyoming to temporarily switch parties so they could vote for Cheney was the perfect embodiment of what that party has become: the fact that they support Cheney and she has supported them proves mutual corruption.
1. Why we don’t trust the news media, Reason 765,988, 204: You can still read news reports saying that the motive for the nearly fatal attack on writer Salman Rushdie is “unclear.” This is the same false media narrative circa. 2001 that Islam is a peaceful religion and only bigots have concerns that radical Muslims aren’t as rare as pigeon teeth. The Washington Post’s op-ed about the attack doesn’t even mention the attacker, but somehow compares it to the Trumpites’ rioting against the 2020 election. The attack was political, you see, not religious. (It was religious.)
Believe It Or Not! The Incoherent Hollywood Casting Rules Get Even More Incoherent And Hypocritical In A “Lord Of The Rings” Controversy
To bring you up to date, The Great Stupid mated with the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion cult to bring forth the following casting rules for movies, theater, TV and commercials. Per Tom Hanks, only gays can play gay roles, but gay actors can play “cis” characters. It’s fine for Andy Garcia to play Sonny Corleone’s son in “Godfather 3,” but verboten for a non-Hispanic performer to play a Hispanic character. Presenting a real life “character of color” as white in a film is despicable whitewashing, but presenting Aaron Burr, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton as non-white in a hit Broadway musical is brilliant, and playing Joan of Arc as a nonbinary individual who goes by “they” is illuminating. Marilyn Monroe being played by a Hispanic actress is testimony to her versatility and range, but Natalie Wood playing Maria in “West Side Story” was a shameful relic of Hollywood racism. Changing the genders and races of popular comic book characters is social justice progress, unless they are changed to white or male.
All clear now?
The eagerly awaited Amazon spectacular “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” is being skewered on social media and fan sites because the production, led by a creative team that is ostentatiously woke (Brain-melting quote by Executive Producer Lindsey Weber: “It felt only natural to us that an adaptation of Tolkien’s work would reflect what the world actually looks like.”), has cast actors who do not resemble how Tolkien described their characters and has them doing things the characters in the books would never do. For example—The Horror!—there’s a black elf. “Rings” fanatics are screaming foul, so, naturally, Weber has called the casting critics racists.
Ethics Quiz: The Return Of Sacheen Littlefeather
Apparently the Oscars are looking hard for virtue-signaling opportunities.
In this instance, they had to travel back in time 50 years and decide to make amends for one of the more ludicrous examples of celebrity grandstanding in pop culture lore. Marlon Brando, a cinch to win the Best Actor statuette for “The Godfather” in 1973, decided to snub the Academy of Motion Picture Sciences, his Hollywood colleagues and the Oscars’ TV audience by sending an obscure, Native American actress named Sacheen Littlefeather to go to the podium when Marlon’s name was read and make a statement about the abuse of Indians at Hollywood’s hands while announcing that Brando was rejecting his honor in protest. You know, because “The Godfather” was all about Native American mobs, or something.
It was a complete non sequitur, and many suspected that the whole stunt had little to do with Native American portrayals in film (about which Brando had previously said nothing) and more to do with the famously weird actor’s desire to stick his thumb in the eye of the industry that had made him rich and famous. He might have just as well had his statuette rejected by Bozo the Clown; maybe it came down to a coin flip: heads, Sasheen (it was an Indian Head nickel), tails, Bozo.
The young woman’s appearance did not go over well. “Mr. Brando very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award,” Littlefeather said. “And the reasons for this being are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry and on television in movie reruns, and also with recent happenings at Wounded Knee.” That was a reference to a protest a month earlier,when the American Indian Movement had occupied the South Dakota town of Wounded Knee, site of the infamous massacre, to protest Hollywood’s killing and..no wait, it was the U.S. government’s treatment of Native Americans that protest was about. What did it have to do with movies, Brando, and the Oscars?
Oh, nothing. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 